CEAS 235

College of East Asian Studies

Wesleyan University

Fall 2014

Desire, Theatricality, and Self in Chinese Literature

Time: M/W 2:40pm-4pmLocation: Fisk 314Instructor: Yingzhi Zhao Office Hour: M/W 1pm – 2:30pm & by appointmentOffice: Fisk 307Email: yzhao 03@wesleyan.edu Phone: 860-685-3389 (Office)

Course Description: This course will introduce students to some of the most important themes in Chinese literature and culture, including desire and transgression, self-dramatization, dream and illusion, and magical transformation, etc. We will focus on the long seventeenth century, from the mid-sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth century, one of the watersheds in Chinese culture and literary sensibility. The period witnessed the rise of radical subjectivity, a reassessment of authoritative traditions, indulgence in emotions and sensuous existence, and shifting boundaries between refinement and vulgarity. We will survey a wide range of writings from this period, discussing such issues as theatrical aesthetics, the creation of a world through desire and imagination, and a new sense of an “I” in seventeenth-century China. By focusing on this period, we can put Chinese literary tradition and this extraordinarily creative period into dialogue and understand continuities and radical changes, the formation of tradition and its transformation.

Students with no previous background on China are welcome.

Student responsibilities and Grading Percentage:1) Class Participation (15%): attend seminars regularly; give one oral presentation on a primary text;2) Online postings (15%): post a weekly response (200 words) on the course website before each seminar;3) Midterm paper (30%): submit one short paper (5-8 pages) on given topics.4) Final paper (40%): submit one paper (10-15 pages) on given topics.

Where to find the reading: Items marked with*are available in JSTOR. Required books are available in Wesleyan University Bookstore.

1

Paintings are uploaded on the course website.

Required Books:

Tang Xianzu, The Peony Pavilion (Cyril Birch, trans.) Li Yu, A Tower for the Summer Heat (Patrick Hanan, trans.) Stephen Owen,  An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911.

Syllabus (subject to changes)

Week 1 9/1 Introduction General introduction to Chinese history and the Ming-Qing transition Introduction to the course “Night Theater on Gold Mountain”

Week 1 9/3 Late Ming Informal ProseLi Zhi (1527-1602), Yuan Hongdao (1568-1610), Tu Long (1542-1605), Chen Jiru (1558-1639), Zhang Dai (1597-1679).

Primary Texts: An Anthology of Chinese Literature, pp.808-33.

Week 2 9/8 On being genuine The Childlike Mind-and-Heart Phony sages Learning for one’s self

Primary Texts:Li Zhi, “The Childlike Mind-and-Heart,” “The Legitimacy of Being Self-Interested,”in Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. I, pp.865-71

Week 2 9/10 Commercial Boom Critical Reading:Timothy Brook, The Confusion of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China, pp. 153-237

Week 3 9/15 Boundaries of Culture Vernacular ideology Romance of the plebian

Primary Texts:Feng Menglong (1574-1646), “Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger,” in An Anthology of Chinese Literature, pp. 835-55; “Jiang Zingge Reencounters His Pearl Shirt,” in Stories Old and New: A Ming Dynasty Collection

2

Week 3 9/17 The Making of Cultural Icons A Divided Conscience Heresy and persecution Obsession and infatuation

Primary Texts:Wu Pei-yi, The Confucian’s Progress, pp. 19-24, 131-141, 163-4, 222-5

Critical Reading:Ray Huang, 1587: A Year of No Significance, the Ming Dynasty in Decline, pp. 189-221

Week 4 9/22 Fictionality and Self-transformations Journey to the West The Tower of Myriad Mirrors Dong Yue’s (1620-1686) journal of dreams

Primary Texts: The Journey to the West (Anthony Yu trans.), vol.1, chapter 1 The Tower of Myriad Mirrors (Shuen-fu Lin trans.), pp. 15-70

Critical Reading:Introduction to The Tower of Myriad Mirrors, pp. 1-12

Week 4 9/24 On emotions The genealogy of qing Falling in love and arranged marriages Emotions and woman writer

Primary Text:“The Reckless Scholar,” “The Oil Seller,” “Marriage Destines Rearranged,” in Falling in Love: Stories from Ming China (Patrick Hanan, trans.)“The Story of Xiaoqing” (Ellen Widmer, trans.), in “Xiaoqing’s Literary Legacy and the Place of the Woman Writer in Late Imperial China,” pp. 151-5.

