Feng Menglong

In thisChinese name,thefamily nameisFeng.

Feng Menglong
Traditional Chinese	PhùngMộngLong
Simplified Chinese	PhùngMộngLong
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Féng Mènglóng Wade–Giles Fêng2Mêng4-lung2

Feng Menglong(1574–1646), courtesy namesYoulong(Do long),Gongyu(Công ngư),Ziyou(Tử do), orEryou(Nhĩ do), was a Chinese historian, novelist, and poet of the lateMing Dynasty.He was born in Changzhou County,now part ofSuzhou,inJiangsuProvince.

Life

Feng was born into a scholar-bureaucrat gentry household, where he and his brothers Feng Menggui (Phùng mộng quế) and Feng Mengxiong (Phùng mộng hùng) were educated in the classics and the traditional gentlemanly arts. He and his brothers, all well-known as accomplished writers, artists, and poets, became known collectively as the "Three Fengs of the Wu Area" (Ngô hạ tam phùng). In spite of his literary talent and his zeal for scholarship from a young age, Feng sat the imperial civil service examinations many times without success, eventually giving up and making a living as a tutor and teacher.

In 1626, he narrowly avoided punishment after being implicated as an associate of Zhou Shunchang (Chu thuận xương), who was purged by the eunuchWei Zhongxian.He resolved to complete his trilogy of vernacular Chinese short story collections:Stories Old and New,Stories to Caution the World,andStories to Awaken the World(Dụ thế minh ngôn,Cảnh thế thông ngôn,andTỉnh thế hằng ngôn), the first two volumes of which had already appeared.

Feng Menglong was also known by a variety of pseudonyms orart names(Hào,hào), includingLong tử do,Mặc hàm trai chủ nhân,Ngô hạ từ nô,Cô tô từ nô,Tiền chu trụ sử,Cố khúc tán nhân,andLục thiên quán chủ nhân.In recognition of his reputation as a writer, Feng was finally awarded thegongshengdegree in 1630 at the age of fifty-seven. In the subsequent year he received his first government post as instructor of Dantu County (Đan đồ huyện,todayZhenjiang,Jiangsu). In 1634 he was appointed magistrate ofShouning County(Thọ ninh) inFujian.During his tenure, he was regarded as a morally upright and diligent administrator. He retired in 1638.

In 1644 the Ming state was thrown into turmoil by the sacking of Beijing byLi Zicheng's rebel army and invasion by the Qing forces. At the age of seventy-one, he published theGrand Proposals for National Rejuvenation(Trung hưng vĩ lược) to inspire his countrymen to repel the invaders. He died in 1646 as the Ming dynasty continued to collapse. Some works indicate or imply that he was killed by Qing soldiers.

Feng's literary output consisted of the compilation of histories and local gazettes, the retelling of folktales and stories from antiquity in the form of short stories and plays, and the authorship of vernacular Chinese novels. Two of his noteworthy works are theQing Shi(History of Love,Tình sử), an anthology of classical love stories, and theshenmonovelThe Three Sui Quash the Demons' Revolt.In 1620 he published theIllustrious Words to Instruct the World(Dụ thế minh ngôn), orStories Old and New,the first part of his well-known trilogy.

He is frequently associated withLing Mengchu,author ofSlapping the Table in Amazement,a two-part collection of entertaining vernacular tales.

Writing style

Feng Menglong was in love with a famous prostitute when he was young. Unfortunately, Feng Menglong was not able to afford to redeem his lover out. At the end, his lover was redeemed by a merchant, and they had to leave each other. Feng Menglong suffered from pain and desperation due to the separation, and he expressed his sorrow through poems. This experience influenced the way he portrayed women in his stories. In fact, Feng Menglong was one of the few authors who portrayed women as being strong and intelligent; this was noticeably different from contemporary authors, who tended to ignore the importance of women's positions. The female characters in Feng Menglong's stories were portrayed as brave and bright when dealing with different situations. For instance, in his story "Wan Xiuniang Takes Revenge Through Toy Pavilions" fromJing Shi Tong Yan,Wan Xiuniang showed her braveness during her tough times, and she was able to escape using her intelligence. Other female characters, such as Du Shi-niang and Qu Xiuxiu, are examples to show Feng Menglong's respectful and sympathetic portrayal of female characters.

