The Japanese Discovery of Chinese Fiction: “The Water Margin” and the Making of a National Canon

This article focuses on the literary criticism of the Edo-period scholar, Seita Tansō (1719–1785). Although a historian by vocation, Tansō additionally lectured extensively on the Chinese vernacular novel, Shuihu zhuan (Jp. Suikoden, En. The Water Margin). While earlier generations of Chinese fiction aficionados in Japan had also discussed Shuihu zhuan, early eighteenth-century analysis was primarily limited to philological explication—a task necessitated by the extensive use of colloquial language in the novel. In contrast to this tradition of philological exegesis, Tansō turned his attention to the ethical content and literary structure of Shuihu zhuan. Tansō was heavily influenced by the writing of the Chinese fiction commentator Jin Shengtan (1608–1661), and in this article, I discuss Tansō's use of Jin's fiction criticism in the construction of his own interpretation of the novel. I argue that the dissemination of Chinese novels in Edo-period Japan cannot be discussed without an understanding of Japanese engagement with Chinese narrative theory, and I identify Seita Tansō as an important figure in a transition from philological to more purely narratological analysis of Chinese vernacular fiction.

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On the Margins of Modernism

10.3366/edinburgh/9780748696369.001.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Christopher Rosenmeier

Keyword(s):

Short Stories ◽

Detailed Analysis ◽

Chinese Literature ◽

Popular Literature ◽

Extensive Study ◽

Wide Range ◽

Chinese Fiction ◽

Scant Attention ◽

Narrative Techniques ◽

Chinese Writing

Xu Xu and Wumingshi were among the most widely read authors in China during and after the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). Despite being an integral part of the Chinese literary scene, their bestselling fiction has, however, been given scant attention in histories of Chinese writing. This book is the first extensive study of Xu Xu and Wumingshi in English or any other Western language and it re-establishes their importance within the popular Chinese literature of the 1940s. Their romantic novels and short stories were often set abroad and featured a wide range of stereotypes, from pirates, spies and patriotic soldiers to ghosts, spirits and exotic women who confounded the mostly cosmopolitan male protagonists. Christopher Rosenmeier’s detailed analysis of these popular novels and short stories shows that such romances broke new ground by incorporating and adapting narrative techniques and themes from the Shanghai modernist writers of the 1930s, notably Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying. The study thereby contests the view that modernism had little lasting impact on Chinese fiction, and it demonstrates that the popular literature of the 1940s was more innovative than usually imagined, with authors, such as those studied here, successfully crossing the boundaries between the popular and the elite, as well as between romanticism and modernism, in their bestselling works.

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Chinese Fiction: A Bibliography of Books and Articles in Chinese and English. By Tien-yi Li. New Haven: Far Eastern Publications, Yale University, 1968. 356 pp. Appendices, Index. $10.00.

The Journal of Asian Studies ◽

10.2307/2052115 ◽

1972 ◽

Vol 31 (4) ◽

pp. 924-925

Author(s):

Winston L. Y. Yang

Keyword(s):

New Haven ◽

Yale University ◽

Chinese Fiction ◽

Far Eastern ◽

Chinese And English

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The river fans out: Chinese fiction since the late 1970s

European Review ◽

10.1017/s1062798703000206 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 193-208 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

HENRY Y. H. ZHAO

Keyword(s):

Western China ◽

Political Struggle ◽

Religious Consciousness ◽

Chinese Fiction ◽

The World ◽

Recent Trends ◽

Art For Art's Sake ◽

Artistic Quality ◽

Scholarly Attention ◽

Mao Era

The 25 years of the post-Mao era of Chinese fiction is divided into two distinct stages: the pre-1989 period, and the post-1989 period. If this division is true about almost everything else in China, it is especially true with literature. This is because literature had been used as a lethal weapon for political struggle by Mao before and during his regime, and this tradition, though strongly challenged in the post-Mao era, still lingers, though in very different forms now and much watered down. Even the recent trends of art for art's sake, or for the sake of entertainment, or for the sake of religious consciousness, could also be read as political gestures, and are indeed treated as such by Chinese literary officialdom, and also by Western China experts. Despite the fact that Chinese fiction has been highly politicized, this paper will examine, as much as possible, the development of fiction as an art. Only the artistic quality can support my argument that recent novels from China deserve not only more scholarly attention but also more reader appreciation than they have hitherto received around the world.

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