Writing as response and as translation: 'Jiandeng xinhua' and the evolution of the chuanqi genre in East Asia, particularly in Vietnam (Qu You, China).

摘要

This dissertation starts with a study of the Jiandeng xinhua (New Tales Told beside the Trimmed Lamp), a collection of tales of the extraordinary written in classical Chinese by the Ming writer Qu You (1347--1433). The Jiandeng xinhua is here examined as Qu's literary response to his predecessors' works. The dissertation also scrutinizes the dissemination of Qu You's collection to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan and its adaptations in these countries. While it concentrates on the specific case of Vietnam, the theoretical issues are discussed from a broader comparative perspective, drawing on examples from across East Asian literature. For non-Chinese writers, to write in classical Chinese was to write in a second language, and the analysis of their works requires special consideration. The position I take is that these non-Chinese authors were placed in the position of having to do their writing "as translation." From this vantage point, this dissertation explores various aspects of the non-Chinese writers who chose to publish their works in classical Chinese.; The dissertation examines the introduction of chuanqi literature into Vietnam in the fifteenth century through the tale "Vie&dotbelow;ˆt Tinh" (The Well of Vie&dotbelow;ˆt). The collection Truye`n Ky` Ma&dotbelow;n Lu&dotbelow;c (Tales of the strange casually recorded) by the sixteenth-century Vietnamese writer Nguye˜n Tu&dotbelow;' provides us with an interesting example of how Jiandeng xinhua was adapted and reworked in Vietnam. Composed in classical Chinese, Jiandeng xinhua and Truye`n Ky` Ma&dotbelow;n Lu&dotbelow;c may both be regarded as fictionalized discussions of the contemporary concerns of intellectuals in distinct cultural and historical contexts. Yet this consideration may also be taken further: based on an intertextual approach, on reception theory, and also on examples from these two collections, the dissertation emphasizes the authors' role as readers of their predecessors' literary works and as authors and "translators" who, basing themselves on these readings and their own cultural contexts, had also to perform the task of "filling the gaps" left in their predecessors' literary works. We may reconstruct a kind of dialogue between chuanqi writers from different times and places. Seven tales by Chinese and Vietnamese writers are translated, extensively annotated, and examined to show how literati in different countries responded to one another across temporal, spatial, and cultural distances.; When rewriting chuanqi tales by their Chinese counterparts, Vietnamese chuanqi writers, on the basis of their own belief systems, typically localized various elements of the original Chinese tales, particularly those having to do with religious belief. This religious localization is illustrated here by several examples taken from Truye`n Ky` Ma&dotbelow;n Lu&dotbelow;c and other chuanqi tales in Vietnam. The tales "The General of the Yaksa" and "The Lady from Nam Xu'o'ng" in Truye`n Ky` Ma&dotbelow;n Lu&dotbelow;c plus supporting evidence from study in the field demonstrate how Vietnamese popular beliefs---specifically, the cults of Vaˇn Di Thanh and Princess Vu---were developed on the basis of chuanqi tales. The historical background, the religious and intellectual interdependence of the three teachings (Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism), and the diplomatic relationship between China and Vietnam at the time when Truye`n Ky` Ma&dotbelow;n Lu&dotbelow;c was composed, are also discussed in detail. When examined in transnational, cross-cultural and trans-generational contexts, chuanqi tales of the two collections provide insights into the socio-political, intellectual, literary, and religious interactions between China and Vietnam.