The Chinese Political Novel: Migration of a World Genre 0674504356, 9780674504356

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The Chinese Political Novel

Harvard East Asian Monographs 380

The Chinese Political Novel: Migration of a World Genre Catherine Vance Yeh

Published by the Harvard University Asia Center Distributed by Harvard University Press Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London 2015

©

2015 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

Printed in the United States of America The Harvard University Asia Center publishes a monograph series and, in coordination with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Korea Institute, the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and other faculties and institutes, administers research projects designed to further scholarly understanding of China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, and other Asian countries. The Center also sponsors projects addressing multidisciplinary and regional issues in Asia. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Yeh, Catherine Vance, author. The Chinese political novel : migration of a world genre / Catherine Vance Yeh. pages cm. — (Harvard East Asian monographs; 380) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-674-50435-6 (hardcover : acid-free paper) 1. Political fiction, Chinese—History and criticism. 2. Politics and literature—China. I. Title. PL2443.Y44 2015 895.1’35209358—dc23 2014032990 Index by the author Printed on acid-free paper Last figure below indicates year of this printing 20 19 18 17 16 15

To my father, Yap Chu-Phay, and my mother, Marcelia Vance Yeh

Contents List of Illustrations

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction i. The Formation of a World Genre: The Political Novel 1

Forming the Core

1 11 13

2 Global Migration: The Far East

53

ii. Bringing the World Home: The Political Novel in China

111

The Migration of Literary Forms: Transcultural Flow and the Japanese Model

113

3

4 “Reform of Governance” and the New Public Sphere

162

Women and New China

231

6 In Search of New Heroes

267

5

7

Beginning of the Beginning: The Wedge Chapter

315

Conclusions

348

Bibliography

357

Index

411

Illustrations 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 3.1a. 3.1b. 3.2. 3.3a. 3.3b. 4.1. 4.2. 6.1a. 6.1b. 6.1c.

“Illustration of the Great Prosperity of Imperial Japan” Twenty-dollar interest-bearing note of 1864 The key protagonists of Stormy Seas of Passion Cover of The Founding of the Swiss Republic Front cover of The Record of Scotland’s Independence Statue of Sir William Wallace Front cover of Glaciers and Snowdrifts with horn-title “Picture of Victory” “Independent State” Chinese fiction publication between 1900 and 1911 “A Look at China Now and in the Past” Photograph of Tolstoy Photograph of Lord Byron Photograph of Victor Hugo

65 68 69 88 119 120 126 157 157 164 224 273 273 273

Acknowledgments

T

his book goes back to my doctoral dissertation on Zeng Pu’s Flower in the Sea of Retribution, a work that started out as a “political novel.” At the time a full-scale study on this world genre, however, was beyond my reach. With the kind support and encouragement of Patrick Hanan, the dissertation was eventually completed. As my interest in transcultural studies developed, I took up the broader issue of the formation and development of the world genre of the political novel. This was made possible by a research grant from the Lyon-based Institut d’Asie Orientale of the French National Research Foundation, CNRS, under Christian Henriot; and by the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” at Heidelberg University in Germany, which kindly invited me for a year of research and provided a highly stimulating environment for this kind of study. To both I am greatly indebted, and I hope that the outcome will justify their commitment. On the long road to the eventual book, several colleagues gave precious advice, help, and encouragement. I wish especially to thank Tarumoto Teruo, whose database of late Qing fiction was a crucial resource, and Wilt Idema and David Wang, both of whom read carefully through an earlier draft and gave valuable criticism and advice. The comments by two anonymous readers helped sharpen the focus and reduce the length of the manuscript. Vladimir Tikhonov and Barbara Wall helped me avoid grievous mistakes in the section on the Korean political novel. Wei Shuge was kind enough to help me get access to rare copies of important political novels in the Jilin Library; Ellen Widmer generously shared

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Acknowledgments

some rare and important materials with me; and Zhu Junzhou was instrumental in my getting copies of materials from the Shanghai Library. John Stevenson kindly smoothed out the language of two draft chapters. To all of them I owe deep gratitude. The supportive environment provided by my colleagues at Boston University greatly contributed to my mustering the energies needed to finish the project. The journey turned into a truly enjoyable intellectual adventure through the discussion of nearly every argument presented here with Rudolf Wagner, my partner in life. I wish to thank him for his unstinting support and patience. —C. V. Y.

Introduction

T

he political novel enjoyed a steep, short, and international career between the 1830s and the first decade of the twentieth century. This period saw a sharp increase in the international spread of goods, ideas, concepts, institutions, and practices. It was facilitated by greatly improved forms of communication through steamships and telegraph lines, and fueled by the global travel of workers, entertainers, globetrotters, and revolutionists. The result was a rapid, massive, and interrelated worldwide change, internally in political institutions and externally in the relations between peoples, societies, and nations. The political novel is directly and consciously linked to these changes, and it was used as an instrument of public advocacy to influence their direction. The new genre was not the first to discover the advocacy potential of the novel. It followed the lead of Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress to Salvation Directed (1678) as well as efforts since the end of the eighteenth century by the Protestant inland and foreign missions to counter the salacious stories in British chapbooks and their immoral counterparts elsewhere with Christian novels. It was believed that ideas translated into plot and story and embodied by human protagonists would be easier to grasp in their real-life dimension and more effective in changing the hearts and minds of the people. Chinese poetry and drama also had a long and rich tradition of using literary means to discuss political issues and even confront the powers-that-be. From the seventeenth century this potential was also seen in the novel, and by the nineteenth century

2

Introduction

Christian missionaries, government loyalists, and Taiping Christian rebels all produced advocacy fiction.1 The new genre of the political novel was first used by Benjamin Disraeli, from about 1844 before his political rise, to outline for a wider public the political changes that he thought England needed to avoid the type of turmoil that had shaken the Continent since the 1830s and to demonstrate which social forces might bring these changes about. The form was quickly adapted by political reformers on the Continent (Italy, France, Germany). By the 1870s politicians in the Far East who were pushing for political reform to meet the Western challenge (first in Japan, then in the Philippines, China, Korea, and Vietnam) began adopting what they saw as a medium that had shown efficacy in Europe. Liang Qichao (1873–1929) introduced the genre and demonstrated its potential in China in 1898 after the coup that ended the Hundred Days Reform and forced him into exile. He referred with admiration to the public impact such novels had had in the Japanese and European reforms. European and American politicians, he said, had written such novels to spread their reform ideas in times of national crisis. Japanese reformers had adopted the idea, translated some of these works, and written new ones. Because of the unique power of the novel to emotionally engage and influence the reader, the publication of such works by famous politicians time and again changed the mind-set of a whole country. As compared to the popular but unsavory traditional Chinese novels, he referred to these political novels as “reformed” or “new” novels, xin xiaoshuo 新小說. Given the priority of the advocacy function, the genre was in each case adjusted to the local and personal agenda. Although all novels can be said to have a social context and function, this context is embedded in the time and place of their creation. It ranges from a link so close that the work will be incomprehensible or irrelevant for readers at another place or a different date to an enduring quality and independence of locality that allows the work to remain relevant and readable for nonacademic readers over long and even very long stretches of time. In the case of the political 1. For the novels by China missionaries from the years 1810 to 1840, see Hanan, “Missionary Novels”; for the government loyalists, see the discussion of Quell the Bandits (1853) in David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, pp. 124–39; for the Taipings, see Hong Rengan, Yingjie gui zhen.

Introduction

3

novel, the explicit connections to the political issues, debates, and personalities of the place and time of the action might account for both the success and the limited timeline of the genre. For the the genre to migrate to other linguistic, historical, and political environments through translations or new creations, a perceived similarity of political context and potential function must be assumed. Only such a perception would energize the agency of translators and authors. The political novel is not alone in having such close links to the political and institutional environment. The high-temperature environment, for example, of China’s transition from empire to nation amidst civil war, conflicts with foreign powers, and revolution between 1850 and the 1920s resulted in a fusion where even genres with a relative autonomy from politics, such as the new detective story or some forms of poetry, were drawn into the political reform debate. In a critical departure from the widely shared assumption among literary scholars that a political agenda can only have a detrimental effect on writing, I will explore whether the political novel might have owed its ascendancy to the promise it carried as a potent instrument of literary advocacy; whether the requirements of advocacy drove the writers not just when crafting the content, but also in their literary interventions; and whether the popularity of the political novel played a role in reconfiguring the local standing of the fictional genre more generally. The choice of the novel over other literary forms of higher cultural status such as poetry or the essay reflects the desire by writers to capitalize on the already established popularity of the novel form, which was moving from lowly entertainment to the new global leading literary genre. Liang Qichao was quite explicit when he defined the novel as the “highest of literature’s vehicles” (wenxue zhi zuishang cheng 文學之最上乘).2 The use of the Buddhist term “vehicle” indicates the salvationist agenda to which he was to harness the novel. In China as elsewhere the world genre of the political novel was primarily formed through the agency of aspiring political reformers rather than that of fiction writers devoted to their craft. The study of such a world genre faces major challenges beyond the evident quandary of having to deal with the different languages and contexts of the works in question. How is one to define the identity of such a world genre? Does it maintain this identity as it crosses borders, and 2. Liang Qichao, “Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi,” p. 3.

4

Introduction

how is this done? What are the dynamics driving the translingual and transcultural appropriation of its forms? Where is the agency in these dynamics? What role does its global spread play in its local presentation? What strategies were used to insert the genre effectively into the local literary and political context? What are the social, economic, and political conditions in the local public sphere (literacy levels, publication outlets, censorship) in which the genre must unfold its effects? What is the relationship between political and literary considerations in the writing and reading of these novels? What are the specific mechanisms through which the genre interacts with the political environment and with other forms of political articulation? Does the use of the genre in different national contexts signal an understanding that these political contexts themselves were becoming—or were supposed to become—more similar in a wider historical move toward “modernity”? What has been the impact of this type of widely read advocacy fiction on the standing and perceived purpose of fiction more generally? These are some of the most pressing questions that this study will try to address. Fortunately, the political novel is a field manageable enough to allow for engaging with some of these challenges. The present study started off with a focus on the Chinese political novel in the early twentieth century. The intrinsic structure of the available record as well as Chinese claims of the genre’s importance in the political reforms in the West and Japan, however, required an approach that does not banish these worldwide connections into footnotes but fully explores them. Yet there is little in the available scholarly literature to go by. Like other forms of agenda-driven fiction, the political novel has largely been written out of the various national histories of literature as being of little enduring value.3 The Chinese political novel in particular has been cast 3. The dismissal of agenda-driven fiction from the literary canon has itself become a transculturally shared feature. In Japan the polemics about the place of the political novel in the history of literature started with Tsubouchi Shōyō’s influential 1885 critique in his “Essence of the Novel.” Tsubouchi, who had previously written a political novel himself, claimed that “it is wrong to regard political allegories as the main theme of the novel (shōsetsu).” The preface to the third part of the political novel Kajin no kigū (Mysterious encounters with beautiful women) in 1886 countered: “The novelist’s goal is not to play with exquisite devices or describe customs and human emotions; it is to demonstrate opinions and principles and to smoothly shape people’s views—in other words, the goal lies outside the text.” Both quoted in Asukai, “Seiji shōsetsu,” p. 76.

Introduction

5

and decried by recent Chinese scholarship as the ancestor of a literature that is “to serve the politics” of the party/state so that even authors who concede its impact have not felt the need for further study.4 The dynamics of the formation and development of such world genres, furthermore, are not in the purview of histories of literatures that operate with the nationstate default mode. At the same time, political historians have excluded the political novel from their body of bona fide sources because it belongs to the genre of fiction. My study must therefore go the whole way from establishing the primary source record of the genre to analyzing the literary devices and political implications of its most important works to sketching its dynamics as a world genre. This work connects with wider challenges to inherited literary scholarship. In their early volumes on the rise of modern literatures in Asia (1965–70), Prague scholars have shown the close structural similarity in the shifts of different Asian literatures to modern and global literary forms and hierarchies without, however, addressing the transcultural interaction among them and other literatures.5 In a critical dialogue with a “comparative literature” approach, Pascale Casanova, Franco Moretti, David Damrosch, and others have sketched the outlines and the dynamics of literature as interconnected strands in a world literature.6 Both Moretti and Casanova highlight asymmetrical interactions between core and periphery, but they differ in their assessment of the underlying dynamics: Moretti sees them as derived from asymmetries in economic strength and political power, whereas Casanova points to the disjuncture between the importance of Paris as the capital of the world republic of letters between 1920 and 1960, on the one hand, and the marginal economic and cultural power of France during this period, on the other. As a consequence, she locates the agency in this elevation of Paris not in imperial imposition 4. Yuan Jin, Zhongguo wenxue de jindai biange, pp. 159–70; Chen Pingyuan, Ershi shiji, vol. 1, p. 7. It does not seem fruitful to further explore the problem of a “eurocentric” set of concepts and methodologies versus presumably authentic “Asian” notions because most Asian literary scholarship has long absorbed and adapted the “eurocentric” set. For such a line of study, see Yingjin Zhang, China in a Polycentric World, especially the essays by Yingjin Zhang, “Engaging Chinese Comparative Literature,” and David Palumbo-Liu, “Utopias of Discourse.” 5. Král, Černá, et al., Contributions. 6. Casanova, République mondiale; Moretti, “Conjectures.”

6

Introduction

but in the desire of writers from elsewhere to be part of its literary scene. This point will be taken up in my discussion of the agency driving the dynamics of the world genre of the political novel. David Damrosch has argued that with translation works of literature “cease to be the exclusive products of their original culture” and “become works that only ‘began’ in their original language.”7 Pursuing this argument further, I will explore what role such translations played in their new environment that allowed them to be perceived as models to be emulated. The world genre of the political novel was formed as part of a general process of transcultural interaction. The budding field of transcultural studies therefore deals with processes related to our endeavour and might offer concepts, approaches, and methodological tools of use for this study. An earlier narrative shared by anthropologists had subsumed transcultural interactions under the category of “acculturation,” with one culture becoming acculturated by another that was marked as “higher.” This approach fails to take into account the substantial changes human beings and their cultural products undergo as they interact with other people and cultures, and it reduces the agency involved in local adaptations and re-creations to mere imitation. In a radical reversal of this approach, Fernando Ortiz suggested the term “transculturation” to describe the creative cultural hybridity seen in Cuba even in a situation where foreign interests were dominating the economy and the state institutions.8 This approach suggests that local “pull” rather than “push” by a superior power is the principal factor driving such interactions. The situation he describes, however, might be peculiar to this island, and he does not address the ways in which the historical actors themselves understood this process. I will probe the location of the agency that makes the political novel into a world genre and the motivation of the agents involved. For the study of the genre’s identity, I have benefited from efforts to identify the narrative core of folk tales as they migrate across cultures and languages.9 Although these studies focus on protagonist types and plot elements rather than on plot engines and formal features of the narrative, their basic strategy to constitute the identity of the tale seems adaptable 7. Damrosch, What Is World Literature? 22. 8. Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint. 9. Propp, Morphology; Lévi-Strauss, “Structure and Form.”

Introduction

7

to my purposes. It consists of locating shared core elements in actual narratives with often widely diverging surface features. We will then have to confront the problem that the link between political novels and the name of the genre is unstable. Some of them are announced as such, others not, and still others are announced as such but do not fit the pattern. Instead of imposing one theoretical construct or the other, I thus propose to extract from historical literary practice the core elements of the political novel. As such a hermeneutic approach defines its field and its sources based on the perception and practices of the historical protagonists, it will follow them wherever they go. This approach will define its own purpose as analyzing the dynamics of the transcultural process this involves and will do so by reading given works and their context against the background of other works of the genre as well as other forms of public articulation that have gone into their matrix. It involves comparison of the way in which different authors—who are writing in their particular contexts and languages what they see as a genre actually connected across different languages and cultures—make their individual contribution. In studying the political novel, rather than making a comparison of random samples, I am pursuing an analysis of works inherently and explicitly linked to a common “world” genre. It is an approach that critically differs from established comparative literature approaches by accepting the premise that transcultural interaction is not a recent phenomenon, but the lifeline of culture altogether, and by thus refusing to go along with the reification of linguistic and cultural borders for purposes of subsequent comparison.10 This study contains two parts. The first tracks the process through which an identifiable core of the political novel formed and developed, and through which it became a world genre. Chapter 1 sets the stage by investigating whether in the early European and American exemplars core literary features of the genre can be identified that will remain key markers of works in this genre no matter what language they are written in. Chapter 2 focuses on the migration of the political novel to East Asia, in particular Japan and China. It tests the stability of the core features 10. This discussion is informed by the approach of the “Cluster of Excellence” titled “Asia and Europe in a Global Context: Shifting Asymmetries in Cultural Flows” at Heidelberg University, Germany, which offered me a year of hospitality and stimulating discussions.

8

Introduction

under the manifold concrete forms the novels assume locally and probes the dynamics of genre migration. The second part investigates how the genre was inserted into the Chinese environment and then reconfigured in interaction with the local literary and political context. Chapter 3 develops the argument that literary form rather than simply content is carrying new ideas across linguistic and cultural borders. It studies Chinese translations of Japanese political novels to sketch the dynamics and the agents driving the migration of literary forms and the process of their local insertion. In a critical departure from previous scholarship, it reads these translations as integral parts of the Chinese-language fiction. The selection of texts for translation and the ways in which their narrative strategies and topical elements were inserted as innovative elements into the Chinese context serve as evidence for the particular creative energy and agency that made them into Chinese texts. Examples from Chinese political novels show how these forms were adapted. Chapter 4 tests the validity of the prevailing view that the late Qing novel in general and the political novel in particular are a new kind of societal articulation that disassociates itself from and is opposed to court discourse. Starting out from the synchronicity between the two most important court reform edicts of 1901 and of 1906 and the two corresponding peaks in novel publication as well as the close connection between the thematic foci, I present evidence that Qing political novels were inserting themselves into the court-set agenda without, however, losing their leeway as independent articulations outside of the court’s control. Chapter 5 takes up the novels dealing with an area which the court was most hesitant to reform: women’s standing in the public and the family, their relationship with men, and their education. While the independent stance of the novels here is most marked, the chapter explores how the authors—including the women authors—largely kept within the broad reform agenda of the court by emphasizing women’s potential contributions to the development of the country. They also shared the anxieties prompting the court attitude by having their otherwise exceedingly daring, radical, and modern heroines abide by very traditional norms of chastity. Chapter 6 follows the literary strategies used by Chinese authors to achieve their ultimate goal—a transformation of the political mind-set of

Introduction

9

the Chinese people. For this purpose they offered portrayals of persons who might serve as positive or negative models. On the basis of their portraits of new model figures (the political reformer, the scientist, the detective, and the anarchist revolutionary), I show the behavioral features seen as optimal for a new China as well as the relationship of the value system in which these new model figures were anchored to what was seen as typical Chinese forms of behavior. The final chapter deals with a unique feature of Chinese political novels not found in any of its models, the “wedge chapter” at the beginning, a recast feature from earlier Chinese drama and fiction that is set off from the rest through its largely independent allegorical coding. I explore the connection between the addition of this new feature and authors’ assessment of the political maturity of their envisaged readers as well as the ways in which authors handled the tension between the traditional form and purpose of the wedge, on the one hand, and the new evolutionist plot engine coming with the political novel, on the other. Throughout this study I use the term “reformer” to refer to Chinese participants in the literary movement of the political novel or the new novel. This assumption is based on the subject matter they address in their work and/or the kind of journal they publish in. Most of them were not professional fiction writers, but also wrote in other media, often on the same topics. With the founding of the Republic, or more precisely the opening of the Provincial Political Assembly in 1909–10, most of them abandoned writing political novels and ran for election as the opportunity presented itself. No clearer comment could be made about the Chinese time window within which the genre flourished. Once other avenues opened to more effectively pursue the same goals and once the key player—the court—lost its capacity to frame the discussion, the political novel lost its purpose. Through its short bloom, however, it had a long-lasting effect on the standing of the modern novel in China. I will address this aspect in my conclusion.

Part i The Formation of a World Genre: The Political Novel

Chapter 1

Forming the Core

D

uring the first decade of the twentieth century, a genre spread in Chinese-language fictional writing that was often referred to at the time as the “political novel,” zhengzhi xiaoshuo 政治小説. The term was a verbatim translation of the English genre name. First coined with the same characters in Japan, it was used to signal to readers a new kind of novel—both in translations and in original works—that was marked by its active engagement with the present-day political environment. Chinese reformers—the most important being Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929)— had heard that the genre had played an important role in the struggle for reforms in Japan during the 1880s as well as earlier in Europe. Politicians, he claimed, had used it to influence public opinion and spread their ideas in an exciting new format that was attractive for wider audiences. Liang believed that such novels had transformed whole societies overnight. This new literary form stimulated his imagination because he was a politician out of power, and it had the potential to carry his reform ideas to wider audiences. He took it upon himself to spread the genre in China through translations and theoretical essays. A historical constellation soon developed that provided an optimal environment for the new subgenre with effects far beyond its immediate literary impact. The coup by the empress dowager in 1898 that ended the “Hundred Days Reform” had led to persecution and exile for many reformers, including Liang Qichao. Deprived of official positions, they focused in their public political communication on the new media of newspapers and journals that were published in the Shanghai International Settlement and other places outside the direct control of the Peking court. In 1901 the

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court, which had become embroiled in the Boxer riots against foreigners in 1900 and had been driven from Peking by the punitive expedition of the powers that followed, acceded to the demands of some Han Chinese officials to resume the drive for reforms. The ensuing official Reform of Governance agenda, Xinzheng 新政, comprised policies that were hesitantly but continuously pursued until the end of imperial rule in China in 1911, including even an encouragement to submit reform proposals. This agenda created a framework in which the political novel was able to flourish as an independent platform to articulate society’s demands for reform. As a genre reputed to have played a major part in reform efforts elsewhere—Liang referred to England, America, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, and Japan1—the political novel reached China with politics not as an extraliterary burden but as its inspiration. Several factors came together to form an environment in which the new genre could flourish. These included a desire by the public for information about needed reforms; a recognition that the political novel had proved effective in educating the public about such needed reforms in the West and Japan; an environment where political novels could be published under legal protections or outside the control of parties that were being criticized; political forces who pushed for gradual reforms of existing structures rather than their quick and total replacement; a publishing industry able to publish good quality media at low prices and with secure distribution channels; and, last but not least, individuals with the intelligence and charisma to assess the situation, develop strategies to deal with it, write the novels, and convince the public. The Chinese political novel is an explicit part of a world genre. The transcultural nature is not marginal to this genre but essential. Writers were inspired by works of the genre written in other parts of the world and made use of the themes and literary strategies developed there. By adopting this form, they implicitly and often explicitly claimed that their own political vision and struggle were part of a larger worldwide struggle. Therefore, the core constituents of this genre as well as its historical significance must be established in the context of its world migration. 1. Liang Qichao, “Yi yin zhengzhi xiaoshuo xu.” As Liang mentions neither authors nor titles, it is not always clear what he refers to. No source for his sweeping assessment has been located. It might have been an oral communication from a Japanese author of political novels.

