Participants > Liu Chiung-Yun

Xingshi yan 型世言 (Stories to Rectify the World, ca. 1632), the collection of vernacular stories (huaben 話本) compiled by the Hongzhou 杭州 writers/publishers Lu Yunlong 陸雲龍 and Lu Renlong 陸人龍, has mostly been discussed as literature of moral exemplars since its discovery in Kyujanggak 奎章閣 Archives in the 1980s. But for the late Ming readers, was moral teaching the only message they received when reading this story collection? What might be the other elements that attracted them? Or how did the Lu brothers design the book to increase its appeal to the late Ming reader?

This paper investigates these questions by focusing on stories no.1 and no. 8 in Xingshi yan, both of which narrate the actions and choices of several early Ming officials involved in the four-year civil war that ends with Zhu Di 朱棣 taking over the throne of his nephew, the Jianwen 建文 Emperor, to become the Yongle 永樂 Emperor. The author will first situation the two stories within the late Ming reader's strong interest in learning about the major events and prominent characters of their own dynasty (benchao 本朝) and in rediscovering the stories of the Jianwen loyalists which had been suppressed earlier to avoid controversy over Yongle's political legitimacy. 

The author will then analyze how the Lu brothers utilize (quasi)-historical records for rewriting and incorporate various artistic forms including illustrations, calligraphy, and seal engravings, to create a textual space that simultaneously provides the reader with historical knowledge, critical comments, visual representations, and situational scenarios that invite deeper moral contemplation. Reading the stories in Xingshi yan, therefore, is not just to passively receive moral indoctrination, but to cultivate “practical wisdom” by observing and weighing human actions in the face of moral dilemma and personal, social, or dynastic crisis. Reading such a work can be understood as an act of participating in shared historical/political knowledge and social discussions.

Finally, the author will discuss how the moral story compendia (leishu 類書 ) such as Riji gushi 日記故事 (Stories of the Past for Daily Learning), which had developed since the Yuan Dynasty for elementary education, and Renjing Yangqiu 人鏡陽秋 (Mirror for Conduct of Life from History, ca. 1600) published by the renown Huizhou publisher Wang Tingna 汪廷訥, may have informed the conception of novellas of moral exemplars like Xingshi yan. This will enable us to reconsider the nature of the “didactic literature” which mushroomed during the Ming-Qing transition.

Chiung-yun Evelyn Liu 劉瓊云 is Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. She specializes in Ming Qing literature. Her research interests include literature of the fantastic, historical memory, book culture and knowledge production. She is completing a book manuscript investigating how moral politics, literary invention and commercial media worked together in shaping and transforming historical memories. Her next project explores the function of sentiment in the process of knowledge reception and reformulation, particularly how Chinese literati coped with turbulent dynastic transitions and unsettling cross-cultural encounters through encyclopedic writing as means of reordering and comprehending the changing world.