Aesop's Fables

Author: Feng Menglong
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-04-01
Features: The Stories of Antiquity and Modern Times, also known as The World-Awakening Discourses, is one of the most important collections of ancient vernacular short stories in China. Together with The World-Awakening Parables and The World-Awakening Perpetual Discourses, it is collectively referred to as the "Three Words." Compiled by Feng Menglong. Feng Menglong was a late Ming Dynasty litterateur, born in the second year of the Wanli reign (1574) and died in the second year of the Longwu reign, which is the third year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty (1646). He was from Changzhou (now Suzhou, Jiangsu). His courtesy name was Youlong, also known as Ziyou, and his pseudonyms included Longziyou, Master of Muhanzhai, Music Appreciation Adept, and Poet Slave. He was talented from a young age, erudite, open-minded, and unbound by conventional morality. He once formed literary societies with Wen Zhenmeng, Yao Ximeng, Qian Qianyi, and others. In his early years, he was recognized and selected as a brilliant scholar by Xiong Tingbi, the provincial inspector of Nanjing, and was highly regarded for his literary talent. Together with his older brother Feng Mengui and younger brother Feng Mengxiong, he was renowned as the "Three Fengs of Wu." However, he failed to pass the imperial examinations multiple times and once sought employment as a tutor in Macheng, teaching the Spring and Autumn Annals. Later, he traveled to other places as a government official. In the sixth year of the Tianqi reign (1626), the case of Zhou Shunchang broke out, and the eunuch party's cavalry acted with impunity, persecuting him as well. In the third year of the Chongzhen reign (1630), he was appointed as the instructor of Danpu County as a recommended scholar; in the seventh year (1634), he became the magistrate of Shouning County in Fujian, earning a reputation for his governance; in the eleventh year (1638), he retired after completing his term. In 1644, Li Zicheng overthrew the Ming Dynasty, and subsequently, the Qing army advanced southward. Feng Menglong, filled with nostalgia for his homeland, traveled between Zhejiang and Fujian, urging resistance against the Qing. In the spring of 1646, he died of sorrow and frustration (some say he was killed by the Qing army). Feng Menglong was a loyal follower and practitioner of Li Zhi's literary theory. Li Zhi advocated "innate heart" and "near speech," emphasized "naturalness" and "passionate expression," and firmly opposed the idea of literary revivalism. He valued all new literary forms, highly regarded the social significance of drama and fiction, and completely broke away from orthodox literary concepts in terms of ideological content, artistic style, and genre, thereby establishing a theoretical system adapted to the emerging urban literature. This is the late Ming Dynasty literature represented by Li Zhi, Tang Xianzu, Yuan Hongdao, Feng Menglong, and Ling Mengchu. It is also a historical period marked by a strong anti-feudal Confucianism tradition, the rebellious spirit of "emotion as the essence of reason," distinct romanticism, and the flourishing creation of drama and fiction. Li Zhi was the founder of this theoretical system and also an advocate of engaging in popular literature. Today, it is known that the plays and novels commented on by Li Zhu (Zhuo You, the courtesy name of Li Zhi) include The West Chamber, The Moonlit Worship, The Story of Hongfu, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, and Journey to the West, among others. He also published shocking statements on the works he commented on, rallying support for drama and fiction and including these writings in his major collection The Burning Book. Tang Xianzu, on the other hand, represented by The Soul-Stirring Dream (The Peony Pavilion), one of his "Four Dreams," fully expressed the artistic view that "emotion arises without knowing its origin, deep and boundless, life can turn to death, and death can turn to life." He also created an immortal milestone in the creation of Chinese opera (quyi), surpassing the masterpieces of Yuan Dynasty zaju and pushing the art of opera to a new realm. Feng Menglong, however, was more straightforward, advocating "using the genuine emotions of men and women to expose the hypocrisy of moral teachings." He placed great importance on the social impact of popular literature and said in the preface to The Stories of Antiquity and Modern Times: "Let us imagine a storyteller describing scenes on the spot, evoking joy and astonishment, sorrow and tears, songs and dances; again, they are ready to draw swords, kneel in reverence, shed tears, and donate money; the timid become brave, the lecherous become chaste, the frivolous become earnest, and the stubborn become remorseful. Even if one recites the Book of Filial Piety and the Analects, it is unlikely to move people as swiftly and deeply. Alas, can one achieve this without being popular?" The literal meaning of the names "The World-Awakening Discourses," "The World-Awakening Parables," and "The World-Awakening Perpetual Discourses" chosen for the "Three Words" makes it clear that Feng Menglong's compilation and selection were done with strict standards, and his goal was very clear: social benefit. Throughout his life, Feng Menglong dedicated himself to compiling, organizing, and creating literary works, including novels, drama, and folk songs. His content and quantity were unparalleled among Ming Dynasty litterateurs. He compiled the "Three Words," edited and compiled The Brief Records of Antiquity and Modern Times, The Treasury of Wisdom, The History