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BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHINESE LITERATURE NATIONAL CHENGCHI UNIVERSITY NO.24
Publication date： 2015-12
Special Article Criticism on Ancient Fu and The Songs of Chu in Song Dynasty
The studies on ancient fu and The Songs of Chu in Song dynasty have significant influences on as well as lay the foundation of the fu criticism in Yuan and Ming dynasty. First of all, the ancient fu criticism in Song dynasty is less confined to imperial examination but shows a tendency of scholarization, which becomes the pioneer of the fu criticism in Yuan dynasty. Secondly, the renaissance and research of The Songs of Chu, as the forerunner of that in Yuan dynasty promote personal feelings and reason. Thirdly, the literary criticism on the Songs of Chu as forerunner of fu in Song dynasty becomes closely connected with the critical analysis of fu as a genre in Yuan and Ming dynasty.
As Japan and China are divided by sea, in the past Chinese books were sold to Japanese by Chinese merchant ships as a commodity, and this overseas publishing culture created by the business sales shows the relationship between Chinese books and culture writing of Edo Japan. Among these imported books, a large number of Chinese casebooks were introduced to the Shogun and Military Governor schools for the used of legislation and education. And among these casebooks, T'ang-yin-pi-shih 棠陰比事 was the most well-known one, and the rewriting and publishing of this book demonstrates its popularity and common people’s interests in it. This paper aims to examine how this Chinese casebook, originally difficult for the most common people in Japan, could be turned into a more popular version in the Edo Japan by a Japanese Confucian Hayashi-razan 林羅山, and a publisher and writer Ihara Saikaku 井原西鶴. I will mainly focus on the following three points. First, I will analyze the contribution of the Confucian Hayashi-razan 林羅山 and the Shogun for the spread of T'ang-yin-pi-shih. Second, the Edo book publishing catalog will serve as a reference material for the research of the actual sales situation of T'ang-yin-pi-shih in Kyoto and Edo. Third, there will also be an analysis on Hon chou o in hi ji 本朝櫻陰比事, which was written by the Osaka author Ihara Saikaku, in order to illustrate how T'ang-yin-pi-shih became popular in the Edo Japan and the role played by bookstores in Kyoto, Edo and Osaka for the promotion of Chinese books.
Zhong Shan Chuan Xin Lu, written by Xu Baoguang (the deputy title-conferring envoy to Ryukyu islands) in 1716 (the 55th year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty), is acclaimed as a classic among the records of the imperial mission to Ryukyu throughout the ages, and has been translated into several European languages. It is one of the most important works for the Westerners to be acquainted with Ryukyu. Bo Qian Ji was once the only one extant anthology by Xu Baoguang, but in recent years more writings such as Bo Zhong Ji and Bo Hou Ji have been found. These three volumes of poetry are called Hai Bo San Ji, or Feng Shi Liu Qiu Shi. A group of Ci at the end of the book Bo Hou Ji is on things like chime clock, telescope and deer writing brush, which reveal Xu Baoguang’s interesting sailing time and Ryukyu experiences. It could be regarded as one of the best examples for the communion and complementarity between the history of the cultural interactions and the material culture. Though there are plenty of studies about Xu Baoguang’s title-conferring envoy to Ryukyu, the research with an emphasis on his Ci is still rare currently. In this perspective, his Ci has a special meaning for the history of literature. This article is intended to start from the history of cultural interactions in East Asia and then probe into the cultural meaning of the Ci of Xu Baoguang.
