Punctuation and Text Division in Two Early Narratives: The Tsinghua University *Jin Wen Gong ru yu Jin [phrase omitted] [phrase omitted] and Zi Fan Zi Yu [phrase omitted] Manuscripts.

• Author: Krijgsman, Rens

"Every decision of layout--indeed, every material fact of the text's existence--not only reflects the assumptions and cultural habits of medieval readers but also forms assumptions and habits that govern the way in which the text is received." (1) Material and visual means of structuring and dividing text on the manuscripts are well-studied phenomena in medieval studies. (2) Ardis Butterfield, the source of the quotation above, describes the use of enlarged initials, spacing, color, and a variety of marks on medieval French Chaucer manuscripts to mark a variety of phenomena in the text, from changes in speaker to commentary and performative aids. (3) More generally, the process of "paragraphing" a text has been linked to issues such as length and rhythm and the understanding of stories. (4) Breaking up text into shorter pieces has been shown to enhance recall and perception of structure, (5) and to guide our perception and interpretation of text. (6) It almost goes without saying that the layout of text and image on the page has a strong aesthetic component, influencing the reception and value of the manuscript. (7)

Such paratextual features have only recently been given more attention in the study of early Chinese manuscripts. (8) Admittedly, many excavated and retrieved early Chinese manuscripts are relatively sparsely formatted compared to their sometimes extravagant medieval European counterparts. Punctuation is likewise comparatively bland, especially in literary texts, often consisting of no more than hook-, dash-, dot-, or block-shaped marks. While clearly differentiated in import (if not always immediately obvious or governed by generally observed habits across early manuscripts), these are by no means as visually distinct as the marks commonly used by medieval scribes. But this comparison is not fair, as the manuscript cultures stood at vastly different stages in their development, and it is no surprise that examples of punctuation in early Greek, Roman, and Egyptian materials likewise tend to use a much smaller set of simpler marks--albeit slightly more clearly differentiated in function--to highlight a range of phenomena in the text. (9)

To be sure, rolls of bamboo as a writing medium may have limited the amount of space available for formatting and marginalia. Nevertheless, changes in the layout of text on the manuscript allowing for margins or the addition of paratexts were available. Indeed, while much of the narrative and poetic materials are decidedly bare of images, many texts are formatted using titles on separate slips, empty space after sections, and, of course, punctuation. Likewise, there are plenty of examples among early Chinese technical manuscripts with extensive diagrams and images, and while marginalia are largely absent, other spaces of the manuscript, such as the back of the slips or the blank space after a section, were used for comments and corrections. Differences in a manuscript's use of visual space are therefore perhaps also due to different expectations and habits of the respective scribal cultures that produced them, and the relative involvement of scribes, editors, and readers, in shaping the text on the manuscript. (10)

In this article, I examine the textual structure and the use of punctuation in two historiographical manuscript texts to understand what textual features were amplified or highlighted by the punctuator, (11) and how this could have strengthened a particular reception experience. Studies on formatting have tended to focus on philosophical materials such as the Laozi manuscripts, or on the more extensively formatted technical literature. (12) As a result, attention has been given to the role of punctuation in marking performative features such as rhymes, pauses, and aids to parse individual phrases. Punctuation has often been found to be inconsistent, not following the patterns of its application to the fullest, or only appearing in obvious cases but not when disambiguation would have been necessary. While in part this may be due to unfair, modem expectations on our account, it may equally be due to selective engagement by punctuators, readers, and copyists.