Forming the Core

15

This chapter will attempt to define the core features marking the identity of the genre through a literary and political analysis of some key works. In this process it will ask how stable the conventions of the genre were as it moved across borders, whether the genre was tied to a particular political agenda, and whether it flourished in a particular political situation and ceased to do so once the situation changed.

Disraeli and the Political Novel Although various antecedents are sometimes mentioned,2 there is general agreement that the political novel began with Benjamin Disraeli’s (1804– 81) Young England trilogy, Coningsby (1844), Sybil (1845), and Tancred (1847).3 The Young England trilogy deals with the political life of England during the 1830s, while addressing issues of the 1840s. Disraeli explored the controversies between the political parties, had his protagonists propose a series of reforms in politics and religion, and sketched a coalition of social forces (“Young England”) that could be called on to support them. He also developed the particular features that came to define the genre. Speaking from the perspective of a strictly literary scholar of early Victorian novels, David Cecil writes: “Disraeli’s novels, for all their brilliance, are not strictly speaking novels. They are not, that is, meant to be realistic pictures of life, but discussions on political and religious questions put into fictional form.”4 Whereas the eminent scholar on Disraeli 2. Various claims have been made as to the origin of the “political novel.” Eliza Haywood (1693–1753) is among the earliest to be mentioned. See Kvande, “Outsider Narrator.” An 1881 New York Times article titled “Political Novels” names Miss Maria Edgeworth’s Ireland novels Ennui (1809) and The Absentee (1812) as the true beginnings. The article does not mention Disraeli but claims, after having included Sir Walter Scott’s Waverly in the group, that the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, is “the greatest of all political novelists.” 3. Christopher Harvie put it this way: “If the political novel is defined, as G. M. Young described history, as ‘the conversation of the people who counted,’ then Disraeli originated the genre, and we must start with him.” Centre of Things, p. 8. See also Monypenny, Life of Benjamin Disraeli, p. 197; Blake, Disraeli, p. 190. 4. Cecil, Early Victorian Novelists, p. 290n; quoted in Robert Blake, Disraeli, p. 211.

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chapter 1

and Victorian literature Robert Blake also refers to these novels as exemplars of the roman à thèse, he disagrees with Cecil’s judgment, pointing to both the character depictions in Disraeli’s Young England trilogy and his somber descriptions of the grim life in the northern manufacturing towns.5 In his preface to the fifth edition of Coningsby, or The New Generation, in 1849, Disraeli was unequivocal concerning his advocacy purpose: “It was not originally the intention of the writer to adopt the form of fiction as the instrument to scatter his suggestions, but after reflection, he resolved to avail himself of a method which, in the temper of the times, offered the best chance of influencing opinion.”6 One of the motivations for Disraeli to write political novels was their potential to make a stir. When he wrote his trilogy, he was about to turn forty. He was frustrated with the state of British politics and especially with the Tory party, of which he was a member. He considered it opportunistic in its policies and without a clear vision for England’s future. He was becoming increasingly restless at the dismal prospect of going down in history as a back-bencher remembered for a few brilliant speeches but without real impact on British political life. In the words of political historian Ian St. John, he aspired to “create public opinion instead of following it; to lead the public instead of always lagging after and watching others.”7 With his Young England trilogy, he put the political novel on the literary map. It was a huge success; the first thousand copies were sold in a fortnight.8 A polemic against Coningsby that came out shortly after the novel was published in 1844 admitted in desperation: “How is it then, that in every literary circle the first question you are asked, since its appearance, is ‘Have you read Coningsby?’ ”9 An 1844 essay on the work started: “Everybody has read Coningsby:—the edition went off in a week. . . . We, therefore shall make no extracts and assume that all the world knows what we are writing about.”10 5. Blake, Disraeli, pp. 211–12. 6. Disraeli, “Preface.” 7. St. John, Disraeli, p. 23. 8. For details on the contemporary reaction to Coningsby, see Flavin, Benjamin Disraeli, p. 68. 9. Strictures on Coningsby, p. 5. Several “keys” for Coningsby were published, and one author, who signed his work “Embryo, M. P.,” felt prompted to publish a twovolume Anti-Coningsby; or, The New Generation Grown Old. 10. Real England, “A Few Remarks,” p. 601.

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Benjamin Disraeli was born in 1804 into a well-to-do family of Jewish background.11 His parents had him baptized in the Anglican Church. Certain of his own talents and under the spell of Byron and Shelley, Disraeli had a romantic view of himself and felt that he was destined for greatness. The question for him was only in what: literature or politics? Before entering politics, Disraeli tried writing poetry and novels. Although his early dreams about becoming another Byron ended, he continued to write novels throughout his life.12 In 1837 he entered Parliament as a member for Maidstone, and it was during the next few years that he conceived of a new kind of novel that would be the medium to express his 11. Although Disraeli’s parents were not religious Jews, an anti-Semitic slant is visible in many nineteenth-century comments about “oriental” fantasies in Disraeli’s novels. His critics enjoyed writing his name D’Israeli in the manner his father had done. Strictures on Coningsby, for example, identifies the author as B. D’Israeli. 12. Disraeli’s other novels are Vivian Grey (1826), Popanilla (1828), The Young Duke (1831), Contarini Fleming (1832), Alroy (1833), The Infernal Marriage (1834), Ixion in Heaven (1834), The Revolutionary Epick (1834), The Rise of Iskander (1834), Henrietta Temple (1837), Venetia (1837), The Tragedy of Count Alarcos (1839), Lothair (1870), Endymion (1880), and Falconet (unfinished, 1881). Edward Said argued in 1978 that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western imperialists, including scholars and artists, constructed an entire category of knowledge designed to justify Western domination of the “Orient” in general and the world of Islam in particular. Ironically, it was Said’s critique that brought the Young England trilogy back into public discussion. Disraeli is Said’s emblematic orientalist. Said’s Orientalism starts with a quotation from Disraeli and goes into some detail about Tancred. Said’s take on Disraeli, however, has been criticized as being both ahistorical and inaccurate, evincing a misreading of his political novels and a superimposition of British imperialist policies of the latter half of the nineteenth century onto these earlier novels. Set strongly in the historical context of British political life, Disraeli’s trilogy was a well-calculated critique of contemporary political life in England and advocated a turning toward the “East” in search of wisdom and spiritual guidance, albeit an imaginary, ancient, cultural East. See Proudman, “Disraeli.” In a more historically grounded discussion about imperialism and Disraeli’s novels, Daniel Bivona argues that, in a literary gesture that anticipates a latenineteenth-century British imperialist posture, Disraeli’s trilogy, read as a unit, promotes British expansion as the inevitable result of an institutional reform that brought the middle and working classes into the political system. “His novels, in short, gave him a forum in which to ally ideological argument with imperial fantasy, and to do so in a way which expediently insulated Disraeli the politician from the full implications of this alignment.” Bivona, “Disraeli’s Political Trilogy,” p. 306. For an in-depth study on Disraeli and his attitude toward the East, see Ković, Disraeli.

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political and social views. Disraeli was an ambitious, energetic, and brilliant politician. His path to success and fame, however, was by no means smooth and without risk. He finally became prime minister, a position he held from February through December 1868 and again from 1874 to 1880. During this latter stint he became an intimate friend of Queen Victoria and was made First Earl of Beaconsfield.13 In Samuel Smiles’s Self-Help (1859), which was read and translated in Japan as a guide to modern behavior, he is presented as a man of tireless energy who coped with frustration by working harder—and he was successful, the true model of a modern man.14 Politically his trilogy was seen as linked to the Young England movement and was interpreted as its program. In the words of one critic, the importance of this trilogy in British politics was precisely “the fact that it was the manifesto of Young England, and that it provided the Tory party with a faith calculated to stand the wind and weather of the modern world.”15 “Young England” is the name by which a small group of young members of the Tory elite referred to themselves as they confronted the old Tory leadership, which they thought had lost contact with the changing realities of the country. Young England pushed for political change within the Tory party with a strong emphasis on reforming the electoral system to secure a voice for “the people” through parliamentary representation of the manufacturing bourgeoisie and the new middle class.16 Disraeli’s trilogy gave form to these ideas. Written during the mid- and late 1840s, the novels are set around 1830. On the Continent Metternich’s variant of absolutism, with its restoration of the privileges of nobility and its repression of public freedoms, had led 13. Maurois, Disraeli, pp. 146–95; Blake, Disraeli, p. 500; Weintraub, Disraeli, p. 548. 14. Smiles, Self-Help, p. 20. The first of several Japanese translations came out in 1876. 15. Fisher, “Political Novel,” p. 29. 16. Scholars argued, however, that the Young England movement, viewed in its widest context (including Tractarianism and the Gothic revival), was the reaction of a defeated class—the aristocratic class—to a sense of its own defeat: “a sort of nostalgic escape from the disagreeable present to the agreeable but imaginary past.” Blake, Disraeli, p. 171. Although most members of the Young England movement, such as George Smythe and Lord John Manners, were young aristocrats, Disraeli was the exception. The trilogy articulates the ideology of the Young England movement within Disraeli’s own vision. For a detailed study of this movement, see Faber, Young England.

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to violent rebellions, and England had yet to pass the Reform Act of 1832 to thwart such upheavals. This act increased the right of suffrage among the middle classes. Disraeli upheld the vision of a peaceful and rational transition from traditional aristocratic rule to a new régime that was based on a coalition of progressive “young” aristocratic and bourgeois forces. The novels were to act as a mirror held up to the members of the old régime “to show them off,” as one scholar commented, “to themselves in their stupidities, their selfishness, their unwillingness to recognize the new and powerful industrial and social forces which had been born.” The mirror also revealed “a decayed church, a frivolous youth possessed of no sense of their coming responsibilities, and an aristocratic society where men and women lived under the most ignorant notions of the nature of the stirring forces abroad.”17 Disraeli’s novels introduced a new idealized protagonist, the young man as political reformer. This character was to offer the young generation a role model, showing “what kind of character and strength was needed for them if they were to be in their turn the natural leaders of the whole people as their great forbears had been.”18 Coningsby has been described as “the first and most brilliant of English political novels, a genre which [Disraeli] may be said to have invented.”19 According to Disraeli himself, the novel was to address three principal topics: “the derivation and character of political parties; the condition of the people which had been the consequence of them; the duties of the Church as a main remedial agency in our present state.”20 Disraeli claimed that all of these ideas were launched in Coningsby, but only the “origin and character of political parties” was dealt with extensively.21 The plot hinges on the relationship between young Coningsby as the representative of the forces of reform and his grandfather Lord Monmouth, who upholds the old order. Monmouth has relinquished his luxurious life in Italy and has returned to England with the sole purpose of defeating the Reform Bill (1832). Disraeli prepares the first encounter 17. Speare, Political Novel, p. 10. 18. Ibid. 19. Blake, Disraeli, p. 190; Isaiah Berlin also refers to Disraeli as “the inventor of the political novel”; see Berlin, “Benjamin Disraeli,” pp. 263–64. Stanley Weintraub refers to Coningsby as “the first significant political novel in England.” Disraeli, 219; see also Flavin, Benjamin Disraeli, p. 207, #3. 20. Disraeli, “General Preface,” p. ii. 21. Ibid.

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between the two protagonists carefully with satirical portraits of some of the political operators surrounding Monmouth and a flattering portrait of young Coningsby. When ushered into the imposing presence of Monmouth, Coningsby is promptly overcome by the occasion and bursts into tears. His grandfather, who abhors emotional displays, impatiently dismisses him as a milksop but has second thoughts about the boy’s caliber at dinner when, having managed to get control of his nerves, Coningsby confidently offers another guest a good bottle of champagne if he would come and dine with him at Eton, his school. Monmouth then takes kindly to the boy and shows him some favor, even intending to make him heir to his wealth and to his politics. Although Coningsby likes his grandfather and is grateful to him, he eventually formulates his own Tory creed and rejects that of Monmouth, who in turn disowns him. The intended political symbolism becomes clearer as the novel proceeds. The conflict is that between the old and young generations of the landed gentry and between dated political views and practices and a new agenda put forth by the new generation. In the process of his political maturation, which is described with the instruments of the Bildungsroman, Coningsby becomes convinced that the nation lacks a true understanding of and commitment to the principles of democracy. In particular, he comes to believe that a political alliance between the landed gentry and the manufacturers will secure the renovation of the political foundations of a country that has witnessed dramatic economic changes together with the rise of the new industrial classes, that is, the workers and entrepreneurs. The notion that the new foundations of the political life of nations will eventually have to be laid by young men of political vision is fully borne out in the end, when Coningsby and his friends are finally elected to Parliament. Lord Monmouth, for his part, embodies the corruption of what was once the hallmark of the Tory party, democracy. Undoubtedly, there is in the depiction of Monmouth some spiteful reference to notorious aristocrats, yet the primary function of this character is to symbolize the self-gratification and self-interest of traditional Toryism, which must be discarded and replaced by the young generation’s new idealistic brand of politics.22 It is only in the light of the overall structure of the novel that 22. Flavin, Benjamin Disraeli, p. 71.

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Monmouth, as the old generation of the landed gentry, becomes a powerful symbol in contrast to the great Manchester manufacturer of the novel, Mr. Millbank (a reference to the mills and the banks). Through the conflict between the two men, Disraeli describes what he sees as the two greatest problems of the country: the blind selfishness of the aristocrats, which prevents them from recognizing the political importance of the industrial classes, and the underrepresentation of the manufacturing class in the political institutions of the land. These problems result in the impairment of the health of the political process and a distorted reflection of the country’s political reality in its institutions. To renew the popular bases of the Tories, Disraeli proposes a nearly mystical union of church, monarchy, and people. The core political motivation driving the genre in its initial stage was the wish to express and make widely available a strategy of political reform that contrasted with the violent social change advocated by others. The French Revolution and the European upheavals of 1830 are prime examples of the latter. In contrast, Disraeli’s novel calls for a rejuvenation of the political class and its thinking, the emergence of a “Young England.” It reacts to the failure of existing political structures to reflect new ideas and forces in a timely manner and to the frustration that comes with the lack of the political muscle to bring about change. Such reformist but also conservative elements thus became the core features of the political novel. Turning to the literary features, the plot is set in present time; the places are real urban localities in the modern world. Contemporary political figures are taken as raw material for the creation of characters, with almost all the major figures in the novel modeled on real persons known to Disraeli, his own person included. The basic constellation of problems for the novel is provided by the contemporary political situation, which often provides the time frame as well. The hero, Coningsby, as the embodiment of the qualities of a new kind of political leader with new ideas for the nation, is expected to act and realize the ideals. Detailed descriptions are given of the issues involved in the great political controversies of the time. Entire sections of the novel are devoted to the discussion of party politics or of certain pieces of legislation. The novel’s action hinges on the main character, who perceives that the nation is in crisis. The hero embodies and lives out the contradictions of the time, searching as a reformer for principles worth preserving and formulating the new

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political program needed for the country’s future. He grows as new surroundings and broader national debates stimulate him, and international perspectives and connections bring him new insights and ideas. Telling names are used to indicate the symbolic nature of the characters or to satirize them. At the end of the novel the realization of the author’s political vision of the key constituents of a new, young, and innovative elite to run the country is symbolized through the marriage between Coningsby and Miss Millbank—the landed gentry/aristocratic class and the newly rising industrial class. The election of Coningsby and his friends to Parliament, Coningsby’s marriage to Miss Millbank, and the mystical union of church, monarchy, and people mentioned above are described as a record of the recent past but are in fact projections of hoped-for future developments. Such projections became a core feature of the political novel. As the magnitude of the issues and concepts involved eschews realistic descriptions, they tend to come with highly symbolic or allegorical modes of writing. A further important component in this Bildungsroman is travel. To travel means to remove oneself from familiar surroundings and to confront different realities, to learn to see the world, including one’s own, from different perspectives, and to expose oneself to realities that normally would remain outside one’s experience. Traveling at home and abroad is thus crucial in the formation of the political mind of the reformer. The “wandering young man” in pursuit of truth and knowledge remained a powerful image in the political novel both as a literary representation and as a role model for actual behavior. A sizable portion of Disraeli’s novel is devoted to a detailed description of the new manufacturing towns and sites in England’s north. It is given through the eyes of young Coningsby as he travels around to gain firsthand knowledge of the real conditions of the country. As he proceeds with his self-education, the presumedly ignorant reader gets a free ride to learn about such things as the wondrous operation of Mr. Millbank’s factory or the living conditions of Manchester workers. The reader is in fact the real target of the narrative’s enthusiastic affirmation, even glorification, of the power of the industrial classes. Finally, the hero in the shape of the political reformer might come with autobiographic features through which the writer/politician tries to define and fashion himself. Directly after Coningsby had been published

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in 1844, critics set out to identify the real persons behind the main characters, and various “keys” were published.23 Of greatest interest was the role Disraeli seemed to have assigned to himself in his novel. The key protagonists Coningsby and Sidonia have been read as a projection of the internal conflicts and ambivalence of the author regarding his own role in times of social reform. The omniscient enigmatic Jewish multimillionaire Sidonia is the “strange fantasy fulfillment of a cross between Baron de Rothschild and Disraeli himself.”24 Disraeli infused this figure with his sense of being an outsider (his Jewish background being often emphasized by critics) together with an exaggerated sense of his own influence, brilliance, and worldliness. At the same time, his idealized philosophical self had to translate ideals into actions that were pragmatic enough to survive in the actual political environment. We thus have the figure of Coningsby next to that of Sidonia, the latter being the advisor of the future national leader Coningsby, the idealized and romanticized young Disraeli as he sets out to shape England’s future at the end of the novel. Robert O’Kell speaks of Disraeli’s “fictional split personality.”25 Disraeli’s subject matter in Coningsby is not the intrigue-ridden and adventurous life of contemporary politicians but the nature of politics in a particularly challenging period of national crisis. He makes use of contemporary figures to depict attitudes and ideas rather than sketching them true to life. The political novel, therefore, contains polemics rather than intrigue, ideology rather than facts, vision for the future rather than history. It is essentially a critique of the existing political establishment from the point of view of a potentially better future. The political credo of 23. Key to the Characters in Coningsby (1844); and A New Key to the Characters in Coningsby (1844), a work that saw several later reprints. On the autobiographic issue, see Monypenny, Life of Benjamin Disraeli, p. 222. Disraeli often described his novels as a kind of autobiography. “My books are the history of my life—I don’t mean a vulgar photograph of incidents, but the psychological development of my character.” Letters of Disraeli to Lady Bradford and Lady Chesterfield, vol. 1, p. 372, cited from Schwarz, “Disraeli’s Romanticism,” p. 57. See also O’Kell “Autobiographical Nature,” pp. 253–84. 24. Blake, Disraeli, p. 202. “For Disraeli, Young England was a sustaining personal fiction, a political programme that provided an alternative not only to Chartism and utilitarianism, but to the practical considerations of advancing his position.” Schwarz, “Disraeli’s Romanticism,” p. 56. 25. O’Kell, “Disraeli’s ‘Coningsby,’ ” p. 59. See also O’Kell, “Autobiographical Nature,” pp. 253–84.

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the hero is his antiestablishment stance. His situation outside of the power structure becomes the condition for his understanding the real condition and mood of the country, and it is this outsider perspective that allows him to develop a new and fresh political vision. The promise of the political novel is to offer such a new vision and to show the kinds of heroes needed for making it a political reality. As a political and social movement Young England was not alone, nor was it the first. All over Europe the repressive measures introduced by Metternich kindled similar groupings during the 1830s and 1840s. Despite their substantial differences, all identified themselves as “young,” with the implication that they were the energetic forces who would do away with entrenched “old” political structures blocking adjustments to the changed circumstances of the time: La Jeune France (Young France), Giovine Italia (Young Italy), Young Ireland, Junges Deutschland (Young Germany), Jung Österreich (Young Austria), and the Young Russian party. There was even a Young Europe under Mazzini’s inspiration, with subdivisions such as Young Poland, Young Belgium, and Young Switzerland. In following decades this fashion, language, and program were picked up in the Ottoman Empire by the Young Turks and in Japan and China by authors adding “young” to their pen names or journals that included “young” in their titles. Liang Qichao sported the pen name Youth of Young China, Shaonian Zhongguo zhi shaonian 少年中國之少年. These “young” endeavors both confronted the “old” and shared a set of beliefs that were politically conservative and even fundamentalist religious as they demanded more freedoms and rights for the people and, in places such as Italy, Ireland, and Poland, national independence. Although all the individuals and groups involved published intensively to spread their views, the medium of the political novel was not universally used. Despite the shared countertext of these “young” movements as well as their shared political agenda, the political agenda that seems to have been written into the genre’s DNA may not have suited the particular circumstances elsewhere. Disraeli’s political novels were tied to a particular historical moment, when institutional reform in England was acutely contested. Although he continued to use the genre, his later works failed to attract the same attention as the Young England trilogy. The direct and explicit link of

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political novels to a historical and political moment is an important and shared feature of their production and reception. It makes for the often inordinate speed with which they were published, the equally inordinate attention they received, and also for the relatively short lifespan of this attention. The quick publication of “keys” identifying real-life counterparts to fictional characters signals a reading strategy that tied the novel directly to contemporary politics, all the grand issues notwithstanding. The trilogy eventually found a new lease on life in faraway Japan. The association of these novels with the name of an author who had become British prime minister was for aspiring Japanese politicians proof of the effectiveness of the medium.

The Italian Political Novel Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) was at the origin of the diverse “young” groupings in continental Europe. His struggle for the freedom of Italy gave an identifiable name and face to his movement, appealing to romantic sensibilities in Europe that harked back to the struggle for Greek independence supported by writers such as Byron and Hölderlin. Mazzini’s name figures prominently among the heroes that Liang Qichao introduced and promoted in China around 1900.26 Mazzini’s life as a revolutionary was exemplary. He was influenced by the ideas of Rousseau, the doctrines of Saint Simon, and the Revue encyclopédique, with its philosophy and religion in which God, humanity, and a sense of duty were combined into a life mission. He first joined the secret society Carbonaria; after its efforts at reform failed, he started his own secret society, Giovine Italia, in 1831. Its aim was to evict the foreign rulers of what is today Italy and create a unified democratic Republic. The failure of the revolutionary upheaval in central Italy in February 1831 forced a large number of Italian militants to seek exile in France. To publicize their 26. Liang Qichao wrote much on what he considered the new kinds of heroes China needed; see his biographies of Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Cavour, “Yidali jianguo sanjie zhuan”; of Louis Kossuth, “Xiongyali aiguozhe Gasushi zhuan”; and on the general topic of the heroes needed, Ren Gong, “Yingxiong yu shishi.”

