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Session 10: Premodern prose narratives—China: Story of the Stone, vol 1
Topics for this session
❖ Chinese premodern texts: Story of the Stone • Dream of the Red Chamber (Shitouji 石頭記 • Honglou Meng 紅樓夢) by the once-wealthy scholar Cao Xueqin (曹雪芹, 1715?–63), first of two sessions
Thoughts*
Story of the Stone has a large cast of characters. The stories of each of these characters are interspersed (that is, pieces of each of the stories appears in various chapters rather than isolated in specific chapters). Although we are going to read Volume 1 in full (26 chapters), in all cases place the emphasis on the romantic events related to this triad of individuals: Bao-yu, Dai-yu, Bao-chai and romantic events related to Xi-feng. In addition (if this is a regular term course, not summer), for our purposes, the story of Qin Shi / Qin Ke-qing is important.
This focus will help facilitate reading speed and bring your attention on what is relevant to this class. That being said, along the way there are some minor substories that are instructive to the author's view of romance and, if you are a strong reader, please pay attention to these as well (Aroma, Caltrop, Yuan-chun, Adamantina, "the Mattress" and so on).
The characters we track use various names, not just one. Here is a pdf that lists most of those basic names. It will be helpful to most of you for keeping track of who you are reading about. And, if you are reading in Chinese, it will help you convert to some of the unusual English names that we use: Characters to track in Story of the Stone, Volume 1.
The tension between the iconic male figure (Confucian virtuous gentleman) junzi (君子) and the pre-figured male of the caizi jiaren (才子佳人 talented scholar, beautiful woman) romantic genre of Qing China bears keeping in mind when reading this novel. (See bSpace Scholar-beauty stories.)
Required—to be completed for today's session
✓ A careful reading of the assigned portions of Story of the Stone is due by today. Support material and advice on what to focus on while reading the novel can be found on bSpace.
Other
- Basic info, very basic storyline, basic biblio (Richard J. Smith, Rice University)
- Basic amorous groups in the early chapters of Story of the Stone
- Chart on Qin Shi
- on bSpace: Chapter summaries written by students, with comments on romantic content (.doc), and other support documents.
- More details: Links to summaries (some of these links may no longer work), and student-written characterizations of individual figures in the book and love relationships in the book— as .doc | as .pdf
- 2009 Chinese TV drama version
*UNDER CONSTRUCTION: If this has not been erased it means something on this page is incomplete. Perhaps I want to recheck information or perhaps I haven't converted the page from the version of the previous class. It is available but should be taken dubiously.
*THOUGHTS: My hope is that you look at this portion BEFORE a session. If there is content here it might help you focus on the main points of the day. However, I add various things here at various times. When I feel I haven't succeeded in class stating something clearly, I might restate it here. Of if it is a difficult concept in might be given in written form here. I will assume that you have read and rechecked for changes this session in preparation for any midterm or other quiz or test.