The Scholars (novel)

*The Scholars*
The Scholars
Chinese	儒林外史
Literal meaning	An Unorthodox History of a Forest of Confucian Scholars
Hanyu Pinyin
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	rúlín wàishǐ
Wade–Giles	ju2-lin2 wai4-shih3
IPA	[ɻǔ.lǐn wâɪ.ʂì]
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutping	jyu4 lam4 ngoi6 si2

The Scholars
	Cover of an early 20th-century edition of The Scholars from the Fudan University
Author	Wu Jingzi
Original title	儒林外史
Language	Written vernacular Chinese
Genre	Historical fiction
Set in	China, early 16th century AD
Publication date	1750
Publication place	Qing China
Media type	Print
Dewey Decimal	895.1348
LC Class	PL2732.U22 J813

A Ming dynasty painting by Du Jin of various academic scholars

The Scholars (Chinese: 儒林外史; pinyin: Rúlín Wàishǐ), also translated as The Unofficial History of the Scholars,^{[note 1]} is a Chinese novel written by Wu Jingzi and published in 1750 during the Qing dynasty. It is considered one of the great "Classic Chinese Novels",^[1] and is distinguished for its unusual narrative structure^[2] and acerbic wit.

Set in the Ming period, The Scholars describes and often satirizes academic scholars. The first and last chapters portray recluses, but most of the loosely connected plotlines that form the bulk of the novel are didactic stories, on the one hand holding up exemplary Confucian behavior, but on the other ridiculing over-ambitious scholars and the imperial examination system.

Promoting naturalistic attitudes over belief in the supernatural, the author rejects the popular belief in retribution: his bad characters suffer no punishment. The characters in these stories are intellectuals, perhaps based on the author's friends and contemporaries. Although the novel's tone is highly caustic, a major incident in the novel is the main character Du Shaoqing's attempt to renovate his family's ancestral temple, suggesting the author shared with Du a belief in the importance of Confucianism in life in spite of his criticism.

The Scholars was one of the first major novels to popularize a vernacular style now called baihua. Classical phrases (wenyan) appear occasionally, but only in the speech of elite characters. Language reformers in the early 20th-century New Culture Movement used the novel to support their view that wenyan was a form of snobbery.^[3]

Analysis

Content, meaning and ideology

The Scholars is a satirical novel that describes the life activities of various Chinese Confucian scholars, prudently set mostly in the early 16th century during the Ming dynasty that preceded the Qing. Addressing the ruling Qing dynasty could lead to capital punishment; thus it was safer to depict Ming intellectual life. Characters are obsessed by the fame and glory of civil service to the point of losing sanity. Some of them are philosophically dogmatic, rigidly following the old ways and denying all flexibility and innovation. Some are hypocrites, spending days talking about morality and ethics but actually living despicable and useless lives. Some are so corrupted that they eagerly sacrifice friends, relatives and family for ever more fame and glory. Via these scholars and the novel's sarcastic voices, Wu Jingzi indirectly criticized the civil service examination and education system under the Qing dynasty.

The historian F. W. Mote cautioned that there are other sides to the intellectual life of the dynasty. He praises the "essential rightness" of The Scholars' "mercilessly sardonic exposure of hollow moralizing and ritualized hypocrisy", but these Confucian scholars also reworked high culture's written heritage. It is easy, Mote went on, to parody minute textual and specialized studies, but they are now essential resources even today for any serious historical study.^[4] Wu Jingzi did create several "good" characters as model for an ideal Confucian scholar; they cannot be corrupted by fame or money and they despise the contemporary civil service. One of them, the protagonist Du Shaoqing, bears strong similarity to the author: descended from a well-to-do family and later became poverty-stricken, hated the civil officials, expressed progressive ideas and was strongly critical of the popular Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism. Wu Jingzi also addresses feminism by portraying Du's kindly treatment of his wife at a time when women were considered inferior to men.

Zbigniew Słupski of the University of Warsaw describes The Scholars as one of the most difficult to characterize Chinese novels, "for it is at once a work of satire, social manners and morals as well as a confessional, historiographical, and philosophical novel."^[5] Moreover, "The novel transcends both concrete and abstract satire. The most important characteristics seems to be a rather dynamic and changing way of viewing the world. This [Wu] accomplishes by using new and innovative techniques."^[6]

Structure

Chinese commentators have traditionally seen The Scholars as having an irregular and much relaxed structure compared to other novels, and its narrative form has continued to fascinate and be scrutinized by modern critics.^[7]^[2] The famous author Lu Xun wrote that "the novel has no central linking element". Hu Shih echoed this view, writing that the novel "lacks a general structural basis". The same opinion has been put forth by some Western scholars. James R. Hightower described the work as "amorphous and plotless".