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cause, Mazzini founded the journal Giovine Italia in Switzerland in 1832. Having a strong sense of the power of public opinion, he elicited support from national independence movements all over Europe and made contact with like-minded activists from different European countries. To join their strengths against the unified forces of oppression, he helped found Young Europe. This association spread rapidly across Europe. The different branches sometimes worked together. In the 1834 attempt at revolution in Northern Italy, for example, a Polish contingent was involved. The journal Giovine Italia was smuggled into Italy, winning over many Italians to the cause. The basic motto of Giovine Italia was “Thought and Action” (pensiero ed azione). The purpose of the journal was essentially educational, on the premise that education will bring man close to God. In July 1831 Mazzini wrote the “General Instructions for the Comrades in Giovine Italia,” in which he declared that there should be a “fraternity of Italians believing in a law of Progress and Duty.” It was decreed that Italy was to be united and a republic “because all men of a nation are destined by the law of God and Humanity to be free, equal, and brotherly, and the republican institutions are the only ones to secure such a future” and that “without unity there can be no true nation because without unity there is no strength.” Italy was surrounded by unified, powerful, and warlike nations and needed to be strong.27 Mazzini is remembered in Italy as one of its founding fathers, along with Garibaldi and Cavour. Mazzini fascinated Liang Qichao, especially after the failure of the Hundred Days Reform and Liang’s own political exile in Japan. Mazzini was an exile for many years before returning to his native land. Liang saw him as a true patriot, a political reformer, the organizer of the Young Italy movement, and a leader able to make such a movement succeed. Mazzini inspired Liang Qichao to create the “Young China” ideal. In his essay “Shaonian Zhongguo shuo” (Treatise on Young China), he hailed Mazzini as the hero of his time and likened the condition of Italy in the mid-nineteenth century to that of China in the present: both found themselves dismembered after a glorious past and faced the humiliation of oppression by foreign powers.28 Liang Qichao identified with Mazzini and assumed the role of his Chinese counterpart in both 27. Mazzini, “General Instructions,” pp. 129–31. 28. Ren Gong, “Shaonian Zhongguo shuo.”

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the essay and his historical chuanqi play Xin Luoma chuanqi (Romance of the new Rome).29 Mazzini himself did not write political novels; he did, however, have strong opinions on the relationship between art and politics that were to have an impact on his followers. In the 1860s Mazzini summed up his views on the political duties of art: “Art is not the caprice of one individual or another, but a solemn historical pageant or a prophecy. . . . Without Fatherland and Liberty we could perhaps have prophets of Art, but not Art itself.”30 These views were widely shared by those pushing for reform from the “young” margins of the elite. Giovanni Ruffini (1807–81), an early member of Young Italy and for many years a staunch supporter of Mazzini, wrote political novels promoting the cause of Young Italy. He had moved with Mazzini into exile in France in 1833 and then to Switzerland. Eventually he went to Great Britain, and his notebooks show that he familiarized himself with English writers such as Dickens and Thackeray.31 He was befriended by Carlyle, whose views on “heroic” leaders of peoples and cultures and their “worship” framed the roles of the new young challengers of the old order across Eurasia.32 We have no direct evidence that he read or met Disraeli, but given the fame of Disraeli’s novels at the time and the link between Young England and Giovine Italia, it is highly likely that he had read the trilogy. Returning to Italy in 1848, Ruffini became a member of parliament. Appointed ambassador to Paris, he resigned after the Republic was crushed by the French but remained in Paris until 1872. He died later in Italy. Ruffini wrote two political novels, the most famous being Lorenzo Benoni, or Passages in the Life of an Italian.33 Perhaps influenced by 29. Zhang Pengyuan, Liang Qichao yu Qingji geming, pp. 111–15, 117n19. Yinbingshi zhuren, Xin Luoma chuanqi. 30. Mazzini and Menghini, Ricordi Autobiografici, p. 10; quoted from Bayly, Birth of the Modern World, p. 366. 31. Christensen, “Giovanni Ruffini and ‘Doctor Antonio,’ ” p. 139. 32. Carlyle, On Heroes. 33. During his life in exile, Ruffini wrote other novels besides Lorenzo Benoni; for a full-length study on Ruffini’s novels, see Marazzi, Romanzo Risorgimentale; Allan Conrad Christensen’s study of Ruffini’s novels highlights the possible role played by the two English women Cornelia Turner and Henrietta Jenkin, exiles themselves

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Disraeli’s example and most definitely conscious of the importance of British public opinion, the novel came out in English and was published in Edinburgh in 1853.34 It is strongly autobiographical. His second novel, Dr. Antonio, also written in English, was published in 1855. Both novels were to evoke French and English sympathy for the Italian struggle.35 Translations into French and German followed quickly, but Italian translations followed only much later. Both novels explored the potential of the new genre to deal with a topic not addressed by Disraeli, namely, the struggle for national independence. They focused on a key link toward gaining unity and sovereignty for Italy, the attitudes of the public in other European countries, by being written and published not in Italian but in English. Lorenzo Benoni, or Passages in the Life of an Italian is written in the style of a personal memoir. It is the story of a young man named Lorenzo Benoni, like the author a native of Genova, his friendship with Mazzini (in the novel known as Fantasio), and his journey to become a Republican and finally a fugitive wanted by the French authorities who ruled Genova for plotting a revolt against foreign occupation. It employs some of the literary devices of a Bildungsroman. Lorenzo became active in political affairs while still in school. He first helped bring down a student tyrant, establishing a “Republican government” in school for which he drew up a charter that included clauses on democratic elections, delegation of power based on majority vote, limited terms in office, the abolishment of corporal punishment as unworthy of free men, and ostracism for those who acted against the Republic. Meeting Fantasio was a turning point in his life as well as (from unhappy marriages), with whom Ruffini lived for almost three decades in Paris. The two women were both published authors in their own right, and it is likely that they had much to do with Ruffini’s English writing style. See Christensen, European Version, pp. 32–36. In a review of Christensen’s book, J. R. Woodhouse took a more radical stance on the issue of authorship: “The evidence of Ruffini’s manuscripts in the Istituto mazziniano at Genova shows that between them the two women effectively wrote most of Ruffini’s published fiction, translating many of his sketches from French and working up his fascinating political intrigues and sufferings into the ‘Risorgimento’ novels.” Woodhouse, “Review,” p. 853. 34. Christensen, European Version, pp. 41–66. 35. Marazzi, Romanzo Risorgimentale, pp. 38–42.

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that of his brother Caesar, who became Fantasio’s best friend. His first political setback came when Fantasio was arrested for his membership in the Carbonari society and involvement in an insurrection it planned. Narrowly escaping death, Fantasio went into exile, from where he began his first attempt to organize an insurrection under his own leadership. Many youths were mobilized to participate, including most of Lorenzo’s old schoolmates. However, the Savoy government discovered the plot, and many revolutionaries were arrested, including Lorenzo’s brother. The repression was ruthless. The novel devotes a large section to the torture methods used in prison against the revolutionaries to break their spirit, their sanity, and their physical strength. Some members of the movement died a heroic death. The novel ends with Lorenzo’s narrow escape from Genova to Sardinia. His brother took his own life in jail; most of the other conspirators were sentenced to death. The novel is narrated in a lively and engaging, at times even humorous, style, very much in the manner of British fiction, essay, and newspaper writing of the time. There is a refreshing sense of self-irony toward Lorenzo’s youthful naïveté concerning the ruthlessness of the authorities. Ruffini’s Lorenzo Benoni brings new elements to the political novel. Although similar to Disraeli’s trilogy in dealing with the formation of a new generation of political leaders, Lorenzo Benoni shows the making of a revolutionary against foreign oppression rather than the creation of a political reformer who works within the system. Its purpose, power, and agenda as a political novel are to convey the righteousness of the Italian struggle for freedom and independence, a message put forth through the idealized purity of the motives of the revolutionaries and their heroic posture, which relies exclusively on their strong convictions since they had neither arms nor army. The narrative does not employ symbolic representation nor does it engage in “drawing-room” discussions that present an inside view of political life. Using the form of a personal story, the novel is effective precisely because it does not engage in drawnout reveries or endless discussions about reform and revolution, but rather keeps its focus on everyday life, with all the details of a youth coming of age. In this context love of freedom and self-determination seem natural; they are woven into the fabric of everyday life with no need of further justification. Large political issues are raised in the novel but strictly

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within the context of the hero’s life. Political ideas are embodied in the protagonist’s behavior and the actions he decides to take. The personal angle notwithstanding, the novel at no time tries to overwhelm the reader with emotions. Even when torture scenes are described, the writing is cool and matter-of-fact, yet by downplaying the importance of ideology and heightening the connection between daily life and youthful idealism, the novel ends up convincing the reader that the Italian struggle for independence is just. The boldness of taking up a righteous cause against overwhelming odds draws new members to it and propels it forward because the wish to be free is part of human nature. Ruffini’s novel thus expands the range of the political novel by including the themes of national independence, the personal nature of politics, and the revolutionary as the idealistic youth who shares the heritage of European culture with other nations such as France and Great Britain and fits the romantic image of the fighter for freedom against foreign autocracy. With his second novel, Dr. Antonio, Ruffini advanced the cause of Young Italy further by highlighting its urgency and its need for support from fellow Europeans. This time the young hero is shown in an armed rebellion. The story opens on the Riviera in a little house by the sea; it is told by Sir John Davenne, an English aristocrat who relates the story of his and his family’s past encounters in Italy. It is in this little house that they first meet the young Italian medical doctor Dr. Antonio. A political exile from Sicily, he chanced to help restore the health of Sir John’s beautiful daughter Lucy. His effectiveness as a doctor valorizes his revulsion at the despotic and cruel governments ruling his country as the expression of genuine Italian virtues. A romance starts between Lucy and Antonio, but the class prejudices of her family prevent its development. Eight years later, in 1848, when rebellions against autocratic governments have erupted all over the continent, they meet again in Naples; Lucy is now a young widow brought by her father to Italy to restore her faltering health. Once again she falls in love with the doctor. This time, however, the obstacle is on his side. He has now joined the Italian independence movement. A participant in the rebellion in Sicily, he has been entrusted with a mission to negotiate with the Bourbon government in Naples. Shortly afterward, fighting begins, and in his devotion to the fatherland, Antonio joins the battle on the barricades. Caught, he is condemned to prison. Love for the incarcerated man weighs on Lucy’s poor health, and she dies soon after.

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Apart from the scenes of romantic love, what emerges most strongly in this novel is the passion for Italian nationhood and hatred of tyranny together with a sense of camaraderie and commitment to Mazzini’s revolutionary ideology. With this novel Ruffini brings to Disraeli’s loveand-reform plot line a new and symbolically charged trajectory. Lucy stands for the European cultural tradition with its beauty and refinement; her father, for the old aristocratic order that is resistant to change; Antonio, for the new revolutionary spirit struggling for freedom. The message: if old Europe is not willing to yield to the wishes of its young generation for union between culture and change, all will be lost. Dr. Antonio is still alive, and Europe can and must do something to help Italy.36 The cause of Italy concerns Europe’s future altogether. Through the romantic interaction of the British and Italian protagonists of his novels, Ruffini helped create and shape the contours of a “European identity” while lending a European significance to the Risorgimento.37 Novels with a strong personal and romantic bent played a crucially important role in advancing the Italian national cause throughout the nineteenth century.38 Another key item Ruffini added to the arsenal of this genre was the trope of exile. It is a trope that goes back to Roman times, when Cicero claimed that only in exile was he able to maintain his moral integrity. The reformer becomes a stranger in his own country, and only as an exile is he able to pursue its cause. The association of the Risorgimento with exile was so strong that other European writers used it when dealing with Italian patriots.39 Very much like Disraeli’s, Ruffini’s novels emphasize the present to impress contemporary readers with the urgent need for change and to call them to action. They were part of Mazzini’s continued efforts to 36. In European Version, Christensen has traced the writing of Doctor Antonio and the reception of the novel in Italian scholarship with a strong emphasis on the eternal human conflicts presented here. He largely discounts the immediate political implications of the novel in favor of a purely literary analysis that usefully traces literary influences from English writers such as Thackeray and Dickens. 37. Marazzi, Romanzo Risorgimentale, p. 7. 38. See Riall, “Storie di libertà,” pp. 157–74. 39. Isabella, “Exile and Nationalism,” p. 505; Isabella, Risorgimento in Exile, a book that surprisingly does not deal with Ruffini at all. On this issue see also Christensen, “Giovanni Ruffini,” pp. 133–54; and Anderson, “Long Distance Nationalism.”

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promote Italian independence, which left a long-lasting impression outside of Italy in Europe and America. In New York City’s Central Park there is a bust of Mazzini,40 and Alexandre Dumas translated the Mémoires de Garibaldi, another of Mazzini’s comrades, into French.41 The nineteenth-century European political reform movements were part of the tumultuous and drawn-out process in which political structures and social and economic realities, challenged by the changes accompanying modernity, were moving toward a new equilibrium.42 The stakes were national independence, individual liberty, and the legitimacy of governance. Various forces and groups vied for leadership in this process and offered very different solutions, including the violent overthrow of the old order, as had been propounded by the French Revolution. There was a widely shared assumption that institutional change was inevitable. The strongest advocates of change tried to mobilize the new urban public with its increased literacy, using the newspaper, the chapbook, and the novel for their purposes, only to meet resistance to their “Jacobinism” from religious and politically conservative circles. All sides regarded the public as a key player in this process, and the spread of newspaper and fiction reading offered optimal access. Both media were new on the cultural and social scene, and each was revolutionary in its own way. Newspapers created and reflected the public and public opinion, insisting on the legitimacy of this new force as a player in the political arena, while expanding coverage to include the world at large. The novel now focused on life in the present rather than the past, and, as C.A. Bayly has pointed out, since the 1850s the genre was instrumental in the coming of age of a “world literature” with increasingly shared and interacting features across languages and cultures,43 to the point of 40. An image of the bust can be found at http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/ centralpark/monuments/992, accessed April 7, 2014. 41. Garibaldi, Mémoires. 42. John Vincent has argued that Disraeli’s Young England trilogy dealt with the essential challenges of modernity confronting English society. Disraeli’s political vision for the future includes the image of the modern statesman who has to satisfy the imagination of the people, cope with the political reality of mass culture, and, most important, contend with the rise of capitalism and the capitalist market economy. Disraeli, pp. 81–104. 43. Bayly, Birth of the Modern World, p. 385.

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writers from one country, such as Ruffini, directly addressing the public in another language. The novels were built around stories of everyday life less dominated by classical archetypes. Although they were designed to amuse, frighten, and titillate, “they also became political tracts, implicitly denouncing the folly of the establishment and satirizing the doings of the great.”44 The political novel went further by encouraging the reader to form an opinion and take action. Although, as far as I know, members of Young Germany, the Young Turks, Young Poland, and so forth, did not produce political novels at the time, they all set up journals and newspapers to influence public opinion and win support.45 Literature played a major role as literary men and women joined the movement. Young Germany was more a literary group than a political movement, with the likes of Heinrich Heine, G. Gutzkow, H. Laube, L. Wienbarg, and Th. Mundt involved, but without known direct links to the organization set up under Mazzini’s direction. Still, the aims of this literary group read like a political manifesto: they opposed dogma, especially the social and moral order of the restoration after the Vienna Congress; were against absolutism; and were in favor of liberalism, individualism, freedom of opinion, and the unity of the state. They embodied a rebellious spirit that was very much part of the oppositional mood of intellectuals in Europe at the time.

The Political Novel in the United States During the nineteenth century, the political novel was also a popular genre in the United States. The New York Times declared in 1881 that “the political novel, in the sense of a work of fiction intended to awaken public attention to a country with a view to desirable changes in it, may date from Miss Edgeworth, to whom Macaulay allotted the second place (Jane 44. Ibid., p. 387. 45. There is, however, a German eighteenth-century antecedent, called “Staatsroman” at the time. The main work of its kind that also contains a utopian vision of a harmonious world is Christoph Martin Wieland’s 1772 novel Der Goldne Spiegel. The Young Turks apparently did not use fiction; see Landau, “Young Egypt Party,” pp. 161–64.

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Austen having the first) among the female novelists of his time.”46 Lord Macaulay’s praise notwithstanding, the fame of Maria Edgeworth’s (1767– 1849) Ireland novels Ennui (1809) and The Absentee (1812) has hardly survived. After adding Sir Walter Scott’s Waverly (1814) to the group, the same article claims that Harriet Beecher Stowe, the American author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), is “the greatest of all political novelists.” In his study of the American political novel, Gordon Milne calls for an even more flexible approach by pointing to the close proximity at the time between the political novel and utopian fiction.47 Based on these loose definitions, the genre has had a rich and relatively long history. Before the nineteenth century, it first accompanied the struggle for national independence in the United States during the 1770s and then peaked again after the American Civil War. The earliest example was A Pretty Story, a novel against British rule that was written under a pseudonym in 1774 by Francis Hopkinson (1737–91), a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. The main allegorical characters include a nobleman (the English king), the nobleman’s wife (Parliament), the steward (prime minister), who was the main evil force, and the children who went to live on a new farm (the Americans). The purpose of the novel, according to Jean Johnson, was simply to make clear the grievances of the colonists in terms of the treatment they received from England and to describe the events that led to America’s first open act of rebellion, the convening of the First Continental Congress; the novel differs from later political novels by not offering solutions to problems or outlining any specific course of action.48 Milne points out that the political novel flourished during the “Gilded Age” after the Civil War: “It was a time when materialism ran rampant, when the gospel of wealth was heartily worshipped.”49 One of the forms chosen to express revulsion about the material greed that dominated national culture was the political novel.50 Among the 46. “Political Novel.” 47. Milne, American Political Novel, p. 5. 48. Hopkinson, Pretty Story; Jean Johnson, “American Political Novel,” pp. 12–13. One eighteenth-century American work indeed carries the subtitle “political novel”: Thomas Stevens, The Castle-Builders; or, the History of William Stephens, of the Isle of Wight, Esq.; lately deceased. A political novel. 49. Milne, American Political Novel, p. 24. 50. Hopkinson’s novel was reprinted in 1864 under the title The Old Farm and the New Farm: A Political Allegory as a warning against dissolving the union.

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examples Milne gives was Edward Bellamy’s 1888 novel Looking Backward, to which I will return.51 Perhaps the most famous American novel of all times, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), brought the issue of the evil of slavery to worldwide attention. It was the best-selling novel of the nineteenth century and the second best selling book of that century after the Bible.52 As an antislavery novel, it “helped lay the groundwork for the [American] Civil War.”53 Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher at the Hartford Female Academy and an active abolitionist, featured the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of other characters revolve. The novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings.54 Uncle Tom’s Cabin is dominated by a single theme: the evil and immorality of slavery.55 Strictly speaking, the work belongs to the sentimental novel genre that emerged in the eighteenth century.56 The issue of slavery is not treated as the political or institutional issue that it is, but rather as a moral issue of good versus evil within the framework of the Christian faith. Unlike the political novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin motivates the reader not by ideas but by sentiment and appeals to the reader’s consciousness. Still, the impact it had on American political life and contemporary politics by dramatizing the suffering of the slaves was profound and prepared the ground for the Civil War. Soon after its publication, translations came out in many languages. In 1901 Lin Shu translated it into Chinese, the first Chinese translation of 51. Milne, American Political Novel, p. 29. 52. Goldner, “Arguing with Pictures,” pp. 71–84. The novel is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. In the first year after it was published, three hundred thousand copies of the book were sold in the United States and one million copies were sold in Great Britain. In 1855, three years after it was published, it was called “the most popular novel of our day.” Everon, “Some Thoughts,” p. 259. 53. Kaufman, Civil War, p. 18. 54. De Rosa, Domestic Abolitionism, p. 121. De Rosa follows Jane Tompkins’s argument that Stowe’s strategy was to destroy slavery through the “saving power of Christian love.” See Tompkins, Sensational Designs, pp. 122–46. 55. John Allen, writes about Uncle Tom’s Cabin that “Stowe held specific beliefs about the ‘evils’ of slavery and the role of Americans in resisting it” (Homelessness, p. 24). The book then quotes Ann Douglas describing how Stowe saw slavery as a sin. 56. Abrams, Glossary.

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an American novel. In his preface and postscript Lin Shu linked America’s enslavement of Africans with U.S. abuse and discrimination of Chinese laborers at the time of the translation and warned readers of the dangers awaiting a people when their nation is weak.57 The translation became a major propaganda text for Chinese political reformers precisely because of its vivid illustration of the misery of slavery for a people too weak to defend their interests and failing to engage in fundamental political reforms to regain their position in the world. In Speare’s judgment it was Henry Adams’s (1838–1918) Democracy (1880) that put the political novel on the U.S. map.58 The novel was a sensation with nine printings during the first year alone.59 As the greatgrandson of John Adams, one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, and grandson of John Quincy Adams, America’s sixth president, Henry Adams was, “by heritage, by knowledge of European conditions gained through periods of residence abroad, by familiarity with England first made while private secretary to his father, Charles Francis Adams, America’s Ambassador there during the critical years 1861–1868” and, by the brilliance of intellect shown in his writings about U.S. history, “fitted to be a distinguished expositor of the country.”60 Like Disraeli, Henry Adams used the form of the novel to express his thoughts on public affairs and press for reforms. He was “primed to awaken the moral conscience of America,” to show where the “spoils system” was leading, and as he hoped that the novel should be discussed rather than its author, it was published anonymously.61 Adams did not claim to represent the coming young generation or that he had all the answers. Although he felt that he was able to identify the country’s problems, being afraid of its corrupting mechanism, he hesitated to join the political process himself. The political purpose of his novel was to awaken potential political reformers and urge them to action.

57. Lin Shu, “Heinu yu tian lu liyan,” pp. 162–63. 58. Henry Adams wrote another novel, Esther (1884); for a study see van Oostrum, Male Authors, Female Subjects, pp. 155–258. 59. Decker, Literary Vocation, p. 147. 60. Speare, Political Novel, pp. 287–88. 61. Ibid., p. 288.

