From “Touching the Literary Mind” to “Agreeing with the Common Ear”--Tang Dynasty Stories in the Sanyan and Erpai
Resource
臺大中文學報, 21, 085-140
Journal
臺大中文學報
Journal Issue
21
Pages
085-140
Date Issued
2004-12
Date
2004-12
Author(s)
Abstract
This paper will look at the narrative form of stories from the Tang dynasty that appear in the vernacular masterpieces Sanyan 三言 and Erpai 兩拍 in order to examine the transition in fiction from the literary to the vernacular language and the changes in form and mean-ing brought about by that transition. In doing so, we will identify the narrative, rhetorical and formal characteristics of Chinese fiction in the literary and vernacular languages. We will start by discussing how material was taken for the Sanyan and Erpai from Tang Dynasty stories including the sources and methods used, and will clarify, on the basis of earlier studies, which stories from the Tang dynasty were used and discuss how they were used in both the opening introduce-tions and main bodies of the vernacular versions. Next, we look at the Sanyan and Erpai in terms of the format borrowed from the earlier tradition of oral readings and the author's own aesthetic sense to compare the narrative form and the correlating construction of mean-ing of the Tang dynasty stories with those in the Sanyan and Erpai with respect to the settings and causal relations of the stories, the concreteness of characters and background, the involvement of the reader, and the religious/moral or conventional tone of the theme. We clearly show the changes that the Tang dynasty stories. with their orientation towards "touching the literary mind" 入於文心 , undergo as they are adapted to meet the need of "agreeing with the common ear" 諧於里耳 of the Sanyan and Erpai. The differences in the narrative of the original Tang dynasty stories and the versions in the Sanyan and Erpai reflect features of the huaben 話本 such as an emphasis on flesh-ing out the details of a story, using formalistic techniques to describe characters and backgrounds, and the fondness for creating the character of a faceless crowd, All these features help to increase the comic features of the story and heighten enjoyment of the work, as well as the more detailed and comprehensive account of the real world vis-?-vis stories of the Tang dynasty. However, the interplay between a fictional narrator and the audience, while allowing the reader to become more invested in the story, also slows down the pace of the narrative; in the same manner, strengthening the causal relations of a story and allowing for a more widespread thematic appeal, while enhancing the instructional elements of a story, also eclipses the expression of the individual's experience and leaves little room for the story to work on the imagination of the reader.
Subjects
唐代小說
話本小說
三言
二拍
敘述
Tang dynasty fiction
Huaben ficition
Sanyan
Erpai narrative
Type
journal article
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
0021_200412_3.pdf
Size
30.56 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):b7d68c7ee58596c06f212548bc5ffc6e