Theme Thesis Re-ordering A Loyalist’s Death: Marginal Characters and Foreign Lands in The Rock with Shadows of Blood
This paper explores the contending meanings of the Confucian value of loyalty in The Rock with Shadows of Blood (Xieying shi 血影石), a chuanqi play written in the seventeenth century by the popular Suzhou playwright Zhu Zuochao 朱佐朝(ca.1621-?). This play, featuring Huang Guan (1364-1402), a high official who commits suicide for the Jianwen Emperor (r.1398-1402) after the 1402 Usurpation, is often considered an inferior work among Zhu’s complete oeuvres because it fails to sustain the pathos of a loyalist’s death to the end. However, by analyzing how the playwright shifts focus from Huang Guan’s death to the rescue of his son with the collaboration of eunuchs, prostitutes and female barbarians, I argue that the “failure” is in fact an intricate design to counter the orthodox Confucian virtue of loyalty. Within the empire, the playwright entrusts the rescue mission to eunuchs and a knight-errantly prostitute, thus avoids direct confrontation with the Yongle Emperor, who takes over the throne of his nephew. Beyond the empire, by re-formulating his contemporary knowledge of the South China Sea trade route, the playwright re-makes the historical Lanna Kingdom, located in modern-day northern Thailand, into an “other” power center with allies such as the Ryūkyū Kingdom, Japan, Champa and Calicut in the southwestern coast of India to rival with the Ming Empire. The socially and geographically marginal forces together replace the scholar-officials to become the agents of moral actions. In place of loyalist martyrdom, The Rock with Shadows of Blood prizes the value of the living, featuring reciprocal justice, personal resourcefulness and final homecoming. Written not long after the Ming-Qing transition, this play shows an alternative way of reacting to historical upheaval and of restoring order, whereby the loyalist moral paradigm is negotiated, re-interpreted and subtly transformed.
This paper will focus on a military ritual of xianjie (victory offerings) existing in Zuozhuan during Spring-Autumn period, trying to examine in detail its form and content as well as its political meanings. What’s more, the paper will compare the principles of xianjie and its examples found in Zuozhuan, discussing what the actual practices might be and their significance at the times. The core of this paper is to analyze the three interrelated terms in Zuozhuan: xianjie (victory offering), xianfu (captive offerings), and xiangong (contribution offerings). All the three terms signify the rituals where war captives are offered to the third party besides the battling parties. The offerings include the captives in most cases, and also the heads cut off from the bodies as well as carriages and horses. This paper will also compare the two kinds of xianjie according to different political contexts and discuss their meanings: offerings given from feudal baron to the emperor; or from one feudal baron to another. Xianjie offered by feudal baron to the emperor means to claim the legitimacy to send an army to battle in the name of the emperor, while that offered by one feudal baron to another represents a small state’s allegiance to a bigger state. But there is one exception: the Qi State and Chu State give offerings to Lu State, because the two more powerful states mean to show off their military prowess and bring Lu to submission. Finally, this paper will examine the relevant issues on yili (case studies) of xianjie in Zuozhuan. There are three principles of xianjie recorded in Zuozhuan: (1) When feudal barons overcome the barbarians, they offer xianjie to the emperor. (2) When feudal barons fight one another, there is no need to offer xianjie to the emperor. (3) Feudal barons do not offer captives to one another. However, these principles do not correspond to the actual situation in Spring-Autumn period, which points to the inconsistency of Zuozhuan. It is likely that the principles in effect come from an even earlier ritual tradition, or this book is written by more than one author.
There is one paradox hidden in Dong Zhong-shu’s historical viewpoint: by the same evidence one could simultaneously infer two totally opposite theses called Free will and Determinism. It seems that no scholar has clearly pointed out this paradox up to now. The essay tries to deal with this paradox and responds to the meaningful question in philosophy of history according to the thought of Dong Zhong-shu’s “the sense of Qi”. Besides, people who discuss the general philosophy-of-history topics of Free will and Determinism probably haven’t analyzed in the sight of “the sense of Qi”. Therefore, it has to be explored in this essay. First, the essay establishes that the universe (time) and history of man (era) have mutual perception in Dong Zhong-shu’s sense of space-time. The next discussion will focus on the original sense of space-time of beings, which not only makes them think about “time and era” but also becomes their inner strctures. The essay will further argue the subsumption between the aura of the universe and public emotions and then finally get the conclusion that Free will and Determinism are correlated with each other.