However, more recent scholarship by Słupski detects organization in The Scholars on three levels. The first is the anecdotal level, in which the work can be divided into various "units" centered around a comical fact or occurrence. The second level is that of biography, in which the author constructs a multifaceted view of main characters in the work. An example is the portrayal of Zhou Jin, the elderly examination candidate. The final level is that of autobiography, the author's attitude toward the events of the story. This is revealed in chapter titles, poems, and occasional narrative interludes.^[8]

Chapter 37 depicts a ceremony honoring a legendary Confucian sage, Wu Taibo. Both modern and Qing dynasty commentators have noted that this chapter constitutes the "high point" and "structural apex" of the novel. The literary scholar Shang Wei believes that the chapter highlights Wu Jingzi's simultaneous desire to follow Confucian ritual and to critique it.^[9]

Stephen Roddy argues that the novel is divided into four sections, which correspond to successive eras of the Ming. The introductory chapters refer to the transition from the Yuan to the Ming, chapters 2–7 to the years up to 1517, chapters 21–35 the Jiajing reign, and chapter 55 the final years, the Wanli reign. The progression from civic activism to salon life in the novel, Roddy continues, is parallel to the withdrawal into scholastic dillentantism in the late reigns of the Ming.^[10]

Influence

The Scholars is seen as one of the foremost Chinese satirical novels. It deeply influenced some of the most acclaimed Chinese novels of the late Qing period, such as Officialdom Unmasked, Bizarre Happenings Eyewitnessed over Two Decades, The Travels of Lao Can, A Flower in a Sinful Sea and Modern Times.^[11]

Editions

The earliest printed editions of the novel did not survive, and some critics have raised questions about the reliability of later printed editions.^[12] The earliest extant edition of The Scholars is the 1803 Wo Xian Caotang edition, commonly referred to as the "Wo" edition. This was followed in 1816 by the Qingjiang Pu Zhu Li Ge ("Qing") and Yi Gu Tang ("Yi") editions, which are both essentially copies of the Wo edition. The Suzhou Fan Shi Chao ("Chao") edition was the personal reading edition of a Qing official. While this edition was quite rare, the following Suzhou Qun Yu Ji ("Su") edition was quite popular, and there are many extant versions of it in circulation. The first Shen Bao Guan ("Shen One") edition corrected the mistakes of previous editions, and the second Shen Bao Guan edition ("Shen Two") carried these corrections further.^[13]

In addition to further corrections, the Ji edition greatly shortened the text, by for example deleting characters' titles. The Zeng Bu Ji Sheng Tang ("Zeng Bu Ji") edition added four additional chapters of text to the novel. The Commercial Press edition of the novel was arranged according to the Shen Two edition, and made further corrections to the text. The Yadong edition was first published in 1920, and reissued a number of times in subsequent years. The 16th edition was released in 1948. This version of the text has greatly influenced modern printings of the novel.^[13]

Various editions of The Scholars

An 1803 printed edition of The Scholars
A 1922 printed edition
A 1926 printed edition
A 1931 printed edition
A 1934 printed edition
A 1937 printed edition
A 1949 printed edition
A 1986 printed edition
Edition from the Peking University Library

Translations

The Scholars (tr. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang). Foreign Language Press, Peking: 1957.
The Scholars (tr. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang). Columbia University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-231-08153-7
The Scholars, tr. Yang Hsein-yi, Gladys Yang. Foreign Language Press, Beijing: 2004. ISBN 7-119-01213-4.
Chronique indiscrète des mandarins tr. Tchang Fou-jouei, Préface by André Lévy, Paris, Gallimard, 1976 (ISBN 2-07-070746-6)
Rúlín Wáishi: historia indiscreta del bosque de letrados. Beijing: Ediciones en Lenguas Extranjeras, 1993.
Der Weg zu den weißen Wolken: Geschichten aus dem Gelehrtenwald (The Way to the White Clouds: Stories from the Forest of Scholars), tr. Yang Enlin and Gerhard Schmitt; Weimar, Germany : G. Kiepenheuer, 1962; rpr. with an afterword by Irma Peters, Leipzig 1989.
(Russian) Неофициальная история конфуцианцев (Neoficial'naya istoriya konfuciancev). Translation, comments by D. Voskresensky. Moscow, 1959, reprints 1999, 2008.
(Japanese) 儒林外史 (Jurin gaishi). tr. 稲田 (Takashi Inada). Tōkyō: Heibonsha, 1977.
(Hungarian) Írástudók. tr. Péter Polonyi. Budapest, Európa, 1966.

