Palace Politics

The Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as The Story of the Stone, written by Cao Xueqing in the 18th century, is one of the "Four Great Qing Novels." In fact, it is considered the most important of the four and the culmination of classical Chinese novels. Princeton sinologist Andrew H. Plaks encapsulates the importance and universal scope of the work:

"Nearly all readers of the Dream of the Red Chamber--both native and foreign--come away with the impression that what they have experienced in the lengthy span from cover to cover is a comprehensive view of the entire civilization of the Imperial China. This sense of cultural completeness may be largely attributed to the simple fact that the novel presents at exceedingly close range the day-to-day life of a bygone age of glory--and there is little doubt that this aspect is responsible for the degree of emotional attachment with which the work has been treasured by two centuries of readers." (11)

Cao's work is unique in its sheer bredth, taking in the whole sweep of Chinese history, mythology, religion and arts. Having written the novel in the vernacular Beijing dialect, Cao also used the work to legitimize linguistic forms of literary expression other than Classical Chinese, used almost exclusively in the practice of the high literary arts.

The novel records the daily lives of important members of the Rongguo and Ningguo Houses of the Jia Clan, one of the most illustrious clans at court at the time. The history of the fall of these houses follows the narrower narrations of the lives of over thirty main characters and four hundred minor ones. Jia Baoyu, a precious Genji like boy, is the heir of his family and the main character of the novel. His emotional entanglement in love affairs and the mythic nature of his birth and end provide some of the novel's most poignant and engaging episodes.

Like the great works of the Western literary tradition (e.g. the Commedia, The Canterbury Tales, the Quixote, etc.), The Dream of the Red Chamber has accumulated centuries of commentaries and criticisms. The study of the novel in fact has its own designation called "Redology." Four schools of criticism have grown up around it and have debated insoluble historical and literary cruxes for centuries. Important themes that have occupied and intrigued researchers and readers have been the novel's autobiographical, social, archetypal and politically allegorical elements. In reading some passages from the novel, we will focus on some of the social and archetypal aspects of the text.

Readings:
Dream of the Red Chamber (see ANGEL)

Questions:
(1) What are some of the mythic and religious elements informing the story?
(2) How do these elements seem to function in the convoluted realities of this prestigious clan?
(3) What do we learn about social relations between classes and genders during the Qing from in this text?
(4) What some to be some of the inherent tensions between fiction and history in the tale?

Secondary references:
*Plaks, Andrew H. Archetype and Allegory in the Dream of the Red Chamber. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1976.
* Xiao Chi. The Chinese Garden as Lyric Enclave: A Generic Study of The Story of the Stone. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2001.
*Alexander des Forges, "From Source Texts to 'Reality Observed:' The Creation of the Author in 19th Century Chinese Vernacular Fiction," CLEAR 22 (Dec. 2000): 67-84.

So I Married an Axe Murderer

So I Married an Axe Murderer

This unit introduces what is commonly thought of as lightweight literature: Chinese ghost stories. Not until the twenteith century has ficiton of this nature even been considered a remotely respectable form of literature. That means that for centuries in China the writing of ghost stories and their enjoyment were almost entirely an unrespected, diversional activity, the indulgence of innocent children, bored youth and weery scholars. This however does not imply that they were not well crafted or culturally significant. Quite to the contrary. Ghost stories were an imaginative realm of the Chinese mind that gave vent to fears, desires, angsts and fantasies too often smothered in reality by taboos and propriety. They were often elegantly penned by the hand of learned literati. Furthermore, they contain much in the way of contemporary, social criticism and satire. Their role in the development of modern Chinese literature is significant (v.s. David Der-wei Wang, "Second Haunting").

Ghost stories in China are not strictly speaking horror stories, as understood in the Western sense. As a genre that grew out of taoist hagiographies (tales of magical sages), ancestor worship, folk religions and old stories, the tales involve the occult and fantastical but not necessarily the gory or terrifying. Their most acclaimed narrators in China come out of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912): Pu Songling and Zhi Yun.

Readings:
Pu Songling's Strange Tales (see ANGEL)
Zhi Yun's Sketches from a Cottage (see ANGEL)

Questions:
(1) What are unique about these ghost stories?
(2) What social issues do these tales seem to tackle?
(3) Locate some of the stories' stock characters. What is significant about their function?

Links:
*Tang Menglai's Preface

Secondary references:
* Chang, Chun-shu and Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang. Redefining History: Ghosts, Spritis, and Human Society in P'u Sung-ling's World, 1640-1715. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1998.
* Zeitlin, Judith T. Historian of the Strange: Pu Songlin and the Chinese Classical Tale. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1993.
*David Der-wei Wang and Shang Wei. Dynastic Crisis and Cultural Innovation. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2005.