Feng Menglong also expressed his attitudes towards society through his works, which were heavily influenced by his interactions with officialdom and the Chinese literati. Feng Menglong became the magistrate of Shouning near the end of his life, in his sixties. During his appointment, he sought to correct injustices and hoped to build up a reputation as a humble and upright official. Unfortunately, his efforts were frustrated by the widespread corruption of the late Ming dynasty (a theme also treated extensively in other contemporaneous works, such as Zhang Yingyu'sThe Book of Swindles(c.1617)); bribery and extortion were common bureaucratic behaviors, and themes of official malfeasance figure in many of Feng's stories. Realizing that atmosphere of corruption could not be easily changed, Feng Menglong conveyed his discontent and patriotism through words. Each character of his stories has strong and direct characteristics: there is a clear morality line drawn between “good” and “bad”. Moreover, the meaning behind the stories explores the social issues during Ming Dynasty. For instance, the stories of "The White Maiden Locked for Eternity inLeifeng Pagoda"and" The Young Lady Gives the Young Man a Gift of Money "fromStories to Caution the Worldexpress the idea of how women pursued their freedom and happiness under a patriarchal society.

During his tenure as magistrate of Shouning, Feng learned of the local practice ofdrowning female infantsin the river. He authored thePublic Notice on the Prohibition of the Drowning of Daughters(Cấm nịch nữ cáo kỳ) to appeal to parents not to carry out what he viewed as an abhorrent custom and provide for punishments for infanticidal parents and rewards for those taking in abandoned children.

Works

• Stories to Awaken the World
• Stories to Caution the World
• Stories to Instruct the World,also known asGujin Xiaoshuo( "Stories Old and New" ) (ca. 1620), also known asYushi Mingyan(Dụ thế minh ngôn) ( "Illustrious Words to Instruct the World" ) selections translated byCyril Birch,Stories from a Ming Collection: Translations of Chinese Short Stories Published in the Seventeenth Century(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1959; rpr New York: Grove).
• Pingyao Zhuan
• Qing Shi
• Taiping GuangjiChao,an abridged version of the Song dynasty original consisting of some 2,500 stories in 80 volumes.
• Yang Shuihu, Yang Yunqin, tr.,Stories Old and New: A Ming Dynasty Collection(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000).(A complete translation ofGujin Xiaoshuo).
• The Oil Vendor and the Courtesan Tales from the Ming Dynasty.(New York: Welcome Rain, 2007). Translated by T. Wang and C. Chen. ISBN
• Chronicles of the Eastern Zhou Kingdoms
  • with first ten chapters translated by Erik Honobe asThe Rise of Lord Zhuang of Zheng(Hong Kong: Research Centre for Translation, 2021).
  • with 17 out of the original 108 chapters translated into English byOlivia MilburnasKingdoms in Peril: A Novel of the Ancient Chinese World at War(Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2022).
• Public Notice on the Prohibition of the Drowning of Daughters
• Shan'ge,a collection of songs. Katherine Lowry of theHong Kong Polytechnic Universitystated that 1618 was the "most likely" approximate date.From circa 1634 to 1934 they were thought to have been lost, but they were rediscovered inAnhuiprovince in a vendor's collection by a bookseller fromShanghai.Gu Jiegangedited a 1935 published version of the songs. Introductions to the pieces in the collection were written by Gu,Hu Shi,Qian Nanyang,Zheng Zhenduo,andZhou Zuoren.The first translation into a non-Chinese language was the German translation by Cornelia Töpelmann. Liu Ruiming published versions of the songs with annotations inModern Chinese.Ōki Yasushitranslated the songs into Japanese for a collection published in 2003, then translated that into English, the latter included inShan'ge, the "Mountain Songs".
  • Feng Menglong min'ge sanzhong zhujie(in Chinese). Beijing. 2005.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Ōki, Yasushi(2003).Fu Boryu 'sanka' no kenkyu: Chugoku Mindai no tsuzoku kayoPhùng mộng long 『 sơn ca 』の nghiên cứu: Trung quốc minh đại の thông tục ca dao(in Japanese). Tokyo:Keiso Shobo.
  • Shan ko. Von Feng Meng Lung. Eine Volksliedersammlung aus der Ming zeit(in German).Wiesbaden:Franz Steiner Verlag.1973.

In popular culture

SingerYan Weiwenstars as Feng Menglong in the 2017 biographical filmFeng Menglong's Legend(Phùng mộng long truyện kỳ).

Further reading

• Owen, Stephen, "Vernacular Stories: Feng Meng-long and Lang-xian," in Stephen Owen, ed.An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911.New York:W. W. Norton,1997.p. 834-855(Archive),p. 856-879(Archive).

External links

• Works by Menglong FengatProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about Feng MenglongatInternet Archive
• PING YAO ZHUAN: The Sorcerers' Revolt, online English translation