Critical Reading:Martin Huang, Desire and Fiction in Late Imperial China, chapter 1

Week 5 9/29 Material Culture Discourses on things The connoisseur and late Ming sensibility Refinement and vulgarity

Primary Texts:

3

Informal prose of Yuan Hongdao (1568-1610), Tu Long (1542-1605), and Chen Jiru (1558-1639), in An Anthology of Chinese Literature, pp. 811-5; Ye Yang, Vignettes from the Late Ming: a Hsiao-pin Anthology

Critical Reading:Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things, chapter 2

Week 5 10/1 Poetics of space Aesthetic garden vs. economic garden Ways of seeing Painted gardens

Primary Texts:*Qi Biaojia (1602-1645), “Notes to Allegory Mountain,” in Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, pp. 246-71Zhang Dai (1597-1679), “Night Theater on Gold Mountain,” “Mid-September on West Lake,” “Viewing the Snow from Heart of the Lake Pavilion,” in An Anthology of Chinese Literature, pp. 815-8

Critical Reading: Craig Clunas, Fruitful Sites: Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China, chapter 2

Paintings:Wen Zhengming (1470-1559), Garden of the Unsuccessful Politician (1551)Xiang Shengmo (1579-1658), Releasing Cranes Islet (1653)

4

Week 6 10/6 Selves and Roles Theatrical metaphors Performance and identity

Primary Texts:Xu Wei (1521-1593), “The Madman Officer Plays the Yuyang Roll on the Drum,” “The Zen Buddhist Monk Yu Has a Voluptuous Dream,” in Four Cries of a Gibbon (Shiamin Kwa, trans.)

Critical Reading:Shiamin Kwa, Strange Eventful Histories, chapter 1

Week 6 10/8 The Peony Pavilion I The cult of passion Dramatic romances Writings on dream

Primary Texts:Tang Xianzu (1550-1617), The Peony Pavilion (Cyril Birch, trans.), scenes 7, 10, 12, 14

Kunqu drama:“Waking Suddenly from Dream,” “Searching for Dream”

Critical Reading:C. T. Hsia, “Time and the Human Condition in the Plays of Tang Hsien-tsu,” in Self and Society in Ming Thought

Week 7 10/13 The Peony Pavilion II Wandering soul The Workings of the Body in Chinese Medicine Ghost and portrait

Primary Texts:Tang Xianzu, The Peony Pavilion (Cyril Birch, trans.), scenes 23, 24, 26-28

Critical Reading:*Charlotte Furth, “Blood, Body, Gender: Medical Images of the Female Condition in China, 1600-1850”

Week 7 10/15 The Manchu Conquest Testimonies and historical reflections Writing and political trauma

Primary Texts:

5

Wang Xiuchu, Account of Ten Days of Yangzhou, in Voices from the Mig-Qing Cataclysm (Lynn Struve, trans.)Chen Zilong’s (1608-1647) poems, translated and discussed in Sun Kang-I, The Late Ming Poet Ch’en Tzu-lungZhao Maozi, A Record of Life Beyond Due, in Hawaii Reader in Traditional Chines Culure, pp. 528-538

Week 8 10/20 Early Qing Perspectives on Late-Ming Culture Critiques of late-Ming intellectual and cultural trends Service or withdrawal Two perspectives on a story-teller

Primary Texts:Gu Yanwu (1613-1682), excerpts from Rizhi lu; Wu Weiye (1609-72), “Biography of Liu Jingting,” Huang Zongxi (1610-1695), “Biography of Liu Jingting”

Critical Reading:Wai-yee Li, “Introduction,” in Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature, 1-70

Week 8 10/22 Memories of the Past Moments through the haze of memory Reevaluation of the romantic-aesthetic realm

Primary Texts:Excerpts from Zhang Dai’s Tao’an Mengyi, in Ye Yang, Vignettes from the Late Ming: a Hsiao-pin Anthology Yu Huai (1616-1696), Miscellaneous Records of the Wooden Bridge, in Howrd S. Levy, A Feast of Mist and Flowers: The Gay Quarters of Nanking at the End of the MingMao Xiang (1611-1693), Reminisences of Tung Hsiao-wan (Pan Tze-yan trans.)

