Notions of epistolarity in Liu Xie's Wenxin diaolong.

• Author: Richter, Antje

INTRODUCTION

References to Liu Xie's [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (ca. 465-ca. 532) (1) Wenxin diaolong [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (ca. 500), the most outstanding work of literary theory in China, are a normative part of any study of genre in Chinese literature. Epistolary literature is no exception, as chapter 25 ("Shu ji" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) of the Wenxin diaolong is generally regarded as the first exposition of the epistolary genre in Chinese literary history. Although Liu Xie is therefore regularly quoted in the as yet comparatively scarce studies of Chinese letters and letter writing, his statements are often presented in a surprisingly derogatory vein.

To mention just three instances from the past decade: David Pattinson in his excellent dissertation "The Chidu in Late Ming and Early Qing China" disapproves of Liu Xie's "tendency to cite examples of dubious relevance"--regarding references to the canonical Shangshu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Book of Documents) and Zhouyi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Book of Changes)--and argues "that many of the things Liu says about letter-writing are not sound." (2) He continues this argument in a later article, where he says that "one can find fault with the scholarly rigour of parts of Liu Xie's essay on letters," objecting, for instance, "that quite a few of Liu's views are in fact secondhand" (3)--now referring to Liu's references to the standard histories Han shu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and Hou Han shu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. Bonnie McDougall in her fascinating book Love-Letters and Privacy in Modern China, about the correspondence between Lu Xun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1881-1936) and his future wife Xu Guangping [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1897-1968), approves of some of Liu Xie's generic characterizations, but objects that "he introduces confusion with a long list of sub-types which have little to do with his own definitions." (4) Evaluations like these cannot all be caused by flaws in Vincent Shih's translation of the Wenxin diaolong, (5) as the problem extends to Chinese authors as well. In his Comparative Research in Six Dynasties Prose Literature (Liuchao sanwen bijiao yanjiu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) Zhang Siqi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] misinterprets the "Shu ji" chapter's initial quotation from the Shangshu as a definition of the epistolary genre and concludes that "regarded like this, all literary genres are letters." (6)

What could cause such unfavorable assessments of a book that is elsewhere praised for its brilliant and uncommonly systematic approach? I suspect two main reasons. The first is a too selective reading, e.g., a reading concentrated on one genre chapter only without an appropriate understanding of the Wenxin diaolong as a whole; this could apply to any genre study. In the case of the "Shu ji" chapter, another cause may be wrong expectations, like the preconception that it is a treatise on epistolary literature only, as the understanding of the word shu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in its title is reduced to one of its rather special meanings, i.e., "letters." Zhang Siqi's defective but telling conclusion that "regarded like this, all literary genres are letters" thus points to the key source of misunderstanding of the "Shu ji" chapter by Chinese and Western scholars alike: the misinterpretation of many of Liu Xie's propositions of shu as specifically referring to letters, which renders his statements irrelevant or even wrong. To assume ineptitude or inconsistency on the part of Liu Xie, however, should not be the first but the last resort of interpretation. Rather it is probable that a highly sophisticated text as the Wenxin diaolong that explicitly deals with genre theory will use a generally consistent terminology, and we must find out how exactly this terminology is to be understood.

Much of the perplexity about this chapter can be resolved if the core meaning of shu--"to write" or "writings"--is taken into account. Here my approach is primarily based on a close reading of the "Shu ji" chapter, supported by statements about orality and literacy throughout the Wenxin diaolong. A great part of this paper will therefore be dedicated to presenting the essential parts of the "Shu ji" chapter in a translation that is free from what I consider earlier misinterpretations of the text. Apart from my assumption that Liu Xie uses the term shu more consistently than is implied in the examples mentioned above, another aspect for the correct understanding of the "Shu ji" chapter should be considered, i.e., the position of this chapter within the general design of the Wenxin diaolong.

