Ling Mengchu
Ling Mengchu(Chinese:Lăng mông sơ;pinyin:Líng Méngchū;Wade–Giles:Ling Meng-ch'u;1580–1644) was a Chinese writer of theMing Dynasty.He is best known for his vernacular short fiction collectionsSlapping the Table in Amazement( phách án kinh kỳ ), I and II.[1][2]
Biography[edit]
Ling Mengchu was born into the Ling clan of Wucheng in northernZhejiangprovince (modern dayWuxing District). Hiscourtesy namewas 'Xuanfang' ( huyền phòng ) and hispseudonymwas 'Chucheng' ( sơ thành ).[2]
His ancestors were government officials. His grandfather was named Ling Yueyan ( lăng ước ngôn ). He was a successful candidate in the highestimperial examinationsof Ming Dynasty and inNanjingserved as anadjutant,managing legal affairs and prisons. Ling Mengchu's father was Ling Dizhi ( lăng địch tri ), styled Zhizhe ( trĩ triết ). He was a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations in 1556. He first worked in the Labor ministry as a leader, managing projects, water conservation, farmlands and so on. This was an unimportant position, but Ling Dizhi was studious and serious. Soon he was appreciated by the emperor of Ming Dynasty, and became tongpan ( thông phán ) ofDing Zhougovernment and Tong Zhou government.[3]
At the time of Ling's birth, his family fortunes were declining. He had four brothers, and he was the fourth son in this family. He went to school when he was 12 and becameXiucaiat age eighteen.[4]By 1605 his mother died and he failed the next level of exams. Afterwards, he wroteBreak with Ju Zi( tuyệt giao cử tử thư ). In 1623, he was 44 years old. He met with minister of the Ministry of RitesZhu Guozhen( chu quốc trinh ). After that meeting, Ling Mengchu decided to take up writing. In 1634 he worked as a country magistrate in Shanghai. In 1637 he wroteWu Sao He Bian( ngô tao hợp biên ) with Zhang Xudong. 1643 he was promoted to tongpan of Xuzhou government.
In addition family members were actively engaged in the printing business with a local specialty of books in polychrome. The Wucheng area was adjacent to the commercial and cultural areas ofHangzhouandSuzhouwhere reading materials were in increasing demand. Ling Mengchu was certainly a merchant businessman and also certainly a traditional scholar withcivil serviceambitions.
The business motive of the Ling family was originally discussed by Ling Mengchu’s contemporaryXie Zhaozhe( tạ triệu chiết 1567-1624) in hisWu zazu( ngũ tạp trở - Five Assorted Offerings). Such were the times. Ling repeatedly failed at the examinations and did not take a government post until he was fifty-four. Ling would finally perish in fighting against theLi Zichengled rebels in 1644.[2]He is frequently associated withFeng Menglong.
Works[edit]
Ling’sTwo Slapscollections of short stories (Slapping the Table in AmazementandSlapping the Table in Amazement, vol. 2) comprise a detailed composite portrait of his 17th century moral world, offering tales of virtue, vice, and adventure. Sometimes racy, often outrageous, and wildly imaginative, they have remained popular reading for centuries. While focusing on extraordinary events, the narratorial attitude alternates openness toward the unorthodox with reflexive Confucian conservatism, a mix also found in contemporaneous works such as Feng Menglong'sThree Wordstrio of story collections and Zhang Yingyu'sThe Book of Swindles.Ling was most strongly influenced byFeng Menglong,whose success he acknowledged as having emboldened him to publish commercially.
In the prefatory material to his first short story collection he insisted it was infinitely more difficult to paint a likeness of a dog or horse one had actually seen than to render a ghost or goblin one had never observed (a quotation fromHan Feizi).
Notes[edit]
- ^Yenna Wu, "Ling Meng-ch'u and the 'Two Slappings," inVictor Mair,(ed.),The Columbia History of Chinese Literature(NY:Columbia University Press,2001). pp. 605- 610.
- ^abcCihai: Page 369.
- ^Master and Masterpiece(published by Jinan Press, first published in 1997) page 1
- ^<Master and Masterpiece> (published by Jinan Press, first published in 1997)
References[edit]
- Ci hai bian ji wei yuan hui ( từ hải biên tập ủy viên hội ). Ci hai ( từ hải ). Shanghai: Shanghai ci shu chu ban she ( thượng hải từ thư xuất bản xã ), 1979.
- James Scott, Rapp, trans.,The Lecherous Academician,(1973),ISBN0-85391-186-X
- Mengchu Ling.The Abbot and the Widow: Tales from the Ming Dynasty.(Norwalk: EastBridge, 2004).ISBN1891936409
- Wen Jingen trans.,Amazing Tales(Volume One), Panda Books, 1998.ISBN7-5071-0398-6
- Perry W. Ma trans.,Amazing Tales(Volume Two), Panda Books, 1998.ISBN750710401X
Further reading[edit]
- Ling Mengchu,Slapping the Table in Amazement: A Ming Dynasty Story Collection.Translated by Shuhui Yang and Yunqin Yang. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2018.
- Carpenter, Bruce E., 'The Ming Short Story Collection "P'ai-an ching-ch'i." 'Tezukayama Daigaku Jinbunkagakubu Kiyo(Tezukayama University Journal of Humanities), Nara, Japan, 2000, pp. 41–111.
- Goodrich and Fang ed.,Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368-1644( bio. by Li Tienyi), New York,1976, vol. 1, pp. 930–931.