Zhu Xi (1130-1200) commentates, compiles Chuci, and accomplishes its related works: Chuci jizhu, Chuci bianzheng and Chuci houyu. When critiquing these works, contemporary scholars often focus on their literary aspects and values. This approach leads to an assumption that Zhu Xi’s philosophy, Lixue (Learning of Priniple), the principle Zu Xi abides by while studying ci and fu, limits his literay achievement. However, this paper aims to examine how it is reasonable for Zu Xi as an essential Confucian scholar noted for Lixue study to annotate and compile Chuci in terms of self-discipline, which Lixue scholars do their best to pursue. In this way, it is possible for Zhu Xi to turn his Chuci collections into a model of guidebook, instructing the later students to cultivate their characters and spiritual lives when studying Chuci. The methods and features Zhu Xi adopts to analyze Chuci thus become clear to us. First, based on the commentating methods used in Shi jizhuan, Zhu Xi’s commentaries on Shijing, he continues the same methodological approach and form of analysis. It is an approach first developed by Xie Liangzuo (1050-1103), that all who would like to cultivate their characters when reading the poems in Shijing should follow Liuyi. Zhu Xi here again endeavors to celebrate the significance of Liuyi: Feng, Ya, Song (folksong, diplomatic parlance, religious oration), Fu, Bi, Xing (narration, metaphor, suggestion) within every sentence and chapter in Chuci. Zhu thus delicately leads the reader to appreciate the loyalty of Xhu Yuan (?342-278 B.C.) as well as his every word of passion. Second, when compiling all Chuci related works throughout the history, Zhu Xi adopts the structure of Xu Chuci and Bian Lisao by Chao Buzhi (1053-1110) ─ a change of form from Jing (the original canon) to Zhuan (narration of the canon), as well as from Zheng (poems) to Bian (allegoric poems) ─ according to which Zhu Xi defines Chuci as Bian (variation) of Feng and Ya. In consequence, Zhu Xi in commenting on these texts pays special attention to that whether Chu Yuan and later wrtiers can subdue one’s self and return to propriety like the writers (or protagonists) of Shijing when expressing their emotions. In other words, Zhu Xi tends to guide readers, even if in dark and gloomy moods as those poets, to hold on to propriety, the key to self-cultivation, a quality supposedly possessed by every Confucian scholar. In general, Zhu Xi’s Chuci related works indicate a way to delight the heart and enlighten the mind with poetry and thus reach self-possession. With Zhu Xi’s methods, art appreciation and self-cultivation can well reinforce each other. This is the legacy of Lixue tradition as well a unique innovation in conventional Chinese Literature.
The most striking place in Zhang Hong Yang Zhu Jie Dao De Jing is that it chooses to use “Dao De” to connect two philosophical concepts – “Xing Ming” and “You Wu” This book successfully accommodates “Xing Ming” and “You Wu” into the Daoist discourse of “Dao De” and establishes a unique point of view. This paper will follow two lines of research: to examine how the connection between “Xing Ming” and “Dao De” is established; and then the connection between “Dao De” and “You Wu.” First, the connection established between “Xing Ming” and “Dao De” is actually a fusion of Confucianism and Daoism, with Confucianism as the external framework and Daoism as its core spirit. Second, there will be a discussion on the relationship between “Dao” and “De.” Zhang Hong Yang (Zhang Wei) especially pays attention to two concepts “kung fu” and “nei sheng” in Lao-Zi, and he believes Lao-Zi is a book of “xing ming” as well as a book of “kung fu.” Thus in his further discussion he sees Lao-Zi as teachings of human behaviors, and refutes to see it as a book about subtlety and trickery. In fact, he regards “to cease trickery” as one of the most important doctrines in Lao-Zi so as to highlight significance of “Dao De” in a practical sense. Through the examination of the above aspects, this paper helps explore further into thoughts of Lao Zi as well as clarifies the historical picture of Lao Zi study in Ming Dynasty.
