Transmutations of Desire ― Literature and Religion in Late Imperial China

In the West, love occupies center stage in the modern age, whether in art, intellectual life, or the economic life. We may observe a similar development in China, on its own impetus, which has resulted in this characteristic of modernity—this feature of modern life has been securely and unambiguously established, not the least facilitated by the thriving of literature about qing, whether in traditional or modern forms.

Qiancheng Li concentrates on the nuances of a similar trend manifested in the Chinese context. The emphasis is on critical readings of the texts that have shaped this trend, including important Ming- and Qing-dynasty works of drama, Buddhist texts and other religious/philosophical works, in all their subtlety and evocative power.

Qiancheng Li is Associate Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Louisiana State University. He is the author of Fictions of Enlightenment: “Journey to the West,” “Tower of Myriad Mirrors,” and “Dream of the Red Chamber”; the editor and annotator of the variorum, critical edition of Xiyou bu; and the co-translator, with Robert E. Hegel, of it, titled Further Adventures on the Journey to the West (2020).

The power of qing or strong emotion is a major theme in late imperial Chinese literature—some writers asserting that it can transcend even life itself. Qiancheng Li surveys a number of seventeenth-century philosophical, religious, and literary texts to elucidate the metaphysical aspects of emotional attachment and of sexual desire in particular. Through his broad and penetrating reading, Li demonstrates incontrovertibly how, to seventeenth-century writers, qing and religion were inextricably linked. To those writers, qing could bring enlightenment, and certainly Li’s study enlightens its readers to new levels of complexity in major literary works of that period. Transmutations of Desire sets a major new milestone in the study of traditional Chinese culture.

—Robert E. Hegel, Washington University in St. Louis

This book brings to a significantly new level the study of qing, a key concept in intellectual discourses of the late Ming which reverberated throughout the subsequent Qing period in Chinese literature. Herein we learn how, presented with the tension between passionate attraction as a fundamental force in life and religious (especially Buddhist) emphasis on release from attachments as an ultimate spiritual goal, authors of, and commentators on, the era’s most important works of drama and long fiction developed a multi-dimensional metaphysics of qing. Thereby they transmuted desire from a hindrance to spiritual fulfillment into its necessary complement.

—Lynn A. Struve, Indiana University Bloomington

In many areas, Professor Li’s new study mainly on dramatic works has demonstrated the kind of sophistication and rigor I wish I had been able to achieve in my Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China exclusively on fictional works. He has convincingly argued that we could not properly understand various “transmutations” of desire without an adequate understanding of their “scriptural foundation.” His study has significantly enriched our understanding of not only several well-known classics like The Peony Pavilion and Peach Blossom Fan but also very important but little-studied works such as those by the dramatist Jiang Shiquan from the eighteenth century.

—Martin W. Huang, University of California, Irvine

Transmutations of Desire takes on one of the most crucial tensions in late imperial Chinese literature, desire and its renunciation. Bringing into dialogue four of the most celebrated plays as well as several understudied ones, their commentary and reception history, Buddhist scripture, Western theoretical approaches to love, and ultimately the novel Honglou meng, Qiancheng Li has given us a rich and rewarding intertextual study. With its focus on drama, it is an indispensable complement to his earlier monograph Fictions of Enlightenment, which explored the interplay of religion and literature in the realm of narrative.

—Rania Huntington, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Acknowledgements ix

A Note on Abbreviations and Citations xi

Prologue 1

Chapter 1 Transmutations of Desire 11

Qing (Desire) and Religions 11

Origin of Desire: Transvaluation of Value 19

The yin and yang, and the Dao 31

Between xing (Nature) and qing (Feeling/Desire) 32

The Ultimate Expression of qing 43

The Full Course of Desire: The End of qing, or Its Transmutation 45

Coda 53

Chapter 2 Mudan ting: The Theater of the Mind 59

The Meaning of qing in Tang Xianzu 60

Immateriality and the Theater of the Mind 62

Indestructibility of Pleasing Forms and Desire (Seqing nanhuai) 69

Pursuing the Dream: The Aftermath and Consequence 82

The Self-Portrait 85

Death and Resurrection 89

Transcending qing 90

Chapter 3 Between Union and Separation: Xixiang ji and the Tragic 101

“Meng youchun” (Dreaming of a Spring Excursion) 101

“Yingying zhuan” (Yingying’s Story) 108

Xixiang ji (The Western Wing) 115

Ming Commentary Traditions on Xixiang ji 120

Jing Shengtan’s Recension: An Anatomy of qing 122

The Tragic: Form and Vision 125

The Imperfect World: Feng Menglong’s Vision of the Tragic 128

Jin Shengtan’s Tragic Vision 131

Coda 143

Chapter 4 Changsheng dian: Qing, Death, and Redemption 147

Hong Sheng’s Purist Revision of the Yang Yuhuan Saga 147

Qing: Between Life and Death 151

From Life to Death 154

Qing’s Repentance (qinghui) and

the Remedy of Regrets (buhen) 159

Ambiguities of qing 164

Chapter 5 Taohua shan: The Inadequacy of qing and the Metaphysical Solution Revisited 169

Qing and Exterior Values 169

The Inadequacy of qing 173

The Peach Blossom Fan 176

Metaphysical Solution Revisited 180

Concluding Remarks 181

Chapter 6 Jiang Shiquan and Xu Xi: Justifications of qing and the Metaphysical Frame 183

After Taohua shan: Jiang Shiquan on Tang Xianzu 183

“Dreams” Reenacted 190

Yu Ergu as the Ideal Reader and the Female Readership of Mudan ting 194

Convergence of Dreams 199

Metaphysical Solutions: Subject and Structure 207

Xu Xi: Life, Desire, and Life-Writing— By Way of Conclusion 212

Chapter 7 Honglou meng: Qing and Visions of the Tragic 217

Honglou meng and the Late Ming Legacy 217

The Imperfect World and the Cosmic Dimension of qing: Significance of the Nüwa Myth 222

Yiyin (Lust of Mind) and chi (Folly) 225

Du Liniang and Jia Baoyu, Fidelity and Promiscuity: Qing Independent of Its Objects 232

Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu: The Sense of the Tragic 234

Two Visions of the Tragic: The 80-Chapter and 120-Chapter Versions 247

Tensions between qing and Its Opposite: The Metaphysics and Dialectics of kong, se,
and qing Revisited 250

Epilogue: Qing and Talents for qing Writing 255

Bibliography 265

Index 293