Written by: Xi Heng
Notes: A Melancholy Broccoli
AbstractA novel created with real society as its blueprint often maps in its text the social structure of the author's era. As the first among China's Four Great Classical Novels, Dream of the Red Chamber has the reputation of being an “encyclopedia of Chinese feudal society.” For this reason, in recent decades countless scholars have approached it from various angles and, combining their own research directions, conducted studies on it. Whether starting from grand narrative to suggest the rise and fall of feudal dynasties through the rise and fall of a family, or focusing on daily life and character images, Dream of the Red Chamber provides corresponding examples. This article organizes and reflects on ideas based on the content of the third lecture of Professor Li Jinsong's “Huguang Lecture Hall” lecture series. The notes were provided by @A Melancholy Broccoli.
Keywords: Dream of the Red Chamber; Cao Xueqin; Li Jinsong; Dream of the Red Chamber Studies
I. The Author of Dream of the Red Chamber
At the lecture site, Professor Li Jinsong stated that there is no dispute in literary history that “Cao Xueqin” is the author of Dream of the Red Chamber. However, if “Cao Xueqin” is viewed as a cultural symbol, two questions arise. First, who was “Cao Xueqin”? Second, what is the origin of the pen name “Cao Xueqin”?
(1) The Theory of Two “Cao Xueqins”
Professor Li Jinsong stated that those who use the symbol “Cao Xueqin” can be regarded as two individuals who cannot be merged. The former is the Cao Xueqin who truly existed in history (that is, Cao Mengruan), while the latter is the Cao Xueqin mentioned in the first chapter of Dream of the Red Chamber.
- The Cao Xueqin in History
The Cao Xueqin in history was originally named Cao Zhan, with the courtesy name Mengruan, and was a bondservant of the Imperial Household Department in the Manchu Plain White Banner. He was a close friend of the two Dun brothers (Dun Cheng and Dun Min). - The Cao Xueqin in Dream of the Red Chamber
In the first chapter of Dream of the Red Chamber, it is mentioned: “Later, because Cao Xueqin in Mourning the Red Studio read and revised it for ten years, added and deleted five times, compiled the table of contents, and divided it into chapters, he titled it The Twelve Beauties of Jinling. He also wrote a quatrain: ‘Pages full of absurd words, a handful of bitter tears. All say the author is foolish; who understands the flavor within?’” The use of third-person expression here is quite thought-provoking. Du Zhijun and Zhang Yun, citing the views of the Zhiyanzhai annotator, state that Cao Xueqin “read and revised it for ten years, added and deleted five times, compiled the table of contents, and divided it into chapters,” and identifying him as the author is entirely well deserved [1].
(2) The Origin of the Pen Name “Cao Xueqin”
In the lecture, Professor Li Jinsong mentioned the view of the Taiwan Redologist of the Suoyin School, Du Shijie, that the “Cao Xueqin” written in the book may not be Cao Yin's grandson Cao Mengruan, but a symbol whose true meaning may be “copying diligently.” This may also be one of the grounds for Professor Li Jinsong's earlier proposal of “two Cao Xueqins.”
II. The Theory That Gao E Continued the Novel Should Be Overturned
Professor Li Jinsong cited a view from Zhou Chun's Random Notes on Reading Dream of the Red Chamber: “In the autumn of the Gengxu year of the Qianlong reign, Yang Wangeng told me: Yanyu (Yang Sizeng, also known as Xu Sizeng) purchased two manuscript copies at a high price, one The Story of the Stone in eighty chapters and one Dream of the Red Chamber in one hundred and twenty chapters, with slight differences. He loved them so much that he could not put them down; when supervising the provincial examination, he always carried them into the examination compound, and this became a much-told tale in Fujian.” He stated that “the view that Gao E continued the last forty chapters should have been overturned twenty years ago.”
III. Inference of the Time of Composition
Professor Li Jinsong said that the personal name of the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty was Xuanye. Looking across Central Plains dynasties, there were many rules about avoiding the names of superiors. For example, Kui Tong of the Western Han was originally named Kui Che, but changed his name to Kui Tong to avoid the personal name of Emperor Xiaowu of Han, Liu Che. Similarly, during the reign of Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han, the term “xiucai” was also changed to “maocai” to avoid the personal name of Emperor Guangwu, Liu Xiu. In the early Tang dynasty, the general Xu Shiji, because he had rendered merit to the imperial house, was granted the surname Li and called Li Shiji; later, to avoid the taboo on Emperor Taizong Li Shimin's name, he was renamed Li Ji. These cases are enough to show that the naming taboo system in feudal society was always very strict. However, in Dream of the Red Chamber, the character “xuan” in the Kangxi Emperor's personal name is not avoided. If one says the Qing dynasty did not avoid imperial names, that claim also does not hold. During Kangxi's reign, whether theater performers (opera troupes) or storytellers, when speaking of Tang Xuanzong Li Longji, all actively avoided Kangxi's personal name and called Li Longji “Tang Minghuang” (taken from his posthumous title “Emperor Zhidao Dasheng Daming Xiao,” and Tang Xuanzong could perhaps be called “Xuanzong Ming Huangdi,” just as Li Shimin could be called “Taizong Wen Huangdi”). Therefore, Professor Li Jinsong inferred that Dream of the Red Chamber may have been completed not in the Qing dynasty but in the Ming dynasty.
IV. The Concept of Form and Emptiness
Professor Li Jinsong mentioned that the “concept of form and emptiness” runs through the whole of Dream of the Red Chamber and is its central theme. The so-called “form and emptiness” refers to the Buddhist saying “form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form; form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” Here, “form” does not refer to visible visual signs such as “beauty” or “color,” but to all tangible matter. In Buddhist theory, all “form” is illusory; only after letting go of worldly fame, gain, and rank can one realize the concept of “emptiness,” that is, that everything is illusory.
However, the concept of form and emptiness in Dream of the Red Chamber seems not to be a purely Buddhist concept. Rather than everything being illusory, it places greater emphasis on the dreamlike sense of the union of the real and the unreal; this can be seen from the couplet in the Illusory Realm of Great Void in the first chapter: “When false is taken for true, true also becomes false; where non-being becomes being, being still returns to non-being.” It was also influenced by Daoism. In chapter 2 of the Dao De Jing, it is said: “Therefore being and non-being produce each other; difficult and easy complete each other; long and short contrast each other; high and low depend on each other; sound and voice harmonize each other; front and back follow each other.” There is no doubt that more than two thousand years ago, Laozi had already put forward a similar dialectical view.
[1] Du Zhijun, Zhang Yun. The Establishment of Cao Xueqin's Authorial Status for Dream of the Red Chamber [J]. Studies on Dream of the Red Chamber, 2016, (02): 1-23.