THE POSITION OF THE "SHU JI" CHAPTER IN THE WENXIN DIAOLONG

Disregarding the postface ("Xu zhi" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], or "Exposition of my intention"), the arrangement of the Wenxin diaolong is tripartite. In the first five chapters Liu Xie gives an exposition of his basic literary concepts, in the postface called the "pivot of literature." (7) The twenty chapters that constitute the second, typological part introduce a comprehensive range of literary genres, (8) while part three is dedicated to a variety of questions concerning the creative process, rhetoric, reception theory, etc. Some of its twenty-five chapters are among the most famous treatises of Chinese literary thought, like chapter 26 about imagination ("Shen si" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "Spirit thought"), chapter 27 about the formative power of an author's personality ("Ti xing" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "Composition and character"), chapter 28 about the important aesthetic concepts "wind" and "bone" ("Feng gu" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), or chapter 48 about questions of reader response ("Zhi yin" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "The one who knows the tone").

The theoretical frame of the Wenxin diaolong--chapters 1 to 5 and 26 to 50--is much more renowned than the massive typological block it encloses. Although I hesitate to speak for the whole dazzlingly complex field of Wenxin diaolong scholarship, (9) there appears to be a considerable disproportion between the huge amount of research on the theoretical frame and a certain neglect of the genre chapters. Most of the latter share the lot of the "Shu ji" chapter: although routinely consulted for the earliest detailed statement about a specific genre, they are frequently chided for their shortcomings and are usually excluded from comprehensive reflections on the book.(10) This is the more surprising as the Wenxin diaolong by far supersedes any earlier attempts at genre classification in China, e.g., Cao Pi's[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (187-226) "Lun wen" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Disquisition on Literature) or Lu Ji's [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], (261-303) "Wen fu" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Rhapsody on Literature), (11) both preserved in the Wenxuan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] anthology (Selections of Refined Literature, ca. 514), itself compiled a few years later than the Wenxin diaolong and of comparable importance as regards our knowledge of genre awareness in early medieval China. (12)

Traditionally, the genre chapters are further divided into wen [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and bi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]--variously understood as rhymed and unrhymed, patterned and unpatterned, or refined and functional literature. Although this division is commonly attributed to Liu Xie, the text of the Wenxin diaolong itself provides no conclusive information on Liu Xie's understanding of wen and bi (13) nor on the question of whether he had intended certain groups of the genre chapters to deal exclusively with wen and others with bi types of literature. (14) Thus the concepts of wen and bi themselves are controversial, as is the question of where in the typological part of the Wenxin diaolong to draw the dividing line between wen and bi. (15)

After the division of wen and bi had become obsolete in the course of the Tang dynasty (618-907), the discussion of the problem seems to have been resuscitated in the nineteenth century only, first by Ruan Yuan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1764-1849) and his followers, (16) and a century later, by the rediscovery in Japan of Kukai's [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (774-835) Bunkyo hifuron [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (The Literary Mirror: Secret Repository of Discussions), which also contained the only transmitted medieval list of wen and bi genres. (17) Among the more influential modern scholars who discussed the wen bi division are Liu Shipei [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1884-1919) and Wenxin diaolong commentators like Huang Kan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1886-1935) and Fan Wenlan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1891-1969), most of them disagreeing as regards the understanding of wen and bi and the classification of the genre chapters, which certainly helped to keep the discussion going. (18)

Not least because of the general symmetry in the design of the Wenxin diaolong, (19) I tend to locate the division between wen and bi between chapters 14 and 15, thus yielding two ten-chapter sections. I consider wen to refer to refined literature and bi to functional prose, assuming that both kinds of writing are differentiated by functional and aesthetic attributes alike. The higher degree of "literariness" of the genres labeled wen would thus result from a mixture of functional and formal characteristics, the latter certainly including prosodic features.

The last of both ten-chapter sections, i.e., chapters 14 and 25, appear to gather the odds and ends not covered in the preceding chapters of the wen and bi section, respectively. (20) As regards chapter 14, this interpretation is supported by the title "Za wen" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Miscellaneous) kinds of refined literature) and by the number of genres it introduces...