Importantly, the relative consistency of applying a pattern of punctuation is closely related to the type of text punctuated. Narrative texts are different from collections of aphorisms and poetry, for instance, in that they navigate between different forms of narration and feature a more varied pace of engagement with the material. Rhythm and pause in narrative influence the way particular scenes are appreciated and how mood is conveyed. Stories often have different voices present (such as different characters and narrators), and traverse different narrative times and spaces. (13)

Usually, stories come with a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end, where the beginning tends to set the scene, the middle features a central problem or event, and the ending provides a form of resolution or closure to the events in the story. (14) Stories can skillfully integrate different types of content such as dialogues, anecdotes, and songs, but also "dryer" materials such as philosophical argumentation or lists of items. One of the most common forms is the interchange between the narrator of events--who for early materials is often an anonymous, seemingly all-knowing, and external voice to the story--and dialogue within the story. The distribution and marking of these elements can have significant effects on how the story is perceived, and what readers take away from specific events, or even how they understand different types of text. (15)

The physical means of presenting the text on its carrier provides an important layer of structuring the engagement with the story. (16) Of concern to this article is the role of punctuation in amplifying a particular understanding of the division and focus of narrative. While punctuation or spacing do not necessarily add linguistic information or form the content of the text, they do have significant influence on how we are led to perceive the division of a story into meaningful units, and the pace and rhythm with which we engage with a story; and it can draw attention to certain passages and influence the perception of the mood of the story.

THE MANUSCRIPTS

I take as my case study two simple historiographical narratives from the seventh volume of the Tsinghua manuscripts. These two manuscript texts, called *Lord Wen of Jin Entered Jin [phrase omitted], (17) and Zi Fan Zi Yu [phrase omitted] (18) narrate the peregrinations and deeds of Lord Wen of Jin [phrase omitted] (r. 636-628 BCE, also referred to as Chong'er [phrase omitted]), who would later become hegemon (ba [phrase omitted]). The two manuscripts are closely related materially--they are written on similar 45 cm long, 0.5 cm wide bamboo slips--and they were bound with three strings lodged in notches in the bamboo. The script is neatly written and carefully arranged to avoid the binding cord positions at the top, bottom, and in the middle, where a small section of the bamboo is left blank. The ends of the texts are indicated by a punctuation mark followed by empty space. It is likely that they were produced in the same locale, possibly a workshop, by scribes writing in a very similar hand (if not the same scribe) and sharing habits of punctuation, making them a good case for comparison.

* Lord Wen of Jin Entered Jin is decidedly shorter at eight slips, compared to Zi Fan Zi Yu's fifteen. They feature a similar amount of punctuation relative to their length, at eleven and twenty-three marks respectively. *Lord Wen of Jin Entered Jin reveals signs of corrections (albeit not very consistently), with "Lord" [phrase omitted] added on slip one but overlooking the superfluous "in between" [phrase omitted] on slip four. The manuscripts are largely intact. Slips one and four to six of Zi Fan Zi Yu are broken off at the first bamboo joint, and slip fourteen at the top binding cord position, but the formulaic nature of the text ensures that most of the text can be confidently restored. (19) Only Zi Fan Zi Yu, the chronologically earlier narrative of the two, is titled on the verso of slip one, in the same hand as the main text, and neither has numbers on the back of the slips, otherwise commonly seen in the Tsinghua manuscripts. While it is therefore possible that the two texts were originally bound together in a single manuscript, this cannot be established beyond doubt. (20)

These two short examples of similar materiality and topical proximity allow us to check for patterns across multiple texts. In doing so, we can arrive at a case study to discuss the potential of using punctuation in the sectioning and highlighting of narrative text, against which other examples could be compared in the future. It goes without saying that in order to achieve a fuller picture, future studies are needed that consider a larger corpus of manuscripts and a wider range of material features.

From a literary point of view, the texts share broad similarities in genre and organization, yet are different in tone, style, and focalization. While both share Lord Wen of Jin (Chong'er) as their protagonist, he is presented in different ways. In *Lord Wen of Jin Enters Jin, the voice of Lord Wen is the only one in the narrative. As if to underscore that he has gained his rightful place as ruler of Jin, he is presented as a lord in command, issuing orders for the elder statesmen to follow. In Zi Fan Zi Yu, he is presented obliquely as the subject of conversation between his advisors and Lord Mu of Qin, and finally as a humble petitioner in a question-and-answer session with Jian Shu [phrase omitted]. The use of language is quite different as well. *Lord Wen of Jin Enters Jin features none of the imagery and poetic language used in the Zi Fan Zi Yu.

This decided difference in tone, focalization, and style matches well with the difference in...