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In an ironic inversion, Adams not only fails to fill Coningsby’s slot but confronts his senior male villain with a young, charming, and naive widow, ironically called Mrs. Madeleine Lightfoot Lee. She has no real understanding of high politics yet is full of ambition. Bored with her life in New York society, she moves to Washington, D.C., to “watch the tremendous forces of government at work” and to get “to the heart of the great American mystery of democracy and government.”62 Naive and innocent at heart as she might have been, she was nevertheless tempted by power. There is even a sense of political eroticism in her desires: “She wanted to see with her own eyes the action of primary forces; to touch with her own hand the massive machinery of society; to measure with her own mind the capacity of motive power.”63 Her aim, however, was not detached observation: “What she wanted, was POWER.”64 Madeleine succeeds in making her Washington home a meeting place for the brightest and most distinguished men in the capital. As William Decker points out, a part of her wishes passionately to retrieve the elusive promise of democratic life, “but for her that promise seems to reside in the prominent men of state.”65 While she is actively encouraging men of political promise to be part of her inner circle, she falls prey to the corrupt yet powerful Mr. Ratcliffe, a member of the United States Senate. Whereas readers are privy to the blackmail and bribery routinely used by Ratcliffe to advance his interests and power, Madeleine is kept in the dark. Ratcliffe even uses her moral uprightness to advance his cause. Just as Madeleine is about to fall into a trap set up by Ratcliffe, who now wants her to be his wife, she is saved by revelations regarding his character and conduct from a competing suitor. Her behavior can be seen as reflecting Henry Adams’s judgment on his own fitness for politics and her denunciation of the corrupt Mr. Ratcliffe as echoing Adams’s own sense of revulsion.66 Looming large in the novel is the newly elected president of the United States, whose position Mr. Ratcliffe had wanted for himself. In Madeleine’s eyes, the president, with his need to make constant compromises with different shady interests—represented by Ratcliffe—is a pitiful 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

Adams, Democracy, p. 8. Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 8. Decker, Literary Vocation, p. 148. Kaplan, Power and Order, p. 69–70.

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figure. At the end of the novel, after surviving a physical attack by Mr. Ratcliffe, Madeleine, who had come to Washington with such great expectations, realizes that “democratic government was nothing more than government of any other kind.” Ratcliffe dryly observes “how easily she had been led by mere vanity into imagining that she could be of use in the world.”67 She had been in love with a shadow raised by her own conceit, an American democracy that was the product of her own dreams. With the symbolic weakness of her gender and her resulting utter lack of power, Madeleine is the bitterly ironical self-image of Adams’s own “naive” hopes and marginality as an intellectual. She also reflects the American people’s love for an idealized democratic system about whose sordid mode of operation they remain ignorant. This actual mode of operation prompted Adams, who felt that America was in urgent need of fundamental reform, to write his novel. As things stood, there was no social encouragement for the most outstanding men to enter Washington politics, and there was a deep gulf separating the American educated or cultured class from the business of government.68 Like Disraeli, Adams uses the novel to discuss the urgent political reforms needed in America. The genre offers him the opportunity to deal with the problems through a symbolic (and even ironically inverted) representation and also to offer guidance. As with Disraeli’s trilogy, the novel reveals as much about Henry Adams as about his time. In Johnson’s words, “in its essentials, the novel is an allegory concerning the wooing of intelligence by two kinds of political forces, the forces of good and the forces of evil.”69 In the figure of Mrs. Madeleine Lightfoot Lee, Adams depicts his own dilemma: she is intelligent and curious, she would like to serve democracy and make a difference in politics, but she is also plagued with ambition, a flaw that almost causes her to lose the battle with evil. The novel is about the future of America, and Adams, again in an ironic understatement, has a minor character say the decisive words: “I believe in Democracy. I accept it. I will faithfully serve and defend it.”70 Among early American novels with the strongest impact in Japan and China (as well as in Europe) was Edward Bellamy’s (1850–98) Looking 67. 68. 69. 70.

Adams, Democracy, p. 254. Speare, Political Novel, p. 304. Jean Johnson, “American Political Novel,” p. 162. Adams, Democracy, p. 58.

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Backward (1888). Presenting a technologically advanced and socially just future America, Looking Backward introduced to the political novel a perspective from a future vantage point. The American utopian novel that followed grew out of the late-nineteenth-century critique of the process of industrialization. Coinciding with the closing of the frontier, which had been a unique condition for American development, industrialization had come to determine all facets of American life. Tensions between capital and labor, between the wealthy and the poor erupted in different forms of social unrest.71 The American utopian novel was part of growing social movements in the United States and Europe to create ideal communities. Bellamy’s Looking Backward quickly became a best seller and was extremely important in spreading the ideals of Christian socialism throughout the world.72 In the story Julian West, a young Bostonian who fell into a hypnosis-induced sleep in Boston in 1887, wakes up in the year 2000. In the intervening century the United States has been transformed into a socialist utopia: a new society has come into being with all former evils swept away. There is no more private ownership of the means of production, no more division between rich and poor, no more unemployment and social unrest; men and women receive equal education, employment, and pay from the state. The basic social unit is still the family, and the nation is ruled by a “board” elected along trade lines. Bellamy anticipated many technical innovations, such as the coming of electric light, shopping malls, credit cards, and electronic broadcasting. This new society is based on what Bellamy calls “nationalism.” The social and economic changes have not come about through revolution but through changes in public opinion. The novel is a grand plan for social and political reform. Although on the surface a fanciful romance, it was with all seriousness meant as a prediction of things that would inevitably come about. The underlying philosophy of the work relates to social evolution: in Bellamy’s scenario, social progress is achieved through the natural ability of humankind to understand its self-interest. The transformation is largely the result of the enlightened, rational thinking of the citizens of the country, and Bellamy presented his readers with the coming 71. Forbes, “Literary Quest,” p. 180. 72. For the literary impact of the retrospective from a future vantage point as employed in Looking Backward, see chapter 3.

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of the new era as the next stage of industrial and social development in accordance with the principles of evolution. The novel provides both a vision of the future and a critique of the forces obstructing the rapid coming of this future. The narrative consists of questions, answers, and guided tours, with the main character as the “blind man” who is ignorant about the progress of the last decades and is being led by an older “reliable narrator” who understands the philosophical and political significance of America’s transformation and explains them through him to the reader. “It is one of the few books ever published that created almost immediately on its appearance a political mass movement,” writes Erich Fromm in his introduction to the 1960 reprint.73 “Bellamy Clubs” sprang up all over the United States to discuss and propagate the book’s ideas. The novel also inspired several utopian communities. Bellamy’s Looking Backward was easily the most famous work of its genre, inspiring a worldwide flurry of copies and imitations. Its device of a future retrospective paved the way for the political novel to project an ideal future for a society when it was under stress and its polity in doubt. With its scientist claim of following the law of evolution, this projection claimed the high ground beyond mere fanciful speculation. Edward Bellamy was not a politician. Yet, like many writers of political novels, he belonged to a class of socially concerned intellectuals who wrote about the fate of their nation and made its political and social future their main concern. Given this link, Asian translators and critics of the time saw little difference between the political and the utopian novel. A Chinese summary translation that contained all the social and scientific developments was already serialized in the Wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 in 1891–92 under the title Huitou kan jilüe 回頭看紀略 (Looking backward),74 and a full Japanese translation was published in 1903.75 Martin Bernal has shown that by 1896 Liang Qichao had read this translation and that he considered it one of the most important books from the West available in China.76 It is not surprising that the novel appealed to 73. Fromm, “Foreword,” p. vi. 74. [Bellamy], Huitou kan jilüe. A full translation was published in 1904 as Bainian yijiao in Shanghai. For the history of Wanguo gongbao, see Bernal, Chinese Socialism, pp. 33–48. See also Shi Lidong, “Wanguo gongbao”; Wang Lin, Xixue yu bianfa. 75. Beramī, Hyakunengo. 76. Bernal, Chinese Socialism, p. 24.

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Liang. It offered a vision of a new social order and presented a new illustration of the idea of social evolution. Furthermore, the fact that Bellamy’s political ideals and philosophy were so close to those developed by Liang’s mentor Kang Youwei from the early 1890s and published much later in his Datong shu 大同書 (Book of great harmony) might also have contributed to Liang’s enthusiasm if Bellamy was not, as Bernal has argued, the main stimulus for Kang’s ideas in the first place.77

Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and the Philippine Struggle José Rizal (1861–96) was a Filipino with Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese merchant ancestry. After studying in Manila and Europe, he received two different medical doctorates from Madrid and Heidelberg. A polyglot Freemason, Rizal traveled extensively throughout Europe and formed deep and lasting friendships with Europeans, who came to admire this talented man and were sympathetic with his development into a Philippine patriot. He was a prolific poet, sculptor, essayist, diarist, correspondent, and novelist whose most famous works were his two political novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.78 Both were written in Spanish 77. Ibid., p. 20. 78. Rizal, Noli Me Tangere: Novela Tagala (Berlin, 1886). The novel was published in the same year in Spain by F. Sempere y compañía in Valencia and Madrid. A French translation, Au pays des moines (Noli me tangere), was published by P. V. Stock in Paris in 1899. Two English versions, one abridged, came out in 1900 in New York under the title An Eagle Flight: A Filipino Novel. The first edition (in Spanish) in the Philippines was published by Chofré in Manila in 1899 after the Spanish-American War had ended Spanish colonial rule. A Japanese translation, Chi no namida, came out in 1903. The English translation was originally titled The Social Cancer, although the literal translation of the Latin in the original title, Noli Me Tangere, is Touch Me Not, a phrase from the Bible. In St. John 20:17 it is spoken by Jesus to Mary Magdalene after he has risen from the dead, because he has not accomplished his mission and, hence, cannot be touched. The explanation for the translation of the Latin title as “social cancer” was that the phrase was commonly used by eye surgeons (Rizal was an ophthalmologist) at the time to refer to a deadly form of cancer. More recent translations have used the original title. El Filibusterismo also came out (in Spanish) in Europe (Ghent, 1891) and

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for an intended readership in the Philippines that consisted of the small Spanish-reading colonial elite and enlightened members of the colonial administration. Rizal had no illusions about the maturity of his people regarding independence and stable institutions, deploring in an earlier work the “indolence” of his countrymen. He saw this in part as the result of a steep decline in the quality of the colonial administration, which had left his people without education and knowledge. His novels focus their critique on abuses by the Dominican order, which acted at the time as a kind of parallel government to the Spanish colonial administration in the Philippines. Both in his life and in his novels, Rizal was willing to work peacefully with Spanish government authorities, advocating no more than setting up schools and changing the status of the Philippines from that of a Spanish colony to that of a Spanish province with all the rights involved. He argued that the common people of the Philippines needed first and foremost education, without which there could be no solid foundation for independence and statehood. However, his execution by the Spanish authorities for fomenting a sedition of which he had in fact disapproved ignited an armed uprising and eventually led to his becoming the founding figure of the Philippine independence movement and his novels becoming its manifestos. Rizal was acquainted with contemporary European writing, but we lack specific evidence concerning his familiarity with the European political novel. Although he was an active member of the “Propaganda Movement” through which young Filipino expatriates at the time tried to mobilize public opinion in Europe for their cause,79 and although his novels are clearly part of this effort, he did not himself define his novels as “political novels.” His works gave the political novel a new double purpose: he was dealing with a colonial government, and he needed to gather international support. This places him closer to Ruffini than to Disraeli. His translation of Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell from the German into Tagalog also shows his keen eye for relevant parallels with other struggles for

was also widely reprinted. It was published in Manila in the same year by the same publisher as Noli Me Tangere. The English translation used here is Reign of Greed (1912). 79. On this movement, see Schumacher, Propaganda Movement.

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national independence and the internal conditions for their success.80 Schiller’s play, with its utopian emphasis on the need for a democratic rather than conspiratory process even in a struggle against reckless oppression, reflects his thinking about the American Revolution (which he supported) and the French Revolution (which he rejected). Its selection for translation shows Rizal’s commitment to a development of the Philippines based on the broad support of an educated and informed populace rather than a small band of underground revolutionaries. Rizal’s novels were instrumental in creating international sympathy for the Philippine struggle—apart from making Rizal into the father of the Philippine nation. Their impact within the Philippines, especially that of Noli Me Tangere, was instantaneous and long-lasting; they formed the nucleus of a literature that inspired dissent among peaceful reformists and eventually spurred the militancy of armed revolt against 333 years of Spanish rule; and they finally led to Rizal’s execution in Manila in 1896 at age thirty-five. Like the impact of the Young Italy movement in Europe, the United States, and Asia, Rizal’s martyrdom brought the attention of the world to the issue of Philippine national independence. There was much sympathy for him in the United States, and after the United States established a protectorate in the Philippines following its war with Spain, the U.S. government promoted Rizal and his nonviolence as the hero of the Philippine liberation struggle against Spain. The Philippine independence movement found much sympathy in other parts of Asia, and the courage and vigor of its freedom fighters were admired. Two unfinished Chinese novels were based on the theme.81 Their main purpose was to inspire Chinese readers to emulate the valiant spirit of the Filipino people and leaders such as Rizal in their struggle. The Filipinos’ daring in taking on an opponent against all odds put the Chinese to shame. As one author, with the pen name “Heroic People,” Xia Min, exclaims: “Look at us, the ‘sick man of Asia’ who lets himself be trampled upon. . . . We cannot even compare to the Filipinos.”82 A 80. Schiller, Wilhelm Tell: Dulang tinula sa wikang aleman. For a study on this Tagalog translation of a political drama that was also translated into Japanese and Chinese, see Guillermo, Translation and Revolution. 81. Xuan fanzi yan, “Feilübin mindang qiyi ji”; Xia Min, “Feiliebin wai shi.” 82. Xia Min, “Feiliebin wai shi,” p. 1.

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Japanese translation of Noli Me Tangere came out in 1903,83 and Rizal’s name became a regular reference for nonviolence in the writings of Gandhi. Noli Me Tangere highlights the international stature as well as the flexibility of the political novel. This stature echoes the international profile of nineteenth-century reformers, who shared with others an urgent political agenda for their respective countries besides hopes for a future peaceful world. The publication process of Noli Me Tangere itself highlights the international nature of the genre. It was written in Spanish and first published in 1887 in Berlin with the help of the Czech professor and historian Ferdinand Blumentritt, who sympathized, to a degree, with Rizal’s patriotic cause. After its ban in the Philippines, it was smuggled into the country by Filipino merchants working in Hong Kong. Rizal’s diary notes that the plot had been inspired by Eugène Sue’s anticlerical novel The Wandering Jew and scholars have speculated about the possible influence of Benito Pérez Galdó’s novel Doña Perfecta (The perfect lady).84 The main protagonist of the novel, Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra, shares many features with Max Havelaar, the protagonist of a Dutch anticolonial political novel of the same name by “Multatuli” (Douwes Dekker), which Rizal admired greatly but only read after finishing Noli Me Tangere. As Paul Vincent has shown, both books owe much to the “socialist” aristocrat Rodolphe in Eugène Sue’s Mystères de Paris.85

83. Rizal, Chi no namida. 84. Galdó was himself a “realist” writer of great fame in Spain with strong political views. He wrote historical novels about Spain with the intention of infusing readers with a patriotic and antimonarchist spirit. John N. Schumacher quotes Carlos Quirino’s Great Malayan, speculating about the possible influence of Doña Perfecta on Rizal (p. 75). Although Rizal never mentions this novel in his letters or diaries, there are so many points of similarity in their plots and Galdó was such a famous and progressive author that it is hard to believe that Rizal did not have it in mind when plotting his own novel. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, p. 91, n. 12. 85. Paul Vincent, “Multatuli,” pp. 58–67. Rizal came across the English translation of Dekker’s book in 1888. Multatuli’s novel is Max Havelaar: Of de koffyveilingen der Nederlandsche Handelmaatschappy (1860), a stringent denunciation of colonialism that was widely read, reprinted, and translated at the time. The literature is well summarized in Anderson, Under Three Flags, pp. 45–52. See also Sue, Mystères de Paris.

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The story begins with the return to the Philippines of Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra after several years of study in Europe. He finds that his father has died and his body has been desecrated by Spanish Dominican friars as a punishment for his disobedience to the Church. Instead of opting for revenge, Ibarra decides to carry out his father’s wishes, throwing himself into improving the educational system. He is supported by the colonial governor, who demands the punishment of the friars. However, the Dominicans have the governor transferred to another town and manage to bring a cruel and vicious new friar to town. During the ceremony of laying the cornerstone for the new school, Ibarra almost gets killed by an “accident” set up by the new and old friars. He is saved by a certain Elias, a boat pilot. Only toward the end of the novel, when the new friar insults the memory of his father, does Ibarra fight back. He is about to kill the friar, when his fiancée, María Clara, intervenes. The friars organize an uprising by local people driven to desperation by their poverty and their abuses at the hands of the civil guard and then turn around and denounce Ibarra as the instigator. The mutiny is crushed, and Ibarra is on the run with the help of Elias. Before they can reach safety, their pursuers open fire and Elias dies. Believing the newspaper report about Ibarra’s death, María Clara decides to join a convent. However, the new friar, who has long had designs on her, has been made the convent’s chaplain, and the story ends with the figure of a young woman on the roof of the convent during a stormy night calling on the Lord to save her.86 Three themes dominate the novel: the evils of colonial rule; the need to transform the people into new citizens; and the rocky path to freedom, self-determination, and nationhood. The Dominican friars represent the corrupt and cruel aspects of colonial rule, and the plot focuses on their unscrupulous ways. It should be noted, however, that the governor as the representative of the Spanish government supports Ibarra’s reform plans, reflecting on the civilizing mission of colonialism. Ibarra himself is cast as the reformer with Western learning and some knowledge of the world. The friars’ success in cynically mobilizing the malcontents against him 86. For a study on Rizal’s novel, see Arcilla, Understanding the “Noli.” Rizal’s life and politics are discussed in Anderson, Under Three Flags, chaps. 2 and 3. Anderson’s focus is on the second novel, El Filibusterismo, and Rizal’s connections to the international anarchist current. Anderson deals with Noli Me Tangere in reviews of two English translations. They are reprinted in Anderson, Spectre of Comparisons, chaps. 10 and 11.

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illustrates their lack of respect for the local population and the all but futile nature of conducting reforms under such conditions. The local population is so fearful of the friars and so ignorant that María Clara’s father breaks off his daughter’s engagement with Ibarra. After long centuries of foreign domination, the Filipino people have lost their dignity and self-confidence as well as respect for their cultural heritage. This is why Ibarra’s reform program centers on educating the people. The novel calls for Filipino self-respect and equal rights between the citizens of the Philippines and those of Spain. It advocates selfbetterment through education as the first step on this road. The school built by Ibarra is to encourage people to overcome their slavish mentality and backwardness; these local initiatives are individual efforts without any government support. The protagonist’s acquisition of Western learning is crucial in this process, and the school is patterned after the German model, which was then considered best practice. Western knowledge, however, was to enrich, not replace, local traditions and initiatives. The alternatives of reform and revolution are a constant topic of debate between Ibarra and Elias. In principle, Ibarra advocates reform, Elias revolution, but their attitudes are not entirely consistent. This instability reveals Rizal’s own inner struggles. As John Schumacher points out: “In the discussions between Elias and Ibarra, Elias is at first the voice of revolution, pleading the impossibility of obtaining justice under the existing system, the hopelessness of winning reform from Spain.”87 Elias answers Ibarra’s arguments for patience, trust in the good intentions of the government, and the need of the light of education with a more convincing argument on the futility of such hope: The fact is that without liberty there is no light. . . . You don’t see the struggle that is preparing, you don’t see the cloud on the horizon. The fight is beginning in the sphere of ideas, to descend later into the arena, which will be dyed with blood. . . . The sleep has lasted for centuries, but one day the thunderbolt struck, and in striking, infused life. Since then new tendencies are stirring our spirits, and these tendencies, today scattered, will some day be united, guided by the God who has not failed other peoples and who will not fail us, for His cause is the cause of liberty!88 87. Schumacher, Propaganda Movement, p. 77. 88. Rizal, Social Cancer, p. 393.

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However, at the end of the novel, when Ibarra has been driven to despair by all that has happened and is ready to join forces with the revolution, it is Elias who remonstrates with him: You are going to light the flames of war, since you have money and brains, and you will quickly find many to join you, for unfortunately there are plenty of malcontents. But in this struggle which you are going to undertake, those who will suffer most will be the defenseless and the innocent. The same sentiments that a month ago impelled me to appeal to you asking for reforms are those that move me now to urge you to think well. The country, sir, does not think of separating from the mother country; it only asks for a little freedom, justice, and affection. You will be supported by the malcontents, the criminals, the desperate, but the people will hold aloof. . . . I myself will not follow you, never will I resort to such extreme measures while I see hope in men.89

The dilemma between reform and revolution adds an important theme to the political novel as it migrates to and within Asia. As we shall see, it became important not only in a colonial context like the Philippines, but also in China. The end of Rizal’s novel helped establish a new motif in the political novel, which took on great significance for Asia: the image of a helpless young woman in a storm praying for assistance. Within the novel’s framework, María Clara in her symbolic purity, loyalty, female vulnerability, and upright character represents the people of the Philippines. The brute violence of colonialism is symbolized in her implied rape by the friar in the Christian convent to which in her ignorant trust she had fled for protection. The political time horizon is characterized as a “storm.” Her last resort is a direct appeal to God. While God is given an important place as the ultimate arbiter of judgment in Mazzini’s Young Italy, Disraeli’s Young England, and Rizal’s code of beliefs, in the context of Noli Me Tangere God is, unknown to María, the projected readers, reformers, and revolutionaries to whom the novel addresses its appeals. Rizal’s novels stand alone in Filipino Spanish literature. It can be argued that the end of Spanish rule defined the end of the “moment” for this literature and that the unintended involvement of his person and his 89. Ibid., pp. 475–76.

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novels in the anti-Spanish upheaval, and the national stature given to them after 1899 with the help of the U.S. authorities transformed them into objects of veneration rather than emulation.90 By the late nineteenth century the political novel began to spread throughout East Asia at a time of political crisis and intense political debate about the path to take. It was presented as a literary genre that had shown its worth and power in the political reforms of the West. The main characteristics of the genre as we have analyzed them thus far remained stable. A summary of these characteristics will set the stage for our discussion of the political novel in East Asia in the next chapter.

Conclusions The newness of the genre and the stature of its early authors made the political novel attractive to political reformers around the globe as they looked for models to emulate. The political novel became a symbol of collective identity; writing a political novel promised public impact and at the same time identified the author as a member of an international “reform club.” The belief in the capacity of a novel to transform an entire society inverted the familiar trope about the novel’s capacity to undermine public morals and send young women daydreaming. The righteousness of the political novel’s appeal enhanced its political and cultural capital. The genre of the novel was also chosen for the added value and impact that came from a fictional narrative, the economy of a fictional narrative in bringing ideas to life in all the complexity of their implementation, the concrete quality of ideas rendered through characters and plot, and the accessibility for the common reader secured by mixing entertainment and human interest with didactic instruction. The tension between the author’s political agenda and the intrinsic dynamics that unfolds as a novel is being written is strongly evident in a 90. Looking at the Spanish-American War from a perspective critical of the later development of the United States, Anderson’s richly documented account of Rizal’s transformation into a father of the nation sidelines the strong anticolonial impetus of the United States at the time and the role it played in the U.S. attitude toward Rizal.

