Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: Essays by Patrick Hanan

294 Pages·2004·1.346 MB·English

by  Patrick Hanan

CHINESE FICTION
OF THE
NINETEENTH
AND
EARLY TWENTIETH
CENTURIES
masters of chinese studies

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NINETEENTH
NINETEENTH
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EARLY TWENTIETH
EARLY TWENTIETH
CENTURIES
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Patrick Hanan
patrick hanan
masters of chinese studies
volume 2
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Columbia University Press wishes to express its appreciation for assis-
tance given by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International
Scholarly Exchange in the publication of this book.
columbia university press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2004 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hanan, Patrick.
Chinese fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries /
Patrick Hanan.
p. cm. — (Masters of Chinese studies ; vol. 2)
ISBN 0–231–13324–3 (cloth)
1. Chinese fiction—Qing dynasty, 1644–1912—History and criticism.
2. Chinese fiction—20th century—History and criticism. I. Title:
Chinese fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
II. Title. III. Series.
PL2437.H36 2004 2004041338
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Designed by Lisa Hamm
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
(cid:3)
ontents
Introduction
1
chapter one
The Narrator’s Voice Before the “Fiction Revolution”
9
chapter two
Illusion of Romanceand the Courtesan Novel
33
chapter three
The Missionary Novels of Nineteenth-Century China
58
chapter four
The First Novel Translated Into Chinese
85
chapter five
The Translated Fiction in the Early Shen Bao
110
vi Contents
chapter six
The New Novel Before the New Novel—John Fryer’s Fiction Contest
124
chapter seven
The Second Stage of Vernacular Translation
144
chapter eight
Wu Jianren and the Narrator
162
chapter nine
Specific Literary Relations of Sea of Regret
183
chapter ten
The Autobiographical Romance of Chen Diexian
199
chapter eleven
The Technique of Lu Xun’s Fiction
217
Works Cited
251
Glossary
269
Index
277
CHINESE FICTION
OF THE
NINETEENTH
AND
EARLY TWENTIETH
CENTURIES

Introduction
The eleven research essaysin this volume, although written as in-
dependent pieces, share a common subject, Chinese fiction of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,1particularly its relationship
to the Chinese and western traditions. (The western tradition gradually be-
came accessible to Chinese writers during the period.) This approach embraces
influence as well as intertextuality, imitation as well as originality, and also in-
tercultural transmission—a cluster of notions for which I would like to borrow
the old term “literary relations,” but with a new meaning. My purpose is to de-
scribe, so far as I can, some of the movements in Chinese fiction during this
period, especially in terms of creativity.
The first essay affirms the fact of artistic experimentation in the nineteenth-
century novel. Literary historians have never considered the nineteenth centu-
ry a creative period for Chinese fiction, unlike the seventeenth century with its
brilliantly innovative short fiction or the eighteenth century with its great and
remarkably inventive novels. One gets the impression from histories of fiction
that fresh creativity and experimentation disappeared until 1902, when Liang
Qichao issued his famous call for a new fiction and launched a journal under
that title. But we have only to examine the major novels of the nineteenth cen-
tury, such as Hua yue hen(Traces of flower and moon), Ernü yingxiong zhuan
(Moral heroes and heroines), Haishang hua liezhuan (Flowers of Shanghai)—
and, I would add, Fengyue meng (Illusion of romance)—to find not only that
2 Introduction
creativity flourished but also that some of the innovations foreshadowed those
of the twentieth century.
To substantiate this claim, I found it necessary to examine at least one sig-
nificant element of fiction. The most suitable for my purpose was the narra-
tor, because the narrator is generally considered the most static element in tra-
ditional Chinese fiction. The first essay discusses a single aspect, “voice,” by
which is meant the narrator’s identity as well as his relationship to author,
reader, and text, rather than “perspective,” which is the aspect that western lit-
erary criticism has always stressed. When the finest nineteenth-century Chi-
nese novels are considered in terms of the narrator’s voice, they are found to
differ in numerous ways from previous fiction as well as from one another; the
century was, in fact, a time of constant experimentation. In this essay the voic-
es that the novelists created are roughly categorized. First is the Personalized
Storyteller, in which the narrator presents himself as an individual; he is the
antithesis of the generic storyteller of Chinese fiction. Ernü yingxiong zhuan
and Hua yue henare prime examples. Second is the Virtual Author, in which
the narrator first equates himself with the author, then backs away from that
claim and names someone else as author, someone closely resembling him—
his double, in fact. Fengyue meng and Pin hua baojian (Precious mirror for
judging flowers) are the prime examples. Third is the Minimal Narrator, in
which the narrator’s usual functions of explanation, evaluation, and commen-
tary are reduced to a bare minimum. Haishang hua liezhuan is the great ex-
ample. Finally is the Involved Author, in which the author-narrator becomes
a secondary character in the novel and the situation of his writing it is dram-
atized. Hualiu shenqing zhuan (Love among the courtesans), Haishang chen-
tian ying(Shadows of the mundane world of Shanghai), Haishang mingji sida
jingang qishu (A strange tale of the four guardian gods, courtesans of Shang-
hai), and Nanchao jinfenlu(Fleshpots of Nanjing) are all examples. These last
four works were written in the aftermath of the treaty that concluded the
Sino-Japanese war, a conflict—more particularly, a treaty—that created a fer-
ment of reformist thinking among younger intellectuals. None of the four is
particularly notable in itself, but taken together they can be seen as a modest
advance wave preceding the great wave that resulted from Liang Qichao’s call
for a new fiction.
The second essay, “Illusion of Romance and the Courtesan Novel,” rein-
forces these conclusions by examining one novel comprehensively, not merely
in terms of a single feature. Hua yue hen, Ernü yingxiong zhuan, or Haishang
hua liezhuan would have served the purpose well, but instead I chose Illusion
of Romance(Fengyue meng), an equally remarkable work, mainly because it has