Notes

^ Other translations include An Unofficial History of the Scholars and The Unofficial History of the Forest of Scholars.

Citations

^ Hsia (1968).
^ ^a ^b "Examining Narrative Form in The Scholars". Brill.com. In Wu Jingzi's (吳敬梓) The Scholars (Rulin waishi 儒林外史), the narrative is constructed through the characters' descriptions of themselves as well as "character zones" reconciled within the dialogue, resulting in a distinctive narrative form. This article rationalizes inconsistencies in narrative time not as the product of false authorship but, rather, as the product of Wu Jingzi's narrative style. Furthermore, because these inconsistencies are found primarily in dialogue, solving the mystery of narrative time gives us an unparalleled opportunity to examine the novel's narrative form. Wu's writing style is perhaps best described as laissez-faire: weaving personal experiences together with anecdotes and rumors drawn from his social circle, he fashions a character-driven narrative form that mixes different perspectives and voices.
^ Shang Wei, "Baihua, Guanhua, Fangyan and the May Fourth Reading of Rulin waishi," Sino-Platonic Papers, I 17 (May, 2002).
^ Frederick W. Mote. Imperial China, 900–1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, ISBN 0674445155), p. 930.
^ "Ju-Lin wai-shih, Próba analizy literackiej", by Zbigniew Slupski EBER, Irene. Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, Reviews; Madison, Wis. Vol. 8, Iss. 1, (Jul 1, 1986): 128.
^ Eber, I. (1986). [Review of Ju-lin wai-shih -Próba analizy literackiej, by Z. Słupski]. Monumenta Serica, 37, 421–423. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40726835
^ "4. The Scholars: Trudging Out of a Textual Swamp in "The Scholar and the State: Fiction as Political Discourse in Late Imperial China" on Manifold at the University of Washington". The eighteenth-century novel The Scholars (Rulin waishi) has posed a hermeneutic challenge to generations of scholars and critics. Despite their admiration for its stylistic and narrative innovations, the readers often feel perplexed by its seeming lack of thematic consistency. Traditionally the work was considered a satirical attack on social institutions, particularly the civil service examinations.
^ Slupski, Zbigniew (June 1989). "Three Levels of Composition of the Rulin Waishi". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 49 (1). Harvard-Yenching Institute: 5–53. doi:10.2307/2719297. JSTOR 2719297.
^ Shang, Wei (December 1998). "Ritual, Ritual Manuals, and the Crisis of the Confucian World: An Interpretation of Rulin waishi". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 58 (2). Harvard-Yenching Institute: 373–377. doi:10.2307/2652665. JSTOR 2652665.
^ Roddy (1998), pp. 109–129.
^ Hu Shih's 1922 essay 五十年來中國之文學.
^ See "Appendix: Texts and Authorship of Rulin Waishi," in Shang (2020), pp. 308-314.
^ ^a ^b 李,漢秋 (2010). 儒林外史：彚校彚評 (in Chinese). 上海: 上海古籍出版社. pp. 1–13. ISBN 978-7-5325-5557-4.