of Emotion, and The New Collection of Taixia, collected and published The Plum Blossom Ballads and Mountain Songs, supplemented The Legend of the Demonic Beasts, and rewrote The New Chronicles of the States. In the field of opera, he created two quyi, The Tale of the Twin Heroes and All Is Well, and revised dozens of others, including the famous The Soul-Stirring Dream by Tang Xianzu, The Dream of Handan, and the "One, Person, Everlasting, Possessing" by Li Yu. In addition, he organized musical scores, appraised historical records, and wrote the lyric collection The Twisting Song and the poetry collection The Draft of the Seven Joys. Unfortunately, the latter two have been lost, with only a few fragments remaining in other books. The "Three Words" collected a total of 120 stories, with 40 chapters each, one story per chapter. These were carefully selected by Feng Menglong from a vast collection of ancient and modern vernacular novels. The Stories of Antiquity and Modern Times is the first edition of The World-Awakening Discourses in the "Three Words." The title page of the surviving copy of The Stories of Antiquity and Modern Times bears the inscription of Tianxuzhai, a book shop, which states: "This shop has purchased 120 famous ancient and modern tales, and has first published one-third of them." Moreover, the preface to the book's table of contents also reads "The First Edition of the Stories of Antiquity and Modern Times." This proves that the publication of the "Three Words" was a planned effort, and the completion of the entire series should have been in the seventh year of the Tianqi reign (1627). The 120 stories in the "Three Words" are mostly masterpieces from the vernacular tales of the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, and have been highly praised by readers (including scholars) throughout history. Ling Mengchu, a novelist of the same generation as Feng Menglong, clearly pointed out in the preface to The Shocking Tales that: "The collections compiled by Longziyou, such as The World-Awakening Discourses, retain elegance and set good examples, breaking away from the vulgar customs of the time. They have also collected almost all the old tales of the Song and Yuan dynasties. Seeing that these works were published quickly, the people in the publishing trade thought that I must have secret manuscripts and planned to publish them for comparison. Unaware that the few remaining were mere fragments, unworthy of mention." His evaluation was very fair. However, since they were contemporaries, and the time was too close, their estimation of the influence of the "Three Words" and his own "Two Shocking Tales" on later literature was still insufficient. Many of the stories in The Stories of Antiquity and Modern Times were polished and even rewritten by Feng Menglong, and some chapters have been confirmed to be his own creations. These novels are treasures of classical Chinese fiction, belonging to the prototypes of storytelling (shuohua) by folk artists, which flourished in the Tang Dynasty and peaked in the Song Dynasty. They represent a unique literary form of that era, known in literary history as "huaben." If compared with more original (or more rustic and rough) records such as The Tales of Qingping Mountain Hall and The Remains of the Great Song in Xuanhe, the stories selected by the "Three Words" were already fully mature vernacular novels in terms of art. This was because they were literary masterpieces of the refined and creative huaben style, loved first by the general readership; because they advanced literary art by a great step, leading the literary trends, and thus literary historians named the works of this type "imitated huaben." Feng Menglong and Ling Mengchu were the two great masters of imitated huaben, with Feng's achievements surpassing those of Ling. His undeniable contribution lies in his comprehensive selection, organization, and polishing of previous vernacular novels, as well as in publishing them for the world. He polished these original jade into even more dazzling and captivating works; he used the standards of the common people's emotions, desires, ethics, and judgments to narrate stories of the past and present, injecting a gushing stream of clear water into the vast river of Chinese literature. To this day, researchers have mostly explored the "Three Words" from the perspective of the history of fiction and its social value, which is undoubtedly necessary. However, compared to this, they have devoted too little effort to studying the other essential attribute of fiction as a literary form—art. One reason for this may be the language barrier. The "Three Words" used the vernacular (liyu) of the Ming Dynasty and earlier, which is often incomprehensible to modern readers. Therefore, it is necessary to remove the obstacles and put in the effort of annotation. This The Stories of Antiquity and Modern Times was annotated by Mr. Xu Zhengyang in the late 1950s of this century and has been for thirty-five years, recognized by academia as the definitive edition, and is a great contribution to the reading public. Mr. Xu Zhengyang (1925–1966) was from Xianshi, Haining, Zhejiang. He graduated from the Chinese Department of the Institute of Research at Yanjing University in 1952 and later taught at Nankai University. He dedicated himself to the study of classical fiction and opera, with profound and extensive knowledge far surpassing ordinary scholars. In the early days of the Cultural Revolution, he was persecuted to death at the age of only forty-one. In addition to the annotations of The Stories of Antiquity and Modern Times, his remaining works were compiled into The Collected Writings of Xu Zhengyang.