Warnings Of The World Jingshi Tongyan

“Warnings of The World” Jingshi Tongyan (警世通言) is the second of a trilogy of widely celebrated Ming dynasty (1368–1644) vernacular story collections, compiled and edited by Feng Menglong and published in 1624.[1] The first compilation, called Gujin Xiaoshuo (古今小説) (Stories Old and New), which is sometimes also referred to as Yushi Mingyan (喻世明言) (Stories to Enlighten the World or Illustrious Words to Instruct the World) was published in Suzhou in 1620. The third publication was called Xingshi hengyan (醒世恒言) (Stories to Awaken the World), and was published in 1627. These three collections, often referred to as Sanyan (三言, "Three Words") because of the character yan (言) found at the end of each title, each contain 40 stories. Jingshi Tongyan is considered to be a huaben (话本), that is, short novel or novella. The huaben genre has been around since the Song dynasty (960-1279). The huaben genre includes collections of short stories, like Jingshi Tongyan, historical stories, and even stories from Confucian classics.

Stories to Caution the World is the first complete translation of Jingshi tongyan, the second of Feng Menglong's three collections of stories which were pivotal in the development of Chinese vernacular fiction. These tales, whose importance in the Chinese literary canon and in world literature is without question, have been compared to Boccaccio's Decameron and the stories of A Thousand and One Nights. Peopled with scholars, emperors, ministers, generals, and a gallery of ordinary men and women in their everyday surroundings -- merchants and artisans, prostitutes and courtesans, matchmakers and fortune-tellers, monks and nuns, servants and maids, thieves and imposters -- the stories in this collection provide a vivid panorama of the bustling world of imperial China before the end of the Ming dynasty. Feng Menglong collected popular stories from a variety of sources (some dating back centuries) and circulated them via the flourishing seventeenth-century publishing industry. He not only saved them from oblivion but elevated the status of vernacular literature and provided material for authors of the great late-Ming and Qing novels to draw upon. As in their translation of the first collection of Feng's trilogy, Stories Old and New, Shuhui and Yunqin Yang include all forty stories as well as Feng's interlinear and marginal comments and all of the verse woven throughout the stories. For other titles in the collection go to http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/books/ming.html

Stories to Awaken the World, the first complete translation of Xingshi hengyan, completes the publication in English of the famous three-volume set of Feng Menglong's popular Chinese-vernacular stories. These tales, which come from a variety of sources (some dating back centuries before their compilation in the seventeenth century), were assembled and circulated by Feng, who not only saved them from oblivion but raised the status of vernacular literature and provided material for authors of the great Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) novels to draw upon. This trilogy has been compared to Boccaccio's Decameron and the stories of A Thousand and One Nights. Peopled with scholars, emperors, ministers, generals, and a gallery of ordinary men and women - merchants and artisans, prostitutes and courtesans, matchmakers and fortune-tellers, monks and nuns, thieves and imposters - the stories provide a vivid panorama of the bustling world of late imperial China. The longest volume in the Sanyan trilogy, Stories to Awaken the World is presented in full here, including sexually explicit elements often omitted from Chinese editions. Shuhui Yang and Yunqin Yang have provided a rare treat for English readers: an unparalleled view of the art of traditional Chinese short fiction. As with the first two collections in the trilogy, Stories Old and New and Stories to Caution the World, their excellent renditions of the forty stories in this collection are eminently readable, accurate, and lively. They have included all of the poetry that is scattered throughout the stories, as well as Feng Menglong's interlinear and marginal comments, which convey the values shared among the Chinese cultural elite, point out what original readers of the collection were being asked to appreciate in the writer's art, and reveal Feng's moral engagement with the social problems of his day. The Yangs's translations rank among the very finest English versions of Chinese fiction from any period. For other titles in the collection go to http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/books/ming.html

Do the portrayals of objects in literary texts represent historical evidence about the material culture of the past? Or are things in books more than things in the world? Sophie Volpp considers fictional objects of the late Ming and Qing that defy being read as illustrative of historical things. Instead, she argues, fictional objects are often signs of fictionality themselves, calling attention to the nature of the relationship between literature and materiality. Volpp examines a series of objects—a robe, a box and a shell, a telescope, a plate-glass mirror, and a painting—drawn from the canonical works frequently mined for information about late imperial material culture, including the novels The Plum in the Golden Vase and The Story of the Stone as well as the short fiction of Feng Menglong, Ling Mengchu, and Li Yu. She argues that although fictional objects invite readers to think of them as illustrative, in fact, inconsistent and discontinuous representation disconnects the literary object from potential historical analogues. The historical resonances of literary objects illuminate the rhetorical strategies of individual works of fiction and, more broadly, conceptions of fictionality in the Ming and Qing. Rather than offering a transparent lens on the past, fictional objects train the reader to be aware of the fallibility of perception. A deeply insightful analysis of late Ming and Qing texts and reading practices, The Substance of Fiction has important implications for Chinese literary studies, history, and art history, as well as the material turn in the humanities.

A cornerstone of Chinese popular culture, the legend of the White Snake--the admirable demon who loves her victim--has been continually rewritten, reinterpreted, and readapted for over five hundred years. The Precious Scroll of Thunder Peak was one of the most popular nineteenth-century versions of the legend. In bringing together translations of the Scroll, four anonymous youth books, and other texts related to the development of the White Snake legend, this volume opens a window into the richness and variety of premodern Chinese popular literature. It also illustrates the ways in which traditional and modern Chinese societies have treated a host of vital cultural issues, including the role of women in society, perceptions of sexuality, and folk religion. Wilt L. Idema's Introduction traces the evolution of the legend and places the translated texts in the history of Chinese popular literature and culture. Annotations explaining terms and references that may be unfamiliar to Western readers, a glossary, and a thorough bibliography further enhance the value of this book for both scholars and students.

This book uncovers the Jesuits’ mystic theological interpretation in the translation of the Book of Changes (the Yijing) in their mission in China. The book analyzes how Jesuit Figurists incorporated their intralingual translation of the Yijing, the Classical and vernacular use of Chinese language and the imitation of Chinese literati’s format, and the divinization of Yijing numbers into their typological exegesis. By presenting the different ways in which Jesuit Figurists Christianized the Yijing and crafted a Chinese version of Jesus and Christian stories onto the Chinese classics, this book reveals the value of Jesuit missionary-translators. The Chinese manuscripts the Figurists left behind became treasures which have been excavated and displayed in this book. These treasures reveal the other side of the story, the side not much shown in past scholarship on the Figurists. These handwritten manuscripts on the Christianized Yijing are a legacy which continues to impact European understanding of Chinese history and civilization in later centuries. A first analysis of these manuscripts in Chinese, the book will be of interest to scholars working on the history of Christianity in China, Translation Studies, and East Asian Religion and Philosophy.