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political novel. The creative process of writing a novel can sustain a strong political agenda only up to a point. As the characters unfold and the plot develops, both take on their own lives with their own exigencies. Often an author is forced by his own characters and plot to move the story in unintended directions, using all the literary devices at his disposal. Some authors gave up when this point was reached, because the novel took on its own life instead of projecting their agenda. Some asked a friend to take over. In short, the assumption that an author’s political agenda is able to control a text and thereby destroy its literary logic is not supported by either the texts or the reading public. The surprise and fascination of reading a novel that was not a love story set in the fuzzy past but about contemporary society, offering wider perspectives than the daily newspaper and including fantasies about the future of society, were powerful, especially as readers here encountered literary devices that might be routine elsewhere but had not been used before in this language and context. The different subgenres of the modern novel are tightly connected. They share plot strategies, protagonist types, and narrative techniques. The authors of political novels are part of this literary environment and use literary tools available in neighboring genres. In particular, the political novel has many points in common with the social and historical novel. This overlap complicates definition and differentiation. Definitions have a significant impact on research. Unlike other scholars, Speare, for example, did not include Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in his discussion of the American political novel. This may have been because the novel’s plot and characters appealed to the reader’s emotions rather than forming allegories for political ideas and processes. Nor did it present the reader with a vision of the institutional steps needed to solve problems, a sketch of a leader able to guide the solution process, or an imagined ideal social structure without slavery. These, however, are core features of the genre. Speare’s definition is based on content only and does not extend beyond British and American political novels, but he identifies many important features. I have used his work, modifying and developing his argument where necessary, to bring out particular narrative features of the genre. The following overview of the identifying core features of the political novel is given to establish the plausibility of an approach that treats these

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novels as local embodiments of an interconnected world genre. Common features of political novels written between the 1840s and the 1920s will be found in two realms, politics and literary techniques employed. The characteristics outlined below will be tested and fleshed out further in detailed analyses in the next chapters.

Political Implications The subject matter of the political novel is the nation. The author/narrator awakens to the fact that the nation is in a deep crisis. He is enabled to do so by having learned to see his nation in the context of other nations. He might just alert the nation to the crisis, or there may be a political role for the author. The cause of the crisis is within the country itself, not in foreign actions. Its symptoms are that the mind-set of its people and elite, its state leadership and its political institutions are not able to realize and handle the domestic and international challenges of the present. Only farreaching political reforms of the philosophical or religious foundations, the state institutions, and popular attitudes can bring a solution. The political novel is the literary instrument to reach beyond the political elite to wider audiences that might and should change their mind-set and be mobilized to support the push for reform. It identifies, often with the allegory of “youth,” the political forces that could be the mainstay of the reforms; and it identifies, often with the allegory of “old,” the forces obstructing it. It contains a political critique of the present and a utopian (or sometimes dystopian) projection of a future state. The genre is tied to a reformist agenda. Reflecting actual political discussions, this is often explicitly contrasted with both the option of a violent destruction of the state structures and the defense of the status quo. The presence of the crisis and the failure of the main actors of the country to realize it and deal with it give urgency and timeliness to the message. The political novel is a time-bound genre. On its way to other environments and in the hands of other authors, the genre adjusts and may add some features. An example is the manifestation of the crisis in the form of insufficient international or colonial

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government support for national aspirations. This variation comes with a shift in the addressee and with this in the language of the political novel. The addressee is then the enlightened foreign community or enlightened forces in the colonial home country. The political novel retains a focus on the state, and the state continues to play an active if often negative role both within such novels and in their dissemination. The genre offers an instrument of public advocacy for political activists without the backing of state power. It comes with a critical take on the state authorities but continues to interact with the state and retains a commitment to reform rather than abolish the institutions it criticizes. It tries to achieve its effect through the print media in the public sphere rather than the internal channels of official communication. It needs literacy among its destined readers, a protected environment in which to be published, and protected channels of distribution to reach its destined audience. These requirements may imply conflicts and compromises with state authorities.

Literary Strategies The time horizon of the narrative is the present. The protagonists are not explored in their individual human dimension but in their role as representations of political forces. The plot elements translate assessments about the interaction of these political forces. Love and romantic attachments are examples. They are always symbolic. To highlight the representative nature of the protagonists and actions, frequent use is made of telling names and visibly symbolical or allegorical encodings that pun on grand political concepts. The genre comes with a new hero, the political reformer. Sharing Carlylean notions about the role of heroes in history, the narrative develops around the actions of this figure. In following him as he enlarges his horizon, it takes on elements of the Bildungsroman, while at the same time inviting the reader into the same process. Through this figure the features of potential future leaders are developed that also embody the broader values the citizens at large are to emulate. True to the actual interests and lifestyle of the political activists who are the protagonists of the political novel, frequent reference is

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made to nonfictional policy documents from other platforms of political discussion, especially state institutions. The form in which controversies about the path the nation should take are presented is rational political dialogue among friends. This is an area where protagonists may exhibit change and development (of their opinions). This dialogue itself is presented as a model of civilized modern behavior. Elements of satire or scorn are reserved for protagonists outside the core agenda of the genre. The plot engine follows an evolutionist (rather than a karmic, psychological, or other) trajectory. The scientist claims that this trajectory implies can justify realist language even for fictional projections. Finally, the political novel is about ideals and the struggle to make them triumph. In a pattern affecting both the political and the literary features, the genre outlines the ideal political future for the nation and the possible steps to achieve it. This utopian dimension can free the narrative from the confines of the real. It marks the difference between this genre and other types of novels that might take on social and political problems of the day as their main subject matter. The following chapter will test and verify the political and literary features outlined above as it explores the dynamics of the genre’s spread to the Far East, the actors involved, and the ways in which the genre takes root in this new environment.

Chapter 2

Global Migration The Far East

T

he migration of the political novel to East Asia in the late nineteenth century was inspired by two key factors. First, it had shown its effectiveness as a political tool in Europe by allowing now famous politicians such as Benjamin Disraeli to publicize their political visions as a stepping stone on their rise to power; and, second, it had mobilized the public to participate in the struggle for political reform.1 The genre came with new and fascinating literary figures who could serve as models for new leaders: the reformer and the patriotic public-spirited fighter for national independence. It found resonance in East Asia as youthful politicians adopted it in their public drive for modern institutions, such as a constitution and a parliament, that seemed to have been instrumental in the rise of the Western powers. This chapter will outline the East Asian trajectory of the political novel. It will trace the identity of the genre as it moved across borders; highlight new features that added to or changed the genre; and offer a sketch of the specific dynamics of its insertion into new contexts, the agents involved, and the means used. The political novel itself became the stage for the transnationality of its agenda.2 Writers often inserted scenes where reformers from different 1. Sadami Suzuki, Concept of “Literature,” p. 155. See also Keene, Dawn to the West, p. 81. 2. See Petersson, “Introduction: Cultural Encounters between Literary Cultures,” p. 9.

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countries met—sometimes in symbolic places, such as next to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia—and shared their thoughts. In this manner the genre became a means to illustrate the all-important link between local aspirations and ideals shared by modernizing forces the world over.

The Political Novel and Institutional Reform: Japan A New Genre By far the largest output of the genre worldwide was in Japan during the Meiji Reforms and especially the years 1884–87. The Japanese political novel was directly and explicitly connected to English and French political novels. Translations or summaries had made these available to the reading public in Japan besides providing models for Japanese writers. Japan inherited the role of Britain, becoming the next hub from which the political novel spread. Although there was an initial asymmetry of power in relations with England, Japan was not a colony, and the Meiji government claimed the willingness and ability to assume full agency in guiding the modernization process. Its direction and speed, however, was strongly contested within the country. The political constellation was thus similar to the situation in Britain a few decades earlier, when Disraeli wrote his novels. In the 1870s Japanese reformers looked toward the West for models of political and educational reform, focusing on democracy for the one and science for the other. During the 1870s and 1880s, it had already become popular among Japanese intellectuals to learn foreign languages and to translate Western literature. Some in Meiji Japan saw all things Western as a challenge to Japan’s hallowed traditions, but most of those involved in public politics regarded Westernization as what one might call a “modernization package” that included a vast range of new ideas, from state institutions to evolution, social Darwinism, and new ways of fashioning oneself for modernity; from “civilized” dress codes to scientific instruments; and from the notion that the spoken and written languages should be the same to the idea that

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all citizens should have a school education.3 In literature, this package came with the assessment that prose rather than poetry was the lead genre and that in prose the novel deserved the highest status.4 Linked as it was to the modernization of the political structure, the political novel was modern not only in form. Translations provided the first access to this part of modernity. As a consequence, the Japanese translations of English and French novels such as Bulwer-Lytton’s Ernest Maltravers (translated in 1879), Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor (1880), the older Dumas’s Mémoires d’un medecin (1882), and Disraeli’s Coningsby (1884) together with such translations from German, Italian, and Russian as Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell (1880), Boccaccio’s Decamerone (1882), and Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter (1883) had social and political as much as literary impact.5 Although in sheer numbers translated works could not compare with original Japanese works of fiction, these translations probably had greater impact in shaping the collective literary imagination and offering direct literary stimulus.6 Starting from the eighteenth and continuing well into the nineteenth century, translations within Europe were dominated by the demand for English and French novels.7 From the mid-nineteenth century onward, this demand spread to East Asia. The once dominant role of Chinese novels in East Asia gave way to translations from the West, although older and newly written Chinese novels continued to hold an important place in the Japanese book market.8 The translations of European novels brought

3. Feldman, “Meiji Political Novel.” 4. This shift from poetry to prose fiction as the lead genre occurred across the old written cultures of Asia within a few decades. The process was first suggested and documented in the late 1960s in Král, Černa, et al., Contributions. 5. See Kinmonth, Self-Made Man, p. 89; Kornicki, “Disraeli and the Meiji Novel,” p. 35; and Feldman, “Meiji Political Novel,” p. 247. 6. For a challenge to the common assumptions about the effects of translated novels on the imagination of Japanese readers, see Zwicker, Practices of the Sentimental Imagination, pp. 149–50. The same argument has been made for China. See Jue wo (Xu Nianci), “Yu zhi xiaoshuo guan,” p. 310; Yuan Jin, Zhongguo xiaoshuo, p. 28. However, quantity does not equal impact, and the testimony from Japanese writers supports the assessment of the high impact of the translations. 7. Moretti, Atlas, p. 187. 8. See Kockum, “Role of Western Literature,” pp. 97–140.

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a new understanding of the novel, with the political novel, seiji shōsetsu 政治小説, as the most prominent examplar.9 From the crucial perspective of the readers—and all writers start off as readers—these translations became as much organic parts of Japanese literature as Chinese writings by Chinese or Japanese authors had been, all the more given the freedoms translators took with the originals. Japanese translations of political novels were often made by politicians or would-be politicians, and the major Japanese political novels were also written by members of this group. The career of Disraeli from author to prime minister of the country from which most elements of the “modernization” package came was a great inspiration. The Japanese constellation of political issues was similar to that of Disraeli’s England. In both cases institutional and ideological reform were on the agenda, but not national independence and unity or the relationship with a colonial power. The first translation/adaptation of Coningsby came out in 1884, and by 1890 four more of Disraeli’s novels had been published. Reminiscing about the literary situation in the 1890s, Uchida Roan 内田魯安 (1868–1929), one of the major literary critics of the Meiji period, wrote in 1909: In those days literary people occupied a very high position in society. After all, in those days even politicians wrote novels. One almost felt as though a politician who had never written a novel was hardly a politician at all. Men like Suehiro Tetchō and Suematsu Kenchō wrote their novels then. The standing of the writer leapt over that of Disraeli or Thackeray, to attain that of Dickens.10

The link between Meiji politicians and the writing of political novels is most visible during the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement (Jiyū minken undō 自由民権運動) from the mid-1870s to the mid-1880s, when politicians and political activists began writing novels to publicize their political opinions and their vision of a future Japan. The movement began in 1874, when Itagaki Taisuke 板垣退助 (1837–1919), a prominent politician who had resigned from the government in the previous year, 9. Tomi Suzuki, Narrating the Self, pp. 19–26. 10. Uchida, “Seiji shōsetsu,” p. 299; quoted from Sadami Suzuki, Concept of “Literature,” p. 155.

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submitted his “Petition for the Establishment of a Representative Parliament” to the government. He was the founder of Japan’s first political party, the Patriotic Public Party. By 1881 it had evolved into the Freedom Party (Jiyūtō 自由黨), Japan’s first nationwide party. Adopting Western Enlightenment ideals, this movement demanded liberty and civil rights for the people. There was a groundswell of support. Open-minded intellectuals, who had been exposed to similar ideas in Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Seiyō jijō (Affairs of the West; 1866–70) and John Stewart Mill’s On Liberty (translated in 1872) enthusiastically supported the demands. The movement also attracted discontented former samurai (who had been deprived of their social privileges and encountered financial difficulties under the new Meiji regime) and middle-to-large propertied farmers, who sought local representation.11 In 1882 Ōkuma Shigenobu, who later became prime minister (in 1898 and between 1914 and 1916), founded the Constitutional Progressive Party (Rikken kaishintō 立憲改進黨), which attracted leading politicians but had its social base among urban elites. Fighting back, the oligarchs created their own party in the same year, the Constitutional Monarchy Party (Rikken teiseitō 立憲帝政黨). These three major pro-constitution parties dominated the political scene from late 1881 to 1884.12 Already in 1880 over 240,000 people signed a petition calling for the establishment of a parliament. The movement prompted the passing of a constitution in 1889 and the establishment of the Diet in 1890.13 The number of political novels advocating these demands is staggering. Yanagida Izumi, the foremost scholar of the Meiji political novel, found that 233 “political novels” appeared between 1880 and 1889, in addition to some 450 novels on related themes that appeared between 1887 and 1910. According to Yanagida’s classification, these include: “sovereign

11. The abolition of the feudal system (in 1871) and traditional four-class system in 1870–71 together with the adoption of the national conscription system (announced in 1872–73) led to unemployment and impoverishment for many former samurai. See Irokawa, Kindai kokka no shuppatsu, pp. 57–84, 109–40, 255–68; Tomi Suzuki, Narrating the Self, p. 192, #62. 12. Norman, Origins of the Modern Japanese State, pp. 274–316; Jansen, Making of Modern Japan, pp. 377–95; Hane, Modern Japan, pp. 119–41. 13. Jansen, Making of Modern Japan, p. 381.

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rights novels” (kokken 囯權), “exposure novels” (bakuro 暴露), “women’s rights novels” (joken 女權), and “socialist novels” (shakaishugi 社會 主義).14 Tightly connected to ideas espoused by the People’s Rights Movement, Japanese political novels (at least through 1889) shared the movement’s ideological orientation and an understanding of the uses of the genre for advocacy (“propaganda”) purposes, which both Speare and Yanagida see as one of its identifying markers.15 Assumptions about the nonliterary orientation and purpose of these novels, John Mertz has argued, prompted scholars to dismiss them as no more than weapons in factional fighting and politicking. Yet he finds scant evidence for this assumption, as the novels offer a wide variety of often conflicting interpretations. “Most of the novels explicitly avoided the appearance of interparty bickering, not to ‘disguise’ their ‘real’ interest, but to address the broader ideological issues of the day.”16 The model and inspiration for Japanese writers of political novels was a new and very modern hero, the writer-politician. The different political parties and currents all used this new figure in their novels. The public battles among political forces were in part fought with the medium of the political novel. The models espoused varied according to their political vision. For young Japanese politicians with conservative views who envisioned a Japan that would soon project its own power abroad, Disraeli, as a staunch monarchist and representative of Victorian England’s worldwide projection of power, was an ideal role model even though national sovereignty (the abolition of the legal extraterritoriality of foreigners), which plays no role in Disraeli, was still of much concern in Japan. Ozaki Yukio 尾崎行雄 (1858–1954) of the Constitutional Progressive Party wrote Shin Nihon 新日本 (New Japan; 1886), which is patterned on Disraeli’s political novels.17 Members of the Constitutional Monarchy Party also wrote adaptations of Disraeli’s novels, such as Seki 14. Yanagida, Seiji shōsetsu no ippan. 15. Mertz, Novel Japan, p. 248. 16. Ibid., p. 249. 17. During the same year (1886), Ozaki published a substantial biography of Disraeli under the title Keisei ikun 經世偉勳 (Great merits in government), which sold well enough to go through several impressions; see Kornicki, “Disraeli and the Meiji Novel,” pp. 51–52.

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Naohiko’s 関直彥 (1857–1934) Seitō yodan: Shun ōden 政黨餘談: 春鶯囀 (Random talk on political parties: the song of the oriole; 1894), which takes its cue from Coningsby; Watanabe Osamu’s 渡邊治 (1864–93) San’ei sōbi: Seikai no jōha 三英雙美: 政海の情波 (Three heroes and two beauties: waves in the sea of politics; 1886), which follows Endymion; Inoue Tsutomu’s 田上勤 (1850–1928) Seikai bōken daidan shosei 政海冒險 大膽書生 (The courageous scholar in the danger of the sea of politics; 1887), which follows the line of Sybil; as well as Fukuchi Genichirō 福地 源一郎 (1841–1906) and Tsukahara Shizumu’s 塚原靖 (1848–1917) Kontari monogatari 昆太利物語 (The story of Contari; 1888), which retells Contarini Fleming.18 For the Freedom Party, the French Revolution and later social confrontations in France were more important models than Disraeli. Members published translations of Alexandre Dumas’s Ange Pitou and Memoirs of a Physician, the new installments of which were often publicly recited.19 Victor Hugo (1802–85) was another towering figure who provided a model for authors associated with this party. Exiled for his opposition to the imperial restoration in France, Hugo became a symbol of republicanism and democratic aspirations throughout Europe with works like Les misérables (1862). When asked by Itagaki Taisuke, leader of the Freedom Party, how to spread the concept of “people’s rights” in a backward nation such as Japan, Hugo’s often quoted answer was reputedly: “Read my novels!”20 These French novels are not treated in European literary criticism or scholarship under the rubric of political novels; nor are those of Scott or Bulwer-Lytton. However, because in the eyes of Japanese politicians and journalists they shared key literary features and 18. See Kornicki, “Disraeli and the Meiji Novel,” pp. 29–55; Suzuki Sadami, Concept of “Literature,” pp. 155–56. 19. The translation of Ange Pitou by Miyazaki Muryū 宮崎夢柳 (1855–89) was serialized from August 12, 1882, under the title [Furansu kakumeiki] Jiyū no kachidoki [仏蘭西革命記]自由の勝ち鬨 in the newspaper Jiyū shinbun 自由新聞 (Freedom weekly), which was linked to this party. For an analysis of this translation and its possible interaction with the social conflagration of the Fukushima Incident, see Ueda, “Production of Literature,” pp. 77–85. The translation of Memoirs of a Physician (Joseph Balsamo) by Sakurada Momoe under the title [Fukoku kakumei kigen] Nishi no umi chishio no saarashi [仏国革命起源]西洋血潮の暴風 (Storms on the Western sea. The origins of the French Revolution) was also serialized in this newspaper. 20. Kimura, Nihon hon’yakushi gaikan, p. 390.

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elements of the political agenda of the political novel, they were read from this perspective, with some of them published with the horn-title “political novel.”21 This regrouping of works of a foreign literature into a new canon with its own subcategories is not unique. It can be seen in the recasting of the canon of Chinese literature by literati associated with the “New Culture” and “May Fourth” currents in China22 and even in the impact of school curricula in colonial India on the formation of the canon of “English literature.”23 Through these translations the reputation of the novel in general and of the novelist in particular began to change. This change is vividly captured in a 1901 memoir by one of the most famous novelists of the Meiji era, Tokutomi Rōka 德富蘆花 (1868–1927). The narrator’s schoolfellows have suggested that he might perhaps become a novelist: A novelist, indeed! I was furious. A petty scribbler: as if a gentleman, a man of honor after all, could stoop so low! This was carrying a joke too far. “Wasn’t Disraeli a novelist, though?” someone tried to placate me. “And didn’t Hugo answer, ‘Make them read my novels!’ when Itagaki asked him for advice on how to preach liberty and equality to the Japanese? There’s nothing to be ashamed of in writing novels.”24

Original Meiji political novels first acquired distinction in 1883, with the publication of [Tēbe meishi] Keikoku bidan [齊武名士] 経国美談 (Inspiring instances of statesmanship. Young politicians from Thebes) by Yano Ryūkei 矢野龍溪 (1850–1931; given name Yano Fumio 矢野文雄),25 which drew on stories about ancient Thebes. The son of an important feudal clan official, Yano Ryūkei received an orthodox Confucian education and then entered Fukuzawa Yukichi’s progressive Keiō-gijuku 21. The “horn-title” appears in smaller font like two horns above the title of the work. It alerts the reader to the genre to which the novel belongs. 22. See Owen, “End of the Past.” 23. See Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest. 24. Quoted from Kornicki, Reform of Fiction, p. 14. 25. The work, which is written not in colloquial Japanese but in kanbun with the majority of words in Chinese characters, is more of a collective product, with friends providing kanbun poetry and learned allusions. The evidence is discussed in Sakaki, “Kajin no kigū,” pp. 98–100.

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academy, where he mastered English and Western learning. He was committed to the People’s Rights Movement both as a journalist and as a politician. When Ōkuma Shigenobu 大隈重信 (1838–1922), with whom he had long collaborated, became foreign minister in 1896, Yano was appointed ambassador to China.26 In his 1901 memoir Tokutomi Roka recalls reading Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship: Change followed change, like the waves of an incoming tide. Two years before we had been deep into [Chinese novels such as] Romance of the Three Kingdoms [a late-sixteenth-century Chinese novel], thrilling to the tale of how Zhang Fei destroyed the Changban bridge “with a single shout”; now we pored as eagerly over up-to-date novels [translated from the French] like [the two novels by the older Alexandre Dumas] Bloody Winds on the Western Sea [Memoirs of a Physician] and The Battle Cry of Liberty [Ange Pitou]. A boy of seventeen, Asai by name, used to answer jeers about his size—he was so small that you would have taken him for no more than twelve or thirteen at the most—by saying an oppressive government was sitting on his head and stopping him from growing; “wait five years, and see how I’ll shoot up then!” He had a wonderfully clear and musical voice, though, in spite of his size. The instant the Freedom Weekly (Jiyū shinbun) arrived with the latest installment of The Battle Cry of Liberty, a crowd gathered on the playground shouting for Asai, who would then station himself by a dormitory window, and declaim the installment in ringing tones, interrupted now and then by great waves of applause. Then there was Fumio Yano’s [Yano Ryūkei] Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship (Keikoku bidan), and I cannot even count the times we read through the night, ruining our eyes on the statesmanship of Epaminondas, Pelopidas, and Mello.27

The memoir nicely captures three stages in the development of a “politically” inspired literature, from the Chinese Three Kingdoms through translations of novels by Dumas about the French Revolution, to Japanese writing of original political novels. Yano Ryūkei’s Inspiring Instances had an immense and lasting success and inspired other young intellectuals to 26. Oguri, Ryūkei Yano Fumio Kun den. 27. Tokutomi Rōka, Omoide no ki, p. 189. The translation largely follows Kenneth Strong’s translation of the work, published as Footprints in the Snow, pp. 119–20. The title identification is based on Ueda, “Production of Literature,” p. 75.

