Collection of Zheng Banqiao

Author: Zheng Xie
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-06-01
Features: Zheng Banqiao is a microcosm of Chinese literati. His home letters cover everything, from imperial nobles at the top to scholars and artists in the middle, to common people at the bottom. Discussing the past and the present, he never uses clichés. He might not write all year round, but he would never compose a single line carelessly. Reading Zheng Banqiao's works reveals some of the bad habits of Chinese literati, as well as some of the good ones. Since ancient times, literati have been critical of each other, and it was common for them to teach others, but this is much less pronounced in Banqiao's home letters, mostly turning into theories. After reading through them, one can see the sorrow of literati, their pride, and more importantly, their tranquility and contentment. This book is a masterpiece that satisfies literary enthusiasts.
Preface: A Eulogy for Tradition by an Artistic Eccentric
For those who defy the emperor, even if they have long since passed away, the emperor still will not let them go, as he enjoys posthumous executions. Although this does not hinder him from preaching about rectifying the heart-mind and restoring rituals to his subjects, the people, even without the level of an official eulogy, still adhere to the custom of burying the dead properly. Therefore, it is common for them to spend all they have to express their grief for the deceased, hire eulogy masters to speak well of the deceased to achieve the purpose of glorifying the past and enriching the future, and "to observe the funeral rites with solemnity and to cherish the memory of the ancestors" has become a secular ritual for Chinese people in agricultural society. Thus, even great figures like Han Yu, who "arose to revitalize the eight generations," and Yuan Mei, who raised the banner of literary spirit, relied on writing eulogies to acquire their retreats. It is not difficult to imagine how the desire to "glorify the past and enrich the future" permeates our secular life. Ban Gu said in White Tiger Commentaries·Bingxiong: "When the emperor dies, he notifies the feudal lords." This also proves that in the early days, eulogies were exclusive to people of status and identity as a means of reporting death. Later, they evolved into texts describing the deceased's birth and death, career, and the time and place of their funeral to inform relatives and friends. Today, such texts have become mere praise for the deceased's moral character, often full of empty and irrelevant rhetoric, with the sole purpose of concealing the truth. When a genre is completely dominated and dissolved by its utilitarianism, its decline is already inevitable. In fact, eulogies have entered an era where they are writing eulogies for themselves and digging their own graves.
Indeed, the "eulogy" we use here is merely a metaphor, and as the German proverb goes, "All metaphors are imperfect." From the perspective of linguistic philosophy, there is a vast gap between the referent and the signifier, always leaving room for ambiguity. There is always an immeasurable "black hole" between the metaphor and the thing being metaphorized. Therefore, I believe that when Zheng Banqiao""， the danger brought by this huge "black hole" was not unforeseen or unprepared for. Perhaps this unprecedented metaphor is inappropriate and may lead to a misalignment in argumentation, but this risky metaphor brings me a burning sense of beauty and a joy of subversion. Moreover, Zheng Banqiao is precisely achieving the special meaning of our "eulogy" in relation to traditional art through its dual tendencies—affinity and estrangement. On one hand, he is deeply distressed by the decline of the ideal spirit of traditional art, hence praising the independent personality and compassionate sentiment expressed in it. On the other hand, he feels acutely that the rigid conventions of traditional art bind the human spirit and hinder artists from expressing their emotions more personally. Therefore, his attitude toward traditional art is both a lament for its passing and a bold declaration of its death, revealing a contradiction that is key to understanding the strange nature of Zheng Banqiao's artistic creation.
1. To isolate Zheng Banqiao from his era and cultural background and to analyze him solely as an artistic text is undoubtedly a pioneering move, but it is not as effortless when applied to him. Because the era in which Banqiao lived did not allow him to ignore the special favor he received from his environment. This is not only related to the fact that the Qing Dynasty, after conquering the Central Plains with military force and slaughtering the people, left a strong sense of rebellion among the intellectuals in Jiangnan, but also has to do with the autocratic political system. We all know that in an era of restricted freedom of speech and independent thought, analyzing his artistic creation solely as an artistic text will not only fail to reveal the historical truth of his activities or his artistic appearance but will only lead to the ridiculous result of "blind men."
When Banqiao was born, the Qing Dynasty's military campaigns had already ended. Although even the most forgetful people in Jiangnan would not remain indifferent to the tragedies of "Ten Days of Yangzhou" and "Three Massacres of Jiading," as common people, even if they harbored resentment, they had no means to act upon it. Moreover, the exhausting labor of surviving and struggling was enough to keep them occupied. Therefore, under the dual pressures of political suppression and ideological control, intellectuals evolved from the empiricalism and criticism of the early Qing to meticulous textual research, trying to become "cave dwellers" detached from real life; while the common people, squeezed by endless hardships, had to resort to a pragmaticism devoid of ideals, even one laced with a touch of vulgarity. The rulers employed a combination of soft and hard tactics—temptation and tight ideological control—as intellectuals either accepted the rulers' co-option or faced relentless persecution through pervasive textual suppression. From a broader perspective, the "Prosperous Era of Kangxi and Qianlong" was in fact a chaotic tapestry of all kinds of people—servants, petty officials, soldiers, eccentric scholars, textual researchers, and Confucian scholars—all mixed together, revealing the true picture behind the facade of prosperity. From this era of changing fortunes, we can easily see the intellectual poverty and the widespread inability of intellectuals to speak out in the face of society.