On The Popularity of the Shui Hu Chuan (An Interpretation) [antikvár]

Acta Orientalia AcademiaeScientiarumHungaricae,TomusXXVIII (3),pp.307-318 (1974) ON THE POPULARITY OF THE SHUI HU CHUAN (An Intepretation) BY B. CSONGOR Ming and Ch'ing-time popular works of fiction reveal aspects of China's past that are left unmentioned in official historiography.1 They also may be used for tracing popular and sometimes rather unorthodox ideals and ideas.2 Novels are certainly no historical works. The activity of their authors however, is determined to a certain extent by tradition and social environment. They have to respond to certain social tendencies and demands, to represent partialities or wish-dreams of this or that part of the actual society in order to become popular. Thus a suitable analysis of the reasons for their popularity may lead to an insight into the atmosphere and dynamics of actual Chinese society. The popularity of the Shui-hu-chuan3 and its heroes seem to have been immense in Ming and early Ch'ing times. Despite repeated suppressions,4 some twenty editions can be traced in the sixteenth and seventeents centuries only.5 The novel was one of the favourite books of the Ming emperor Wan-li.6 ifc^fiISc Chu Yu-tun, a grandson of the emperor Hung-wu, was the author of two 1 J. Prugek, Die Literatur des befreiten Chinas und ilire Volkstraditionen, Prague 1955, fifth part. 2 R. Ruhlmann, Traditional Heroes in Chinese Popular Fiction ill The Confucian Persuasion, ed. by F. A. Wright, Stanford Cal. 1960. 3 For an exhaustive bibliography cf. R. G. Irwin, The Evolution of a Chinese Novel, Cambridge, Mass. 1953; P. Domieville, «Au bord de I'eaur. TP XLIV (1956), pp. 242— 265; Irwin, Water Margin Revisited-. TP XLVIII (1960), pp. 395—415. There exists, in addition, a growing amount of recent literature on the Shui-hu-chuan of unequal value, out of which JjUj^Jl, yen Tun-yi's ^KSf i$ fi'ij iSf® Shui-hu-chuan-ti yen-pien, Peking 1957 and pjjijfcjfi; Sa Meng-wu's !Httlt' Shui-hu-chuan yu Chung-kuo she-hui, Macao 1966 deserve special mentioning. A detailed discussion of these would be out of place here. 4 Cf. Wang Hsiao-chuan, ttfeW. Yuan, Ming, Ch'ing san tai chin hui hsiao-shuo, hBi-ch'u shih-liao Peking 1958. 5 Cf. Irwin, Evolution, p. 208 sqq. 6 Mentioned in Liu Luan's 3L {,'fjS W" shili hu, cf. Wang Hsiao-chuan, preface p. 11. 1 ¦ Ada Orient. Huna. XXVIII. 1974.