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write novels themselves. Yano was a founding member of the Constitutional Progressive Party (Kaishintō) and was active in the movement to establish a constitution.28 Among the members of this party was also Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859–1935), who first wrote a political novel himself but then turned against the genre with his “Essence of the Novel,” which argues that this “essence” is in the description of emotions rather than that of state and society.29 Yano’s last political novel, the utopian Shin shakai 新社會 (A new society; 1902),30 was highlighted as an example of new fiction in an advertisement for Liang Qichao’s Xin xiaoshuo 新小説 (New fiction) magazine.31 The themes of the Japanese political novel shifted during the 1880s. Yanagida identifies three stages. First it was used politically to “enlighten” the people, as revolutionary propaganda for political parties and as a weapon in political struggles. In the second stage it was used to express individual political beliefs and as an active ideological medium for the improvement of society. In its final stage, while reflecting new Japan’s awareness of its expanding national powers, it was used to satirize those who supported the government and the many factions that it comprised.32 Some of Yanagida’s assertions have been challenged, but these three stages still serve as useful points of reference.33 Kajin no kigū 佳人之奇遇 (Mysterious encounters with beautiful women; 1885–97), by Shiba Shirō 柴四朗 (1852–1922), also known by his pen name, Tōkai Sanshi 東海散士, “Wanderer of the Eastern Seas,” was a landmark in the history of the Meiji political novel. Combining romance with politics, it highlights contemporary Japanese internal politics as well as policies toward Europe and the Far East through a panoramic view of the struggles of the oppressed peoples of the world. 28. See Yanagida, Seiji shōsetsu kenkyū, vol. 1, p. 181. 29. Keene, Dawn to the West, p. 81; Tomi Suzuki, Narrating the Self, p. 28; Kurita, “Meiji Japan’s Y23 Crisis,” p. 13. 30. See Yanagida, Seiji shōsetsu kenkyū, vol. 1, p. 181. The novel was translated into Chinese in 1903 as [Lixiang xiaoshuo] Jile shijie [理想小説]極樂世界 (Happy world. A utopian novel). 31. See Yeh, “Guanyu wan Qing shidai.” 32. Yanagida Izumi sketches these stages in his magisterial study of the Japanese political novel, Seiji shōsetsu kenkyū, vol. 1, pp. 35–47. 33. For a more recent study on the Japanese political novel, see Mertz, Novel Japan, pp. 243–67.

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Suehiro Tetchō 末廣鐵腸 (1849–96), who joined the struggle to establish a constitution in the late 1880s and was a major author of political novels,34 must be credited with fashioning a major and innovative contribution to the genre, the literary device of the “future record,” miraiki. It became a subgenre of the political novel that we will see emulated in turn by Chinese authors. Suehiro made use of it in his Nijūsan nen miraiki 二十三年未來記 (Future record from Meiji year 23 [1890]; 1885–86); in Setchūbai 雪中梅 (Plum blossoms amidst the snow; 1886); and in its sequel, [Seiji shōsetsu] Kakan’ō [政治小説]花間鶯 (Orioles among the flowers. A political novel; 1887). They inspired a whole wave of political novels using this device.35 Framed by a futuristic perspective, Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow, for example, with its prologue set in Meiji 173 (2040 ce), begins with the celebration of the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Japanese parliament, the Diet. The rest of the novel chronicles the results of this achievement. The story focuses on the political and romantic adventures of Kunino Motoi, a moderate activist— with a telling name that is a homophone for “Foundation of the Nation”— who is pushing for democratic reforms, and Tominaga Haru, a beautiful, well-educated and wealthy lady sympathizer whose name stands for “Eternal Spring of Wealth.” Through their efforts and helped by other reform-minded citizens, a modern Japan is eventually established. Although the miraiki as a literary device has earlier Japanese roots, Japanese readers were also exposed by the 1870s to a new way of writing about the present from an imagined future through the translation of Anno 2065: Een Blik in de Toekomst (The year 2065: a glimpse into the future) by the Dutch scientist Pieter Harting writing under the pen name of “Dr. Dioscorides” (1865).36 As Kyoko Kurita has shown, the translation of this work revived and radically recast the Japanese miraiki. In a daydream the narrator finds himself in the year 2065. There he encounters 34. Yanagida Izumi claims that whenever one thinks of Meiji political novels, one thinks, and rightly so, of Suehiro; see Meiji seiji shōsetsu shū, vol. 2, p. 489. 35. Kurita, “Meiji Japan’s Y23 Crisis.” 36. See Dioscorides, Anno 2065. The Japanese translation/adaptations were Kamijō Shinji, Kōsei yume monogatari (Keishōkaku, 1874); and Kondo Makoto, Shin mirai-ki (Aoyama Seikichi, 1878); see Kurita, “Meiji Japan’s Y23 Crisis,” p. 7. Kurita discusses the prehistory of the miraiki vogue as well as the differences between the new and the earlier works on pp. 6–10.

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Roger Bacon, a thirteenth-century scientist who anticipated many later scientific and technical developments. Accompanied by Phantasia, a young educated woman of the twenty-first century, Bacon gives Dr. Dioscorides a tour of the future London, Londinia, a showcase of technology and prosperity. When the “dirigible” they are riding in is about to land in Melbourne, the narrator wakes up from his daydream. This work brings into focus the politics embedded in the scientist literary device of using a perspective of looking back from the future to advance a particular ideological point of view regarding the present society. In the case of Anno 2065, the focus is on the role of science and technology in fostering a prosperous and secular society. The novel demonstrated the effectiveness of the literary device of the dream or daydream to articulate what Kyoko Kurita calls the dialectical as well as multitemporal relationship among past, present, and future.37 An illustration of the future Tokyo from Suehiro Tetchō’s Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow shows the use in Japan of the retrospective from a future point of view (figure 2.1). The image illustrates the glories of the new Tokyo, as viewed from their window by two men sitting in a Tokyo home on March 3 of Meiji 173, or the year 2040. They have been prompted to take stock by the sound of cannons and trumpets, which reminds them that this day is the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Diet. Their reaction is described in the following passage: We truly have been blessed to be born into such a prosperous world and live out our old age in comfort. This city of Tokyo with its expanse of more than ten miles in every direction is covered with tall brick buildings. Telegraph lines stretch out like a spider’s web, steam trains come and go from all points, and the electric lights are like trailblazers along the streets. In Tokyo harbor, trading ships of every country are moored and the booming trade outdoes even London and Paris. There are hundreds of thousands of troops on land, hundreds of men-of-war afloat on the sea, and there is no place in the world where the Rising Sun does not wave. Education has spread throughout the country and literature thrives. No other country in the world can compare. What’s more, if one considers the political situation, we have a revered and 37. The daydream feature was widely copied in Japanese miraiki. Kurita, “Meiji Japan’s Y23 Crisis,” p. 10.

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Figure 2.1. “Illustration of the Great Prosperity of Imperial Japan” 日本帝國大繁昌之圖. (Suehiro Tetchō, Setchubai 雪中梅 [Plum blossoms amidst the snow] [Tokyo: Hakubundō, 1887], after p. 10.)

majestic emperor above and a Diet rich in wisdom and experience below. Through competition between the progressive and conservative parties, cabinets change smoothly, laws are set down according to the constitution, and there is freedom of both press and assembly. Indeed, I think such an absence of abuse is without precedent in history. Our country, known throughout Asia up to a hundred years ago as poor, weak, and despised by the countries of Europe and America, was able to advance its fortunes so much in a short time because his majesty the emperor was a virtuous ruler and early issued a proclamation founding a constitutional system of government. Soon after he established the Diet on this day in Meiji 23, the course of events steadily improved. Our children and grandchildren owe everlasting loyalty to the imperial house because we have arrived where we are today.38 38. Translation from Christopher Hill, “How to Write a Second Restoration,” pp. 345–46.

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Coding the Allegory Although not a best-seller when it was published in 1880, Toda Kindō’s 戶田欽堂 (1850–90) [Minken engi] Jōkai haran [民權演義]情海波瀾 (Stormy seas of passion. A romance about people’s rights; 1880) can be said to have laid the groundwork for the literary devices used in the Japanese political novel.39 It is the first available evidence that the genre of the political novel had taken local root in Japan beyond translations.40 Written in the guise of a sentimental love story between a beautiful lady and a talented young hero, the novel makes use of the Chinese “scholar and beauty” (caizi jiaren 才子佳人) plot line that was all the rage in Japan at the time.41 The geisha O-ken is in love with Minji, who seems to return her affection. Before the happy ending O-ken has to fend off the advances of Kokufu, a wealthy but villainous bureaucrat, as well as another geisha’s designs on Minji. When O-ken’s wish to be married to Minji comes true, she wakes up to realize that it was only a dream and that the actual struggle is still before her. The horn-title “Romance About People’s Rights” prompts the reader to read this romance as an allegory linked to the People’s Rights Movement that had recently begun. The telling names of the main characters provide clues to the allegory. The geisha’s full name, Sakigakeya O-ken 魁屋お權, means “Progressive Rights” (in the novel she is referred to simply as “Ms. Rights,” O-ken 阿權), and she is from an establishment called “House of the Vanguard.” The name of her lover, Wakokuya Minji 和國屋民次, reads “Japanese Man of the People” (in short form, “Common 39. Toda, who was born to a noble family, visited the United States in 1871. Returning after only one year, he lived the easy life of independent wealth, “dabbling,” in Mertz’s phrase, as a novelist, news reporter, democratic rights organizer, and Christian bookseller. Mertz, Novel Japan, p. 142. 40. Judging from the foreword and the author’s introduction to the novel, foreign sources were the novel’s literary inspiration. Toda, far from hiding this inspiration, explicitly inserts his writing into a transcultural context as a marker of its worldliness. 41. Maeda Ai attributes this literary phenomenon to the development of social conditions comparable to those of premodern China. The loosening of the rigid social hierarchy left young intellectuals in a situation in which they had to prove their talent or perish. Maeda, “Gesaku bungaku,” p. 123, quoted in Sakaki, “Kajin no kigū,” p. 86, n. 6.

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People,” Minji 民次). The name of her unwanted suitor, Kokufu Masabumi 國府正文, translates as “National Government” or “State.” The geisha competing for Minji’s affections is Hikutsuya Yakko 比久津屋奴, “Slave from the House of Servility,” in short form “Slave.”42 At the opening of the story, the author alerts the reader that the love between the beauty and the young man is to be read as an allegory with serious meaning.43 The focus on contemporary political controversies and the technique of political allegory together with the key provided by the telling names were all novelties in Japanese works at the time. Conceived as figures in a political allegory, the characters remain undeveloped and static in literary terms. The novel provided a model for the writing as well as the reading of such works.44 As pointed out by Miwa Shinjirō in his foreword to the first edition, O-ken represents both the concrete notion of people’s rights in the sense of the movement and a general political ideal of which the United States was the best realization. O-ken’s importance, he explains, is like the image of the Goddess of Liberty on the U.S. national currency (figure 2.2). Instead of mottoes or the images of kings, this image represents the new (social order and) spirit of the nation. In other words, O-ken is to represent the new national spirit of Japan. With O-ken, the author offers a fresh image for the concept of liberty—beautiful, youthful, and alluring; determined to win the affection of the people; and ready to serve them (the courtesan’s relationship to the young man, Minji). The representation of “the people” through the character of a well-to-do and self-confident suitor of a geisha rather than a peasant signals that the author was thinking primarily of the new and educated urban classes. At the same time, being a geisha, O-ken is 42. Hill, “How to Write,” p. 342; Mertz, Novel Japan, p. 141. 43. Toda writes: “Those who regard sentimental histories [fiction] as lowly and superficial talk by the vulgar utter but the commonplace words of a quail standing on a garden fence and have the narrow perspective of a frog at the bottom of a well. With the aid of pen and ink, this form allows one to freely express one’s flights of fancy and bring them together on paper. In the past there were Lao [Laozi] and Zhuang [Zhuangzi] of China and Aesop of Europe who used the form of allegory 寓言 to satirize the world. Today, I am telling a new story using the [old] trope of the fated lovers. I hope the reader will be able to understand the [true] meaning of the story.” Toda, Jōkai haran, p. 1. 44. Mertz, Novel Japan, p. 142.

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Figure 2.2. Twenty-dollar interest-bearing note of 1864, with Goddess of Liberty on the left and Lincoln on the right. (The ANA Museum’s Collection of Bebee’s Notes, http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/File:ANA_Collection_Interest_Bearing_Note.jpg)

also socially vulnerable and in need of patronage; by herself she will not be able to secure liberty. The conflict at the center of this novel is well captured in an illustration (figure 2.3). It opposes the imperious image of the government bureaucrat with the defiant and heroic image of the people. O-ken is reluctantly offering a consolatory flower to Kokufu while firmly allying herself with the defiant Minji, whose protection she needs against Kokufu. Interestingly, Kokufu is wearing Western garb, whereas Minji and O-ken wear traditional Japanese clothing. This depiction denotes a contradictory sentiment within the People’s Rights Movement toward Westernization and the domestication of the notion of citizen’s rights represented by the image of O-ken. The political program outlined by the plot of the novel can be read as follows: if the government (Kokufu) takes away the political rights (O-ken) from the people (Minji), then the people will be left with the servile encumbrances (Yakko) of the pre-Meiji lower-class tradition.45 In Stormy Seas we see the dynamics of a genre’s migration. The transformation of the scholar-and-beauty motif into political allegory shows new literary patterns developing as new literary forms are absorbed into the existing environment, which is already the result of a transcultural interaction, in this case with Chinese literature. The core features of the 45.

Ibid., p. 141.

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Figure 2.3. The key protagonists of Minken engi: Jōkai haran (Romance of people’s rights: stormy seas of passion). The illustration depicts Minji (the people) on the left, Kokufu (government) on the right, and O-ken (rights) in the middle. (Illustration by Neisai 寧齋. From Toda Kindō, [Minken engi] Jōkai haran [1880].)

genre of the political novel show up in Stormy Seas: the story is driven by political ideas. It deals with the current political crisis, with the struggle between conflicting forces, and with their potential impact on the fate of the nation. It offers and advocates a political solution, here institutional guarantees for the rights for the people. The conflict in this novel is not between the old and the young generation as is the case in Coningsby, but between the “government” and the “people.” Like Coningsby, who finally rejects the old brand of Toryism together with the wealth and the noble title of his grandfather and chooses instead to unite with the new manufacturing class (Miss Millbank) to realize his political vision, Minji finally severs his ties with Yakko (Ms. Slave, or the old way of life) and chooses to unite with liberty. However, unlike the total rupture between Coningsby and his grandfather, Minji and Kokufu finally make peace. When O-ken and Minji marry at the end of Stormy Seas, Kokufu throws a reception

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in a hall called the Kokkai (“National Assembly,” or “Diet” in the usual English rendering). Although it is described as a real event, this marriage as well as the reception actually project the image of a future modern urban bourgeoisie, with its recognized rights and social duties, and the establishment of the Diet a decade later as a political solution accepted by all parties involved. The Coningsby model also shows up in a minor but telling point: like Lord Monmouth, who is always followed by the immortal pair Taper and Tadpole, Kokufu is always accompanied by his two lackeys Nenpachi and Jōkichi.46 Toda’s major innovation was the casting of the image of liberty/rights in the figure of a woman. Grounded in the precedents of Western imagery as well as such works as Niwa Jun’ichirō’s translation/adaptation of Bulwer-Lytton’s Ernest Maltravers, such a casting was revolutionary in the context of Japanese literature and popular fiction in particular. It opened the way for the Japanese depiction of free women as the metaphorical representation of national issues, while presenting the view that an ideal in itself is only as “weak” as a woman and needs real social forces— the “people” in the shape of an urban male—to be realized. Similar allegorical uses of the female gender will be found in Suehiro Tetchō’s Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow (1886), Sudō Nansui’s The Local SelfGovernment (Ryokusadan, 1886), and other political novels that came after Stormy Seas.47 The use of a dream to frame this allegorical tale helped transplant this trope from Anno 2065 into the Japanese political novel. The combination of the dream metaphor familiar from traditional Chinese fiction with “waking up” to the actual political situation and the urgent action needed established an often followed model for ending novels of this genre. With this ending the author appeals to the reader to join the cause as well as pressuring him to become active as “the people” to bring about popular representation in Japan.

46. The many similarities between Toda’s novel and Coningsby, which appeared in translation only later, suggest that Toda might have read it in the original. 47. With the successful establishment of the Diet in 1890, the allegorical role played by women in political novels ended, quite apart from the fact that it was decades later that women became recognized members of the political landscape. Mason, “Revisiting,” pp. 49–66.

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Impact Although it is impossible to measure the impact of the political novel on the Meiji reform process, there is substantial circumstantial evidence of its importance. The very large print runs—several million copies for Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship and best-seller status for Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women—are indicators, and so is the rich personal memoir literature. The standing of the novel greatly improved in the Meiji era. When in 1909 the then Japanese education minister invited the writers Kōda Rohan 幸田露伴, Mori Ōgai 森鷗外, Natsume Sōseki 夏目 漱石, and Shimamura Hōgetsu 島村抱月 to his official residence, this was, as Suzuki Sadami points out, “a moment symbolic of the treatment of famous writers as major figures in society.”48 In the context of the political demands and achievements of the constitutionalists that helped establish the Diet in 1890, the Japanese political novel was important for the Meiji reform movement in various ways. Culturally, it played a significant role in romanticizing and legitimizing the West as the torchbearer of liberty and individual rights and, as such, as a model for emulation. Through these novels reformers hoped to introduce and popularize knowledge of Western as well as their own political ideas and aspirations, and the print runs and the duration during which these novels remained available indicate that these hopes were not in vain. Especially during the struggle to establish the constitution, this new form of writing was successful in mobilizing young intellectuals.49 In literary terms, the genre offered reformist politicians a set of literary and rhetorical tropes as well as plot patterns. Why, then, has the political novel been treated as a literary failure, asked John Mertz; why have most literary critics refused to admit the genre to the canon of modern literature?50 The main argument Mertz presents is the lack of a scholarly analysis of the literary features that identify the political novel as the beginnings of the modern Japanese novel.51 48. Suzuki Sadami, Narrating the Self, p. 155. 49. Feldman, “Meiji Political Novel,” pp. 245–55. 50. Mertz, Novel Japan, p. 250. 51. Mertz identifies the work of Asukai Masamichi, Maeda Ai, and Kamei Hideo as representing recent scholarly efforts to bring the political novel into the discussion of literary modernity; he highlights two stylistic features from their work: the disappearance of the narrator and the appearance of nationalism. Ibid., pp. 263–64.

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By the time Japan had installed a parliament and adopted a constitutional monarchy on the British model, Liang Qichao and his companions were just beginning their own agitation for institutional reform in China. Liang Qichao became the key figure in linking this world genre with China. He wrote the seminal essays that introduced the genre, translated the first work of this kind into Chinese, and wrote the first and most influential Chinese political novel himself.

China: The Late Qing Political Novel Laying the Groundwork The political novel had its “moment” in England during the 1840s and a second life in Japan during the 1880s. Similarly, the Japanese political novel, whose “moment” had passed by the late 1890s, had a second life in East Asia during the first decade of the twentieth century. The term zhengzhi xiaoshuo 政治小説, “political novel,” started to circulate widely in China around the time of the 1898 reform movement. It had first appeared in Kang Youwei’s 康有爲 (1858–1927) 1898 annotated compilation of Japanese booksellers’ catalogues, although Kang does not use the term in his own commentaries to this compilation. At the end of the catalogue’s novel section he writes: “Among the literate there are many who don’t read the classics, but there is no one who does not read novels. Therefore, if one is unable to teach the classics [directly], one should teach them through novels; if one is unable to get to them through the official histories, one has to get them there through novels.” Kang Youwei had heard in the Dianshizhai bookstore in Shanghai that the classics and histories sold less than examination essays but that novels easily outsold examination essays.52 The majority of the novels he mentions as “able to stimulate people to think” are explicitly marked as political novels either in Kang’s Japanese catalogue or in other Japanese editions.53 Kang claims 52. Yuan Jin, Zhongguo wenxue de jindai biange, p. 159. 53. Among the novels Kang Youwei mentions as “capable of exciting the mind” are Sekai miraiki 世界未來記 (A future record of the world), Shin Nihon 新日本 (The new Japan), and Nankai no kirō 南海之激浪 (Storm waves in the Pacific), all of them

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that the Japanese were using these novels to “transform the mentality of the people.”54 In his opinion the novel might be useful in the political crisis confronting China as one of the means to treat the “diseased state of affairs” and renew the nation: Today we are about to mobilize ourselves for self-strengthening and for reforming our old ways. However, the respect for seniority and rank and for the privileged position of the elders has not been done away with. The old-style literary standards and military system have not been changed. We now pro forma make one or two changes and use empty jargon to implement it—this is like using paper to mend a building that is about to collapse or a ship that is about to sink. This definitely is the road to demise. Even if we wipe out and shake up the old institutions and mend the potholes and change our old ways, the strength of the West does not come with their armies and weapons but is due to the educational level of the population and to the books about new methods.55

The idea that the novel could be used for more than lowly entertainment was not new in China. It had been discussed since the seventeenth century and had already informed some novels. From early on foreign Protestant missionaries had emulated the use of novels by the Inland Mission in London to instill Christian values in the laboring classes. They political novels. This last novel is one of the very few marked as “political novel” in the subtitle (Kang Youwei, Riben shumu zhi, p. 1168). Others are found on pages 1166, 1170, 1171, 1190, and 1200. This marking comes in the horn-titles of works (written in two lines of smaller font above the title). The catalogue, in fifteen juan and 8 ce, lists over 1,500 novels, and the section ends with a programmatic statement by Kang Youwei. No date is given for the publication of the original Datong yishu edition, but from a Shenbao advertisement of Guangxu 24, third month, thirtieth day, it is clear that the book was published in spring 1898. Xia Xiaohong assumes that the compilation was based on titles actually seen by Kang. Jueshi yu chuanshi, p. 209. Given that this list contains about nine thousand titles in all fields of knowledge on six hundred pages and that very few of them were available in China at the time, this is not likely. Kang’s catalogue is based on the classified sections of Tōkyō shoseki shuppan eigyōsha kumiaiin shoseki sōmokuroku (1893–98). In November 1897 Liang Qichao had written a comment on this compilation, “Du Riben shumu zhi shu hou,” which in later editions became its preface. Liang’s article does not mention the novels. 54. Kang Youwei, Riben shumu zhi, pp. 1212–13. 55. Ibid., pp. 583–84.