Critical Reading:Stephen Owen, Remembrances, chapter 8

Week 9 10/27 Between history and fiction Fictional reunions Femme fatale, victim, and hero

Primary Texts: Li Yu (1610-1680), Silent Opera (Patrick Hanan, trans.), vol. 5, A Tower for the Summer Heat, Return-to-Right Hall, in A Tower for the Summer Heat (Patrick Hanan, trans.), pp. 3-83

Critical Reading:Tina Lu, “Fictional Reunions in the Wake of Dynastic Fall,” in Trauma and Transcendence, pp. 310-44

6

Week 9 10/29 Poetry as history Writing history in poetry Poetic encounters with the past Women poets and historical engagement

Primary Texts:Chen Zilong, “Song of Cuckoo,” in Kang-i Sun Chang, The Late Ming Poet Chen Tzu-lung; Wu Weiye, “The Military Advisor from Linjiang,” “The Lament of Mount Song,” in Wai-yee Li, “History and Memory in Wu Weiye’s Poetry,” Trauma and Transcendence, pp. 99-148;

Critical Reading:Wai-yee Li, “History and Memory in Wu Weiye’s Poetry”

Week 10 11/3 Gender Boundaries and Political Turmoil The late Ming courtesan as a cultural ideal Female heroes Male voices and feminine diction vs. female voices and masculine diction

Primary Texts:Poems of Xu Can (ca.1610s-ca.1690s), Li Yin (1616-85), Wang Duanshu (1621-ca.1701), in Wai-yee Li, “Gender Boundaries: Female Voices and Masculine Diction”

Critical Reading:Yingzhi Zhao, “Small Shadow in Slushy Snow: Kou Mei’s Portrait and Cultural Memory”

Painting: Fan Qi and Wu Hong, Kou Mei’s Portrait (1651)

Week 11 11/5 Palace of Lasting Life I The legend of Yang the Prized Consort The Thousand-Autumn Festival Music and performance

Primary Texts: Hong Sheng (1605-1704), The Palace of Lasting Life, selected acts

7

Critical Readings:*Eugene Wang, “Mirror, Moon, and Memory in Eighth-Century China: From Dragon Pond to Lunar Palace,” in Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 9 (2005): 42-67.Judith Zeitlin, “Music and Performance in Hong Sheng’s Palace of Lasting Life,” in Trauma and Transcendence

Week 11 11/12 Palace of Lasting Life II Femme fatale and the fall of the dynasty Parallel between the Tang and the Ming

Primary Texts:Hong Sheng, The Palace of Lasting Life, selected acts

Critical Reading:Judith Zeitlin, The Phantom Heroine, chapter 4 and coda

Week 12 11/17 The Peach Blossom Fan I The history of the Southern Ming The theater of the world

Primary Texts: Kong Shangren (1648-1718), Peach Blossom Fan, selected acts

Critical Reading:Stephen Owen, “I Don’t Want to Act as Emperor Any More: Finding the Genuine in Peach Blossom Fan,” in Trauma and Transcendence, pp. 488-510

Week 12 11/19 The Peach Blossom Fan II Personhood and agency Love in a time of political turmoil

Primary Texts: Kong Shangren (1648-1718), Peach Blossom Fan, selected acts

Critical Reading:Tina Lu, Persons, Roles, and Minds: Identity in Peony Pavilion and Peach Blossom Fan, chapters 1 and 2

Week 13 11/24 Redefining Time and Space in Literature Ruins Legend of the Peach Blossom Spring Imaginary space

Primary Texts:

8

Zhang Dai, “Five Unknown Mountains in the Yue,” “Preface to the Calendar of the Peach Blossom Spring,” “Account of the Blessed Land of Langhuan”; Dong Yue, “Illustrations of Shiji,” excerpts from History of Dreams (my translation); The Tower of Myriad Mirrors, chapters 4, 5

Week 14 12/1 Redefining Time and Space in Visual Culture

Paintings:Xiao Yuncong (1596-1673), Landscape (1645)

Shi Tao (1642-1707), The Peach Blossom Spring

Wang Hui (1632-1717), Fishing Boat in Peach Blossoms

9

Week 14 12/3 Students’ presentations on final paper

10