References and further reading

Hsia, Chih-tsing (1968), "The Scholars", The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 203–244; reprinted Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980 ISBN 9780253202581; Ithaca, New York, East Asia Program, 1996 ISBN 1885445741. ONLINE at InternetArchive.
Pidhainy, Ihor (Winter 2006). "Teaching Wu Jingzi's The Scholars" (PDF). Education About Asia. 13 (3): 65–66.
Roddy, Stephen (1998). "The Deconstruction of Literati Identity in Rulin Waishi". Literati Identity and Its Fictional Representations in Late Imperial China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804731317.
Paul S. Ropp, Dissent in Early Modern China: Ju-Lin Wai-Shih and Ch'ing Social Criticism (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981). ONLINE at InternetArchive.
Shang Wei and Beiwen Yan. Li yu shiba shiji de wenhua zhuanzhe: "Ru Lin Wai Shi" Yanjiu. (Beijing Shi: Shenghuo, dushu, xin zhisan lian shudian, Beijing, 2012). ISBN 9787108041395.
Shang, Wei (2003). Rulin Waishi and Cultural Transformation in Late Imperial China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center; Distributed by Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674010957.
Wong, Timothy C. (1978), Wu Ching-tzu, Boston: Twayne Archived at InternetArchive.

External links

Ru Lin Wai Shi at Project Gutenberg (in Chinese)
The Scholars at Chinese Text Project
The Scholars 儒林外史 – Chinese text with matching English vocabulary

[1] Other translations include An Unofficial History of the Scholars and The Unofficial History of the Forest of Scholars.

[FOOTNOTEHsia1968-2] Hsia (1968).

[Examining-3] "Examining Narrative Form in The Scholars". Brill.com. In Wu Jingzi's (吳敬梓) The Scholars (Rulin waishi 儒林外史), the narrative is constructed through the characters' descriptions of themselves as well as "character zones" reconciled within the dialogue, resulting in a distinctive narrative form. This article rationalizes inconsistencies in narrative time not as the product of false authorship but, rather, as the product of Wu Jingzi's narrative style. Furthermore, because these inconsistencies are found primarily in dialogue, solving the mystery of narrative time gives us an unparalleled opportunity to examine the novel's narrative form. Wu's writing style is perhaps best described as laissez-faire: weaving personal experiences together with anecdotes and rumors drawn from his social circle, he fashions a character-driven narrative form that mixes different perspectives and voices.

[4] Shang Wei, "Baihua, Guanhua, Fangyan and the May Fourth Reading of Rulin waishi," Sino-Platonic Papers, I 17 (May, 2002).

[5] Frederick W. Mote. Imperial China, 900–1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, ISBN 0674445155), p. 930.

[6] "Ju-Lin wai-shih, Próba analizy literackiej", by Zbigniew Slupski EBER, Irene. Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, Reviews; Madison, Wis. Vol. 8, Iss. 1, (Jul 1, 1986): 128.

[7] Eber, I. (1986). [Review of Ju-lin wai-shih -Próba analizy literackiej, by Z. Słupski]. Monumenta Serica, 37, 421–423. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40726835

[8] "4. The Scholars: Trudging Out of a Textual Swamp in "The Scholar and the State: Fiction as Political Discourse in Late Imperial China" on Manifold at the University of Washington". The eighteenth-century novel The Scholars (Rulin waishi) has posed a hermeneutic challenge to generations of scholars and critics. Despite their admiration for its stylistic and narrative innovations, the readers often feel perplexed by its seeming lack of thematic consistency. Traditionally the work was considered a satirical attack on social institutions, particularly the civil service examinations.

[Slupski-9] Slupski, Zbigniew (June 1989). "Three Levels of Composition of the Rulin Waishi". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 49 (1). Harvard-Yenching Institute: 5–53. doi:10.2307/2719297. JSTOR 2719297.

[Shang-10] Shang, Wei (December 1998). "Ritual, Ritual Manuals, and the Crisis of the Confucian World: An Interpretation of Rulin waishi". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 58 (2). Harvard-Yenching Institute: 373–377. doi:10.2307/2652665. JSTOR 2652665.

[FOOTNOTERoddy1998109–129-11] Roddy (1998), pp. 109–129.

[12] Hu Shih's 1922 essay 五十年來中國之文學.

[13] See "Appendix: Texts and Authorship of Rulin Waishi," in Shang (2020), pp. 308-314.

[彚校彚評-14] 李,漢秋 (2010). 儒林外史：彚校彚評 (in Chinese). 上海: 上海古籍出版社. pp. 1–13. ISBN 978-7-5325-5557-4.

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v t e Classic Chinese Novels
Four Classic Novels	Water Margin (mid-14th century) Romance of the Three Kingdoms (late 14th century) Journey to the West (c. 1592) Dream of the Red Chamber (mid-18th century)
Additional classics	The Plum in the Golden Vase (c. 1610) The Scholars (1750)