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wrote novels in Chinese to spread the gospel but also to convey politically relevant information.56 In 1895 the American missionary John Fryer (1839–1928) had organized a quickly forgotten public competition on writing novels on the evils of opium-smoking, the eight-legged essay of the examination system, and foot-binding;57 and in 1897 Yan Fu 嚴復 (1853–1921), the leading translator and modernization theorist of the time, had published a long essay with Xia Zengyou 夏曾佑 (1865–1924), his coeditor on the paper Guowen bao 國聞報 (National news): “Announcing our Policy to Print a Supplementary Fiction Section” 本舘複印說部緣 起.58 While endorsing the power of fiction as a possible medium to spread new moral values,59 the two authors drew on biological and social Darwinism to account for the intrinsic appeal of novels. Using the older classifier shuobu 說部 instead of the newer xiaoshuo for the novel, they claimed that these works mainly tell tales of heroism and love. Primitive and civilized men alike worship the hero because he spells success in the struggle for survival. Yet this kind of new novel existed only in the West and Japan. As the mission of the new novel was to kaihua 開化, to open minds and civilize the population, this kind of novel was now needed. It awaited Chinese authors, and their National News was willing to publish such works.60 56. Hanan, “Missionary Novels.” 57. On Fryer’s competition, see [Patrick Hanan], “New Novel,” pp. 317–40. Kang Youwei knew about this contest from the Wanguo gongbao (Review of the times) newspaper; see Yuan Jin, Zhongguo wenxue de jindai biange, p. 159. 58. Yan Fu and Xia Zengyou, “Benguan fuyin shuobu yuanqi.” Although this essay was the first to elucidate the value of the novel form, and although Kang Youwei referred to the possible benefits of novels in 1898 in his Riben shumu zhi, which Liang Qichao quotes extensively in this preface, Liang Qichao’s essays on the political novel (written in 1898 and 1902) had the greatest influence. See A Ying, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, p. 2. On Yan Fu, see Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power. Xia Zengyou was greatly admired in his own time for his knowledge and practice of Buddhism; he was also a close friend of Liang Qichao. See Hsia, “Yen Fu and Liang Ch’i-ch’ao,” p. 221. 59. The claim that Chinese novels, their bad name notwithstanding, would help instill traditional Confucian or Buddhist values in their readers was familiar from earlier times and is even found in the prefaces to works such as Li Yu’s 李漁 notorious late Ming novel Roupu tuan 肉蒲團 (The carnal prayer mat). 60. Although, as C. T. Hsia has shown, the piece is full of contradictions, it enabled a reevaluation of the potential of fiction, assigning to it the task of aiding reform through advocacy. Hsia, “Yen Fu and Liang Ch’i-ch’ao,” pp. 227–31.

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After his flight from China, Kang Youwei published a rich and interesting poem in 1900, written to the Singapore journalist and poet Qiu Shuyuan 丘菽園 (1874–1941), who had invited the refugee. It was titled “Hearing that [Qiu] Shuyuan plans to write a novel about the coup d’état [of 1898], [I wrote a] poem to spur him on.”61 He does not use the term “political novel,” but the topic makes it clear that this novel about the coup fits the pattern.62 Kang speaks of the “darkness” rising with the 1898 coup and the lack of concern among the country’s examination-obsessed elite with the threatening demise of both ruler and country. This, he suggests, creates a situation where fiction becomes a popular instrument of remonstrance. 63 In the end Qiu did not write a political novel, but Kang’s student Liang Qichao did. After the 1898 coup Liang Qichao turned to the political 61. Kang Youwei, “Wen Shuyuan yu wei zhengbian xiaoshuo”; original without the minor changes of the Qingyi bao editors in Kang Nanhai xiansheng shiji, pp. 35–37. 62. Since he had been in Shanghai, Kang writes, he had begun to wonder “why sales of classics and histories were lower than those for eight-legged essays [the format of the imperial examinations], and these in turn were no match for those of novels.” He concluded that “as the music of Zheng [which was everybody’s favorite but was judged morally questionable] did not tire people out, while elegant music made them fall asleep, it is wisdom not to reject what people go for,” that is, to accept that novels are what people will read. This quotation is included in the poem. See also Yuan Jin, Zhongguo wenxue de jindai biange, p. 159. 63. Qiu Shuyuan was the editor of the Singapore Chinese-language paper Tiannan xinbao 天南新報, which started publishing in 1898. For his biography, see Qiu Xinmin, Qiu Shuyuan sheng ping. Qiu’s family name is alternatively written 丘 and 邱. Kang’s poem encourages his host to model himself after the legendary minister Dong Hu 董狐 (seventh century bce) and to use fiction to drive home political points. The poem ends: “Whether one uses Yuefu poetry or the novel, whether one tells of people who anticipate it all correctly or of people who only gradually realize it . . . to have the four hundred million citizens make use of the work for banter after tea or when they wake up! If your magic brush paints after life, the roar of the sea will rise as a wooden bell [to awaken all]! I beg you to let the rays of the morning shine over the universe and sign off for it all within ten days!” Kang links the enjoyment of reading fiction with a political purpose. He anticipates that fiction “written after life” (sheng xie 生寫) will bring down the empty formalism of official writing and thinking, and bring about a transformation of public opinion that awakens people to the light of civilization. Urgency is expressed in the poem’s title and the last line. Kang had hoped that his student and associate Liang Qichao would come out with such a miracle drug in 1899, but this did not happen, and he is now urging Qiu Shuyuan in the safe haven of Singapore to step in and write a political novel about the coup of 1898.

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novel as a potent medication for the Chinese body politic. Since arriving in Japan, he had closely followed Japanese translations of Western political philosophy and novels.64 He had used them to introduce political thinkers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau and Johann Caspar Bluntschli (1808–81) to the Chinese reading public.65 His ideas regarding the political novel and his translations of Western literature (via Japanese translations) were heavily influenced by the work of Tokutomi Rōka.66 Liang, furthermore, had freely taken works of Japanese authors and adopted them in his own writings.67 Out of power, Liang Qichao looked for tools beyond an official position to “reform the people” (xin min 新民), to create a brand-new “Young China”68 that would mold the old empire into a new nation.69 Before leaving China, Liang had had discussions with Yano Ryūkei, the former ambassador to China and author of Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship.70 Liang was impressed by the focused and strong Japan he saw 64. Evidence for Liang’s familiarity with Japanese publications can be found in many of his writings before and after 1898, especially in his essays and bibliographies of Japanese works and Western works that had been translated into Japanese: “Du Riben shumu zhi shu hou,” “Dong ji yuedan” (under the name Yinbingshi zhuren), “Lun xue Ribenwen zhi yi” (under Aishi ke), and “Xixue shumu biao.” 65. For Liang Qichao’s translation of Rousseau, see his “Lusuo xue’an” (1901); for that of Bluntschli, see “Zhengzhixue dajia Bolunzhili” (1903); see also Zhang Pengyuan, Liang Qichao yu Qing ji geming, p. 39. 66. Nakamura Tadayuki, “Tokutomi Rōka.” See also Martin, “Transitional Concept.” 67. Feng Ziyou, “Riben Defu Sufeng yu Liang Qichao,” pp. 269–71. According to Feng, Liang Qichao had copied Japanese writers frequently and sometimes so freely that Chinese students who had returned from Japan publicly protested against his plagiarism in the Shanghai Xin dalu zazhi in 1901. Liang copied mostly without acknowledging the original author. He made particularly frequent use of the articles of Tokutomi Rōka, the editor of the Tokyo Kokumin shinbun. Liang’s “Yinbinshi ziyoushu” 自由書(Random notes from the Ice Drinker’s studio), for example, which were written under the name Ren Gong, was plagiarized from the Kokumin sōsho 國民叢書 of Tokutomi Rōka’s brother Tokutomi Sohō 德富苏峰. 68. Ren Gong (Liang Qichao), “Shaonian Zhongguo shuo.” 69. Hazama Naoki argues in his study on Liang Qichao’s idea of “reforming the people” that, during the first stage of Liang’s exile to Japan, this idea was linked to the idea of the Chinese state but that Liang’s thinking on the matter underwent fundamental changes in subsequent years as he argued with revolutionaries who advocated overthrowing the Qing. See Hazama, “ ‘Xinmin shuo.’ ” 70. For his meetings with Yano Ryūkei, see Xia Xiaohong, Jueshi yu chuanshi, p. 223.

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on his arrival in Yokohama and attributed this in part to the effects of the political novel. He compared the success of the Meiji political reforms with his own reform efforts that had just failed in China. He especially admired the large volume of translations and works written by Japanese politicians and politically engaged intellectuals71 and created his own catalogue of translated Western books that should be read.72 The first example of the genre to appear in Chinese was Liang’s translation of Tōkai Sanshi’s Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women,73 which came out in installments in Liang’s newly founded journal Qingyi bao (The China Discussion). This novel situated China’s struggle for reform in an international context. Liang’s “Preface on the Translation and Publication of Political Novels” spells out the agenda and the hopes he associated with the genre.74 It emphasizes the Western origin of this genre and its pivotal role in successful reforms in the West and Japan, and assigns to the political novel and to fiction generally a new role in qingyi 清議: the “pure [that is, public-spirited] discussion” of Chinese national affairs. Liang uses some of the same allusions found in Kang Youwei’s poem, including the comparison of the novel with the “music of Zheng,” which is deemed vulgar and decadent but is appreciated by the people. In the same manner novels such as Honglou meng (Dream of the red chamber) may have spawned vacuous daydreams among generations of young people, but the form can also be put to good use, as is the case in the political novel. As people shy away from the classics, novels have become suitable instruments to inspire patriotism and a modern mind-set. The situation in the West a few decades earlier demonstrates this. In former times, at the beginning of the reforms in the different European states, outstanding scholars, learned men, people of benevolence and of great purpose time and again would at once entrust their own experience and the political arguments harbored in their breast to novels. As a consequence, scholars taking a break in their study or during holidays from teaching held these novels in their hands and read from them, and from

71. 72. 73. 74.

Aishi ke (Liang Qichao), “Lun xue Ribenwen zhi yi.” Liang Qichao, “Xixue shumu biao.” Shiba Shirō (Tōkai Sanshi), Kajin no kigū. Ren Gong (Liang Qichao), “Yi yin zhengzhi xiaoshuo xu.”

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chapter 2 there on everyone down to soldiers, merchants, peasants, artisans, chauffeurs, stable boys, women, and children would all have them in their hands and on their lips. Time and again, after the publication of such a book, the opinion of the entire country was completely transformed. In the daily progress of the political realm of America, England, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, and Japan, the contributions of the political novel rank highest. Is it not utterly true, as a famous English gentleman said, that the “novel is the soul of a people”?75

After a discussion with the Japanese reformer Inukai Tsuyoshi 犬養 毅 (1855–1932), who was then minister of education, Liang Qichao produced a list of translated and newly written political novels that he claimed had had an impact on Japanese political reform. During the Meiji Restoration, the novel also made a great contribution. At about the fifteenth or sixteenth year of Meiji [1882, 1883], the call of the Popular Rights Movement was heard throughout the country. At this time Western novels, some of them dealing with the French and Roman revolutions, were translated one after the other. With titles featuring words such as “Liberty” or “The Light of Liberty,” they gradually appeared in the avant-garde newspapers. Within a short time the translation of this kind of Western novel became more and more popular.

“Among the most famous” translations, he listed Bulwer-Lytton’s Ernest Maltravers and Kenelm Chillingly, Disraeli’s Coningsby, and Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake and Ivanhoe. Liang writes: The original works were mostly written by modern Western authors of historical novels. While these translations enjoyed tremendous success, the Japanese political novel gradually emerged in its own right. Examples are Shiba Shirō’s Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women, Suehiro Tetchō’s Orioles among the Flowers and Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow, Asahina Chisen’s The History of Civilization Emerging in the East (Bunmei tōzen shi), and Yano Ryūkei’s Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship. The authors of these works were all major political figures and theorists, and they wrote these novels in which their political opinions were conveyed through fictional

75.

Ren Gong, “Yi yin zhengzhi xiaoshuo xu.”

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characters. Therefore, these works should definitely not be classified simply as novels [in the normal sense] 固不得專以小説目之. The two novels that most effectively penetrated and nurtured the minds of the people were Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women and Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship, and their influence on the thinking of the citizens was considerable.76

Liang’s summary offers a window into the transmission process of the genre from Europe to Japan and to China, highlighting the importance, even crucial importance, ascribed to the genre for the success of reform efforts. By embarking on the trajectory to modernity that had been followed by Japanese and Western reformers, China was to make the best use of means that had been shown to be so effective elsewhere. The world genre of the political novel reached China with politics not as an extraliterary burden, but as its most redeeming and proudly displayed asset. It was this link to a great and earnest political purpose that gave dignity to the novel genre more generally while making the best of its ability to lure and entertain. The relative importance assigned to the political novel was reflected in the statement of purpose outlining the envisaged content of the Qingyi bao. Items would be grouped under six headings: political essays by Chinese, political essays by Japanese and Westerners, China news, international news, Chinese philosophy, and political novels. The political novel thus becomes a legitimate medium for the “pure discussion of national affairs,” joining the political essay and international news in a common endeavor. Their authors were mostly journalists who also used other forms of articulation. Although the heyday of the genre had already passed in Japan by the time he arrived in 1898,77 Liang believed that its successful role in the 76. Ren Gong (Liang Qichao), “Wenming puji zhi fa” (On the methods to spread civilization). This was originally an untitled segment in Liang’s “Yinbingshi ziyou shu” series in Qingyi bao. 77. From the publication dates of fictional works explicitly called political novels and accessible in the database of the National Diet Library in Tokyo, the Japanese political novel appeared first in 1886 and peaked in the years 1887 and 1888 with one-half of all novels published during these two years. See Yanagida, Seiji shōsetsu kenkyū, vol. 1, p. 47.

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European and Japanese reforms made it one of the keys to overcoming the greatest obstacle to reforming China, namely, deficiencies in the national character that were shared by both the elite and common people. Traditionally, other elite literary genres had on occasion been used to convey political messages, but for the novel this was new. The political novel primarily addressed young readers, who had enough education to be able to read, formed the majority of novel readers, were informed enough to understand what these novels were about, and might be interested in the issues addressed in them. Political novels could offset or might even crowd out the shallow and morally questionable entertainment offered in traditional Chinese novels. The foreign origin, political subject matter, and didactic effectiveness of the new novel set it apart from the Chinese tradition of the novel that Liang denounced in his “Preface on the Translation and Publication of Political Novels.” Liang does not contrast the political novel with other thematic subgenres of new fiction such as the “social novel” or other genres such as drama. He was interested in demonstrating the pervasive use of literary devices for the illustration of important but abstract arguments among mainstream Chinese authors such as Mengzi, and in noting differences between the reformed or new novel and the traditional Chinese novel. The horn titles indicating the genre “political novel” in his new journal above the actual title of the translation were based on authorship, content, purpose, and time, not on the presence of the same horn title in the Japanese original in his hand. In his use of literary writing for purposes of political instruction, persuasion, and polemic, Liang did not confine himself to the form of the novel; he was willing to make use of other popular literary forms, such as chuanqi drama and Guangdong opera, so long as they served his purpose.78 Liang’s “Preface” reveals his assumptions and aspirations concerning the potential readership of his works. By identifying readers of Western political novels first as the scholar interrupting his serious teaching and then as “soldiers, merchants, peasants, artisans, chauffeurs, stable boys, women, and children,” he suggests a trickle-down effect once an elite 78. Ruhuian zhuren (Liang Qichao), Jiehui meng; Yinbingshi zhuren (Liang Qichao), Xin Luoma chuanqi and Xiaqing ji. The Canton opera Ban Dingyuan ping xiyu 班定遠 平西域 (Ban Dingyuan pacifies the western region) was published by Liang under the name of Manshu zhuren in Xin xiaoshuo in 1905.

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readership has been reached. When assessing the potential Chinese readership, Liang did not have to rely on speculation. He had considerable experience with newspapers, having worked in 1895 and 1896 with the missionary publisher Timothy Richard in Beijing while the latter was editor of Wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 (Review of the times).79 Liang eventually founded his own newspapers, the Shiwu bao 時務報, in Shanghai in 1896, and the Zhixin bao 知新報, in Macao in 1897. These papers were successful in reaching a broader urban readership across the Chinesespeaking world and in influencing public opinion through the medium of educated readers.80 Liang tried to reach opinion makers in the Chinese treaty ports and the overseas diaspora by exploiting the relative lack of control of the Qing court over the bustling publication and distribution market that was developing at the time, especially in Shanghai. In a process also seen in the examples of Young Italy and Rizal, authors, translators, distributors, and readers joined in a border-crossing enterprise to maintain a regular flow of politically sensitive reading matter. Liang Qichao’s translation of Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women set the stage. As it was the first Japanese political novel to be translated into Chinese, it is in many ways the link between Coningsby and the Chinese political novel. The Chinese translation, which used the same Chinese characters, Jiaren qiyu 佳人奇遇, as the Japanese original, was serialized between 1898 and 1902 in the first thirty-five issues of Qingyi bao. The fact that this foreign political novel was translated by a wellknown Chinese reformer on the boat carrying him to exile gave the novel a new layer of meaning in the Chinese context: it was a device adopted by a political reformer out of power to get his message out. Together with the agency of the translator in selecting a specific text and fitting it to a Chinese agenda, the changes wrought by the translator in the original text add a second layer that demonstrates the stable core as well as the movable elements of the genre as it migrates. The central character is the Wanderer of the Eastern Seas. He travels from Japan to America, by “chance” meets up with kindred spirits from other nations, and returns home in the end to devote himself to reforming 79. Chen Chi-yun, “Liang Ch’i-ch’ao’s ‘Missionary Education,’ ” p. 86. 80. Ding Wenjiang, Liang Rengong xiansheng nianpu, vol. 1, p. 150.

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his country. One major theme secures coherence in an otherwise actionless novel: the struggle of the “small and weak nations” for selfdetermination and independence against the world’s “strong powers,” a theme that for Liang Qichao resonated with China’s present situation. The novel does not try to mobilize an empty nationalism but sees the way forward in a striving for far-reaching political reforms generated from within the small and weak nations. The first scene offers in symbolic form a common agenda for such reforms in the idealized environment of the United States, the most successful reform effort to date as it managed to overcome the most powerful nation in the world, England. The scene opens in the Independence Hall in Philadelphia. One day, the Wanderer of the Eastern Seas climbed up the tower of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Above him he saw the cracked Liberty Bell. [Liang comments: It is the custom of Europe and America to toll the bell in order to gather the people when big events occur. At the beginning of America’s independence movement, people always came to this hall, and they tolled the bell to announce good and bad news. The bell finally cracked, and later generations called it the cracked Liberty Bell.] Below him he saw the Declaration of Independence. He reminisced about the noble character of the American people in those days when, raising the battle standard of justice, they had rid themselves of the tyrannical rule of the English king and eventually succeeded in becoming independent and free. Now looking up, now looking down, he was overcome with emotion. He gazed out of the window with a deep sigh.81

This opening of the novel sets the stage and provides the initial orientation: through the sentiments of the Wanderer of the Eastern Seas, the reader is to understand politics in a world setting. The American Revolution as the realization of the highest ideal frames the perspective of the entire narrative. The Wanderer starts out as a sympathetic listener, an onlooker, to whom the life stories of various revolutionaries are told; he then proceeds to become an active politician himself, a participant, who tries to influence Japan’s interaction with the world and in particular its policies toward Asia.82 Each of the chapters in the first half of the novel has a youthful narrator telling the others of the struggle of his or her 81. Shiba Shirō, [Zhengzhi xiaoshuo] Jiaren qiyu, translated by Liang Qichao, p. 1. 82. Yanagida, “Kajin no kigū.”

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country for freedom, independence, and reform, be it Spain, Ireland, Japan, or China. The four narrators are united through their bitter personal experiences and their political commitment. All four are proud of their own race, but there is no hint that they feel the Japanese, Irish, Spanish, Chinese, or later Hungarians and Poles to be radically different or inferior. Nor do they suppose that the others are incapable of understanding their grief and aspirations because they are foreigners. The similarity of their stories shows up in a rigid parallelism. True to the political coding of the genre, the key to success and failure in each case is the reform of the internal political structure. The powers act globally, and so do the reformers, who link up with their peers from other nations to learn from their experiences. The novel thus inserts itself into a fairly large body of Chinese writings in other genres at the time that dealt with oppressed peoples.83 Mysterious Encounters, both in its Japanese original and in Liang’s translation, offers an alternative version of world history, from the perspective of the “others” rather than the powers. It is also a radically different history from the “official” version taught in early Meiji classrooms, which emphasized the role of the modern state rather than that of the people, and thus suggests other possible ways of understanding historical dynamics.84 In the Chinese case, this “alternative history” was established to create a sense of China’s place in the worldwide struggle for independence and democratic rule and, more important, a vision of what was needed for China to succeed. Included in this panorama are other countries such as Poland, the French colony of Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean, Egypt, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, and later Korea. In each case movements for independence erupt during the nineteenth century led by one or two selfless heroes who put national independence above all other considerations. The goal for which the leaders of these movements rally support is often not republicanism but constitutional monarchy. Ultimately, the focus is on the unity and strength of the country. The main political feature of these movements is a mixture of nationalism and long-term democratic ideals. 83. For the development of the theme of the “oppressed people” in Chinese literature from the late Qing through the thirties, see Eber, “Images of Oppressed Peoples.” 84. Maeda, “Meiji rekishi bungaku genzō,” quoted in Sakaki, “Kajin no kigū,” p. 87.

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Introducing the New Genre Liang Qichao found many examples in world history of “the founding of nations” and wrote, while he continued the translation of Shiba Shirō’s novel, biographies introducing the “heroes” who made these events come true. Examples are the Hungarian Louis Kossuth; the Italian “founding heroes” Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi; and “the first lady of recent history,” Madame Roland (all 1902).85 The exemplary nature of their experiences in Liang’s depiction reveals the didactic intention behind their narration. The biographies were to inspire the Chinese and to offer them positive models. In fact they were so well received at the time that Liang later made them into the basic plot outlines for his own fictional forays.86 As done in Mysterious Encounters, Liang also wrote on the negative examples of nations that were finally subjugated by strong powers. Examples given are Poland, Vietnam, and Korea.87 The translation of Mysterious Encounters can be read as Liang’s own critique of China expressed through comments on the conditions of various foreign countries. The solution: unity under the leadership of the emperor and reforms in a government policy modeled on the Meiji Reforms. The failure to live up to Japan’s Asian success model leads to the fate exemplified by Egypt, Ireland, and Poland. Although the Wanderer himself is critical of the still insufficient devotion of Japan to the goal of strengthening its international position, other friends spell out the Japanese achievements. Individual liberty is of secondary importance compared to sovereignty. Furthermore, the Wanderer emphasizes the need to open up to the West and to compete internationally. The novel reflects Liang Qichao’s desire to find models not only for China, but also for himself. The emphasis on the role of individual leaders 85. On Kossuth he wrote “Xiongjiali aiguozhe Gasushi zhuan”; on Italy, “Yidali jianguo sanjie zhuan”; and on Madame Roland, “Jinshi diyi nüjie: Luolan furen.” 86. See the commentary accompanying Liang’s (as Yinbingshi zhuren) “Xin Luoma chuanqi,” in Yinbingshi heji, p. 3. According to Mabel Lee, the commentator who wrote under the pen name “The Guest Who Squashes Lice While Talking about Tigers” (Menshi tanhu ke) was Lin Wenji; see Lee, “Liang Ch’i-ch’ao,” p. 214. 87. On Poland, see “Bolan miewang ji”; on Korea, “Chaoxian wangguo shilüe” and “Chaoxian miewang zhi yuanyin” (under the name Xinhui); and on Vietnam, “Yuenan wangguo shi.”

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ties in with Liang’s own hero-oriented historiography. True to Thomas Carlyle’s On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (1841), which had first been translated into Japanese in 1887,88 Liang’s claim that “world history is but the biography of heroes”89 aligns with the atmosphere of the “cult of heroism” in nineteenth-century European historiography.90 From chapter 10 on the ideological stance of Tōkai Sanshi’s novel changes, and a growing discrepancy between the original and Liang’s translation becomes apparent.91 The latter half of Mysterious Encounters (chapters 10–16) mainly concerns China and Korea. Enlarging on the original doctrine of kokken, or sovereign rights and national prestige, an imperialistic attitude toward Asia dominates the text.92 The agency of the translator that was latent in earlier chapters because of the overlapping agendas now becomes fully visible in Liang’s growing interference with the text. The translation is geared toward Chinese needs and sensibilities. In fact, the factors prompting this interference are the very engine that had led to the transcultural migration of the genre in the first place. With this translation, Liang Qichao put the political novel onto the Chinese literary map. The fact that the work was a translation brought 88. Kārairu, “Rekishi ron.” Akashi Teizō’s translation is based on a very small part of Carlyle’s On Heroes. The part of the book that deals with poets was translated by Ransan Koji as Shijinteki eiyū and published in 1894. General background is given in Hirata, Kārairu (1893). 89. Ren Gong (Liang Qichao), “Yingxiong yu shishi,” p. 9. 90. Liang explicitly refers to Carlyle’s notion of the need for heroes in crucial moments of history in his biography of Oliver Cromwell, “Xin Yingguo juren Kelinweier zhuan.” Samuel Smiles spread Carlyle’s gospel of work in his Self-Help and Carlyle’s gospel of the great man in Lives of the Engineers; see Niemeyer, “Introduction,” p. xvii. Men of letters such as Tokutomi Rōka, an important role model for Liang Qichao, were “fond of quoting Thomas Carlyle.” See Kinmonth, Self-Made Man, p. 102. See also Kamachi, Reform in China, p. 88. Liang was so impressed with Nakamura Masanao’s rendition of Self-Help and its effects on Japanese youth that he wrote an introductory essay for the work and translated the seven prefaces of the Japanese edition. Even in these short translations, the idea of heroes and their historical role can be clearly seen, and the notion of gaining independence for a country is closely linked to their determination and moral quality. Ren Gong (Liang Qichao), “Zizhu lun,” pp. 16–22. In a sense, Self-Help was instrumental in developing Liang’s faith in the decisive role of individual heroes. 91. See Omura, “Ryō Keichō oyobi Kajin no kigū.” 92. See Matsunaga, “Gendai bungaku keisei,” pp. 166–67.

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home the point that the genre was a global one that was addressing a global problem. By retaining in his translation the features that were considered genre markers, Liang helped the genre to cross over into a new language and political environment. These features include the nation as the subject matter; the politician as the writer/translator who is motivated and guided by political concerns; the present as the time of the story; real localities in the present world as the places of the action; the direct link to a present-day political crisis and the controversies about the best way to deal with it; an understanding of history as development with different national actors consciously competing in a social Darwinist struggle; extensive debates on national or party politics; main characters modeled on real persons, often including the author; travel with its stimulus of new surroundings and broader national and international perspectives; characters that are—highlighted by their telling names—emblematic and programmatic in nature; and symbolic or allegorical representation of programs and attitudes that makes the “realistic” features in characters and actions secondary adornments with no weight of their own. As these features coincide to a large degree with those observed in Coningsby, they confirm the relative stability of core features as the genre was adapted to different contexts. One of the earliest responses to Liang Qichao’s call for the writing and translation of political novels came from Zheng Guangong 鄭貫公 (Guanyi 貫一) (1880–1906), a former disciple who was now working with Liang in Yokohama in the Qingyi bao newspaper offices. Moxi zhuan 摩西傳 (The biography of Moses), was Zheng Guangong’s first work of fiction. Published in 1900 as “a hero novel” 偉人小説, it was a translation/ adaptation—probably from Japanese—of the story of Moses.93 Read as 93. Guan’an (Zheng Guangong), [Weiren xiaoshuo] Moxi zhuan. The work appeared in the journal Kaizhi lu (Wisdom guide), which was edited by Zheng Guangong (under the pen name Zili 自立, or Independence), Feng Ziyou 馮自由 (Freedom), and Feng Siluan 馮斯欒 (pen name Ziqiang 自強, or Self-Strengthening). Partly written in Cantonese, Kaizhi lu was published from the Qingyi bao offices in Yokohama. It is said to have been founded to eschew the narrow ideological concerns of Kang Youwei that dominated in Qingyi bao. See Feng Ziyou, Geming yishi, pp. 95–96. The adoption of the Moses figure as a model echoes Hong Xiuquan’s 洪秀全 (1814–1864) analogy of the state of the Chinese polity to the long march through the desert of the children of Israel away from the slavery (and the fleshpots) of Egypt as well as Hong’s own role as the leader of the Taipings.

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a political allegory, the novel implies that the Chinese are like the Jews in Egypt, slaves without statehood, and that China needs heroes with the stature and vision of Moses to lead the people out of slavery. In the character of Moses, Zheng outlines what he considered to be the crucial features of an ideal leader for China. Moses is depicted as a patriot and visionary who focused on educating the Jewish people about their social status in Egypt under the role of the Pharaoh; he was a nation-builder who led the Jews to regain control over what is said here to be their lost country and to establish their own state. He decreed the Ten Commandments, which brought moral stability to society—they are quoted in full. (Zheng’s version of the story eliminates the Jews’ thirty-year stay in the desert together with the role played by God in giving the commandments to Moses.) Finally, Moses was a hero who devoted his entire life to the cause of his people. This was the kind of man China needed. In September 1902 Zheng Guangong published [Zhengzhi xiaoshuo] Ruishi jianguo zhi 政治小説: 瑞士建國志 (The founding of the Swiss Republic. A political novel), a translation/adaptation of the story of William Tell, which had earlier attracted Rizal (figure 2.4).94 Based on a Japanese rendering of a Western-language text, possibly Friedrich Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell (1804), it tells the story of a hero who saved his country and fought for its unity and national independence. In his preface the author claims that the work was prompted by the desire to introduce patriotic heroes as models for emulation by the Chinese so that their country would also rise and produce heroes willing to fight and bring freedom and democracy to China.95 With these two works and his preface, Zheng helped to establish the Chinese political novel. They are the earliest Chinese examples of using the genre to advocate political ideas and provide the reader with a clear, if metaphorical, vision of an ideal future for their country. By retelling the story of great men from the West who had risen to the challenge confronting their people, he suggests a similar trajectory for both East and West in the struggle for freedom and independence. It was Liang Qichao’s [Zhengzhi xiaoshuo] Xin Zhongguo weilaiji [政治小説]新中國未來記 (The future record of new China: a political 94. Zheng Zhe (Zheng Guangong), Ruishi jianguo zhi. For the Rizal reference, see chapter 1. 95. Zheng Zhe, “Zixu,” pp. 5–6.

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Figure 2.4. The cover of Ruishi jianguo zhi (The founding of the Swiss Republic). (Zheng Zhe, [Zhengzhi xiaoshuo] Ruishi jianguo zhi [1902].)

novel), however, that actually made the genre a permanent fixture in late Qing discussions. It placed the modern notion of the nation at the center of the novel and highlighted politics as a major stimulus for literary innovation, thus elevating the social standing of the novel. The Future Record of New China begins in the future year of 1962,96 the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Reform Government in China and the sixtieth of the beginning of the reform movement itself (when Liang’s novel was published). To celebrate the occasion, a Global Peace Conference is held in Nanjing, attended by plenipotentiaries from every 96. According to Liang Qichao himself, the date 2062 that is given in the text should be read as 1962. See Liang Qichao, Xin Zhongguo weilaiji, 1:53, and Yeh, “Zeng Pu’s ‘Niehai hua,’ ” p. 168, n. 75. There are also other indications within the novel that the novel is set sixty years in the future. For example, when the age of Mr. Kong Lao is given as being seventy-six years, the commentary says: “In the present year [when the novel was published] he is only sixteen.” In 1911 Liang reminisced that his 1902 novel’s vision of a new China had predicted the year of state foundation exactly. See Liang Qichao, “Chu guiguo yanshuo ci,” p. 3.

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nation including the kings and the queens of England and Japan as well as the presidents and first ladies of Russia, the United States, the Philippines, and Hungary. The reader’s attention is directed toward the changes evident from these titles (the abolition of the Czarist autocracy in Russia and the achievement of Philippine independence) by the word “attention” in the commentary. While these countries have changed, great changes have taken place in China as well. Coinciding with the Global Peace Conference, the citizens of the new China have decided to organize a Great Exhibition in Shanghai, where different industrial and handicraft products of the age can be admired. As part of the exhibition, a joint symposium on knowledge and religion has been convened, a feature borrowed from the Chicago World Exhibition in 1893, with its “World Parliament of Religions.” Scholars from all over China and the world have come, among them the famous scholar and reformer Mr. Kong Lao, a descendant of Confucius himself, who presents a report on the amazing development of China over the past sixty years. More than half of the audience consists of foreigners, but they have all learned Chinese since China has become a powerful nation at the forefront of scientific and intellectual endeavors. In a bit of self-advertisement, the text of Mr. Kong Lao’s speech is then taken down in shorthand and immediately wired to (Liang Qichao’s just founded) New Fiction magazine in Yokohama for publication. “Venerable Mr. Kong,” as Kong Lao’s name translates, comes to the meeting in the “grand ceremonial dress” ordained by the state. “Sixty years ago,” he tells the audience, “no one could have imagined how things would be today.” He outlines three factors that ensured the success of the reforms: the patriotic spirit roused by foreign invasion and oppression; the willingness on the part of committed and principle-minded men to devote their lives to the country so that the reforms might be successful; and, finally, the perspicacity of the former emperor, who understood the situation and yielded to public opinion by abdicating his powers. The vision and political program that ensured this future is spelled out in detailing the periods through which China passed during the last sixty years. They included the period of preparation, from the occupation of Beijing by the Western Allied Army to the secession of Guangdong province (Liang’s native province); the period of divided rule, from the independence of the southern provinces to the founding of the national

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assembly; and the period of unification, from the inauguration of the country’s first president, Luo Zaitian 羅在田—none other than the Guangxu emperor97—to the end of the term of the second president, Huang Keqiang 黃克強 (whose name means Mr. Yellow [the Chinese people] Subduing-the-Powers). The story ends with the periods of growth, prosperity, and international competition, which have culminated in the founding of the All-Asia Federation. The sequence of these periods of the future history of China structures Mr. Kong Lao’s narrative as well as the envisioned track of Liang Qichao’s novel, including the unwritten parts. All of the above is narrated in the novel’s first “wedge” chapter—xiezi 楔子—a form familiar from earlier Chinese novels. The function of such wedge chapters is to outline the main moral or political aim of the novel through an allegorical narrative at the beginning (I will return to this topic in chapter 7). The rest of this unfinished novel follows Mr. Yellow Subduing-the-Powers on a journey to find a way out of China’s political crisis and helplessness vis-à-vis the powers. He becomes a student in Germany, where he is impressed by the proactive role of the state in reforms and establishes contacts with the leaders of the Social Democratic Party. During this period Huang gradually becomes an advocate of political reform. Having completed his studies, he returns to China via Russia, accompanied by his friend Li Qubing 李去病 (Mr. Li Who-Does-Awaywith-the Sickness [of the “sick man of Asia”]), who had studied in Paris and, influenced by the French Revolution, had come to believe in the necessity of revolution. When they arrive in China, at Shanhaiguan on the eastern end of the Great Wall, they are saddened by what they see. The area is now a “colony of the Cossacks,” which prompts a nightlong debate between the two men about the course China should follow: revolution or reform? In their hotel they witness a recital of Byron’s poetry in English. The lines from The Giaour and Don Juan lament the loss of Greek independence and cry out for the spirit of freedom. Both Huang and Li are 97. The Guangxu emperor’s Manchu name reads Ai-xin-jue-luo-zai-tian. Liang Qichao took the last three characters of this name and named him with other homophonous characters Luo Zaitian. See Liang Qichao, “Chu guiguo yanshuo ci,” p. 3.

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deeply moved. Mr. Chen Meng (Mr. Spread-Enlightenment), the man who recites the poems so passionately, is a young, patriotic “man of purpose” (zhishi) on his way to Russia. While agreeing that the threat of Russia is immediate, Chen Meng claims that the expansionist spirit among the citizens of England, Germany, America, and Japan is even more threatening to China than that of Russia. Driven by this spirit, the governments of these countries are treating China as though it is up for grabs. Liang’s novel ends here and remains unfinished.98 The transcultural ancestry of Liang’s novel remains present in its core features, and the transnational character of the envisaged reform is apparent in its agenda, personnel, and action. The mother lode of Future Record is a pool of diverse sources that can help us chart the migration and innovation of literary forms and the role played by political ideas in this process. The title of the novel, Future Record, can be traced directly to Japanese political novels. Numerous “constitutional novels” of the 1880s had “future record,” miraiki, in their titles if they did not sport the second catchword in Liang’s title, “new.” The terms announced the narrative perspective of the novel as well as its political orientation. Examples are New Japan,99 New Stormy Waves,100 The New Commoner,101 Future Japan (1886),102 Future Record of the Diet. The year Meiji 23 (1886),103 and Charming Tale in the Sea of Politics: Japan after the Founding of the Diet (1887).104 From the similarity of plot structure and narrative techniques, it appears that Liang’s novel was particularly inspired by Suehiro Tetchō’s two novels A Future Record from Meiji Year 23 and Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow. The first of these is a “future record” like Liang’s novel and “chronicled” the establishment of the Diet in 1890. It opens with the actual first meeting of the Diet, including the speeches by representatives of

98. According to research by Yamada Keizō, chapter 5 and even parts of chapter 4 of Future Record might be authored by Luo Xiaogao 羅孝高 (1876–1949), an associate of Liang’s. See Yamada, “Weirao Xin Zhongguo weilaiji suo jian,” pp. 336–40. 99. Osaki Yukio, Shin Nihon. 100. Sasaki Tashi, [Nihon seikai] Shin haran. 101. Matsunoya, Shin heimin. 102. Tokutomi Iichirō, Shōrai no Nihon. 103. Hattori Seiichi, [Nijūsan nen] Kokkai miraiki. 104. Senkyō Sanshi, [Seikai enwa] Kokkai ato no Nihon.

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the different parties. These speeches are sent by a reporter to his newspaper to be included in a report on the debate over the primacy of people’s rights versus “national prestige.” Coinciding with the opening of the Diet is a Great Exhibition of East Asia. Two gentlemen who read the newspaper reports reflect on the turbulent past ten years that led to the founding of the Diet. Liang’s novel borrows from Future Record from Meiji Year 23 the term miraiki, the link with the Great Exhibition, and the use of modern media to transmit the content of the celebration to the wider public.105 In Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow two gentlemen reflect on the struggles and the successes of the past 150 years that have led to the founding of the Diet. From their conversation we learn that Japan is now enjoying unprecedented prosperity, another feature recurring in Liang’s novel. This history would be forgotten but for a book accidentally found by one of them that conveys the story of heroes who helped to bring about the new Japan. This book turns out to be Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow. This framing device is used by the author to alert the reader to the present need for such heroes, without whom the struggle cannot be waged, and there will be no such history to forget. Whereas in A Future Record from Meiji Year 23 Suehiro Tetchō evoked a problem-riddled Diet of the future, he corrected this future in Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow with a description of the glorious achievements Japan was finally able to realize, a positive story line that found echo in Liang Qichao’s novel. Scenes from other Japanese novels reappear in Liang’s novel as well. For example, the travels of Liang’s reform hero through the world in search of new understanding and knowledge are a direct echo of Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women. The Future Record of New China is an exception among late Qing political novels in having received scholarly attention.106 The Japanese influence on the writing of this novel and the importance of the text in the development of modern Chinese literature are by now well established. 105. Xia Xiaohong, Jueshi yu chuanshi, pp. 231–32; Catherine Yeh, “Zeng Pu’s ‘Niehai Hua,’ ” pp. 180–81. 106. For studies on this novel, see Lee, “Liang Ch’i-ch’ao”; Martin, “Transitional Concept”; Hsia, “Yen Fu and Liang Ch’i-ch’ao,” pp. 251–57; Yeh, “Zeng Pu’s ‘Niehai hua,’ ” pp. 164–84; Xia Xiaohong, Jueshi yu chuanshi, pp. 40–76; David Wang, “Translating Modernity,” pp. 301–12; and Ouyang Jian, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, pp. 18–30.

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Nonetheless, the novel is often described as being no more than “a fantastic recapitulation of the Confucian past.”107 One of its revolutionary formal aspects, however, is its creation of a new relationship between author and reader that breaks with this past. It resets the basic didactic principle of moral teaching by replacing normative statements with dialogue about principles in an idea-driven narrative. This type of narrative opens a space for the reader’s active engagement, which in turn resets the traditional top-down rhetoric. Its overtly transcultural and revolutionary formal character marks it as the most important hallmark of the Chinese modern novel.

The Career of the New Genre In 1901 the court acceded to internal demands and external pressures and announced a “Reform of Governance,” Xinzheng. With reform on the official agenda and independent print media in place, the moment for the Chinese political novel had arrived. There were eager authors; the new genre had been endorsed by key members of the reform elite; and, most important, there was now a readership informed, interested, and involved enough to provide critical mass. The year 1902 saw the first Chineselanguage journal devoted to the new fiction, Xin xiaoshuo, which was edited by Liang Qichao from his Yokohama exile. The first issue opened with his Future Record and established the genre as a permanent fixture in the journal. It also contained Liang Qichao’s seminal article “Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi zhi guanxi” 論小說與羣治之關係 (On the relation between fiction and the governance of the masses), which began with the grand claim “If one wishes to reform the people of a country, there is no way around first reforming the fiction of this country.”108 Although it is clear that without the endorsement of parts of the political elite the genre would not have risen to such a high social and political standing, a well-developed book publishing market was also necessary for the idea to be realized. By 1902, when Liang’s novel started to appear, Shanghai commercial book printing had already begun to give the novel a new standing in the cultural register as well as national market access. The 107. David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, p. 305. 108. Liang Qichao, “Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi,” p. 1.

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first modern Shanghai Chinese-language publishing house, Ernest Major’s Shenbaoguan, had provided a lead in the early 1880s. Shortly after establishing Shenbao 申報, one of the earliest and for decades the most important Chinese-language newspaper, in 1872, this company began publishing books. It made novels such as the satirical Rulin waishi (The scholars) part of a new canon of carefully and professionally edited, moderately priced, small-format deluxe (juzhenban) editions. Using the subscription pathways and outlets for the Shenbao to make the books accessible throughout the country, the publisher was able to move the novel into the literary mainstream. The Shenbaoguan gradually became a hub for the serialization of new novels, including novel translations, and the articulation of novel theory. Its journalists often became writers of novels in their own right. Following the example of Shenbao, the Hubao 滬報, Xinwen bao 新聞報 (founded in 1893), Guowen bao, and Shibao 時報 (founded in 1904) all created space for serialized novels. By the beginning of the twentieth century, all big dailies, besides entertainment newspapers such as Li Boyuan’s Youxi bao 遊戲報 (The entertainment; founded in 1897) and Shijie fanhuabao 世界繁華報 (Vanity fair; founded in 1901), featured daily serialized novels.109 The founding of Xin xiaoshuo consolidated this new trend with a specialized literary magazine. Similar journals quickly joined the fray in Shanghai. These included Xiuxiang xiaoshuo 繡像小説 (1903), Yueyue xiaoshuo 月月小説 (1906), and Xiaoshuo lin 小説林 (1907), with journalists/writers such as Li Boyuan 李伯元 (1843–1909), Wu Jianren吳趼人 (1866–1910), and Zeng Pu曾朴 (1872–1935) as eager contributors and editors.110 Most readers would have first encountered a political novel in one of these papers or magazines. The introduction of the political novel widened the horizon linking Chinese political reforms with reform movements in other parts of the world; and, internally, it opened up new channels of communication between the cultural and political elite in the treaty ports, the elites in the Lower Yangzi Valley around Shanghai, and the Qing court. In the Chinese 109. For a study of these xiaobao, see Yeh, “Shanghai Leisure.” 110. For detailed studies on these journals and authors, see A Ying, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi; Ouyang Jian, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi; Tsau, “Rise of New Fiction”; and Yeh, “Zeng Pu’s ‘Niehai hua.’ ”

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context, the notion of the novel as a public medium for serious debate was revolutionary. It implied a move toward a conscious notion of a “public,” the more enlightened members of which were endowed with the capacity to think and judge responsibly. And these novels were prompting them to work toward change without resorting to destructive violence. In Liang’s fiction the politician/writer claims to show the way to the future, but it is clear that he cannot go it alone. The new novel creates a new social relationship between writer and reader that is not defined by cultural authority and institutional power. Both are part of an emerging public that was attributed a collective responsibility for and commitment to the common good of the polity. This public is supposed to become a cohesive force through a variety of platforms for rational discourse, in which the political novel also figures. One might argue that Liang undersold his own achievement and contribution. Although he is clear and explicit concerning the function and content of the political novel, he does not talk about its form. However, when translating Japanese novels and writing his own, he offered a form that remained the dominant model for the next decade and encoded many of the new elements of the genre. Its narrative broke with the traditional plot-structure of a circle of karmic retribution and replaced it with an evolutionary trajectory. Resetting inherited notions of time and space, it introduced the modern novel into China. The recasting of the novel as a new form of public discourse added another dimension to the late Qing modernization project. Between the Yangwu 洋務 (Western Learning) current that began in the 1860s and the crisis of losing the war with Japan in 1895, many members of the political and cultural elite of the country had focused their attention on the import of Western technical achievements, especially military hardware. Institutional reforms were considered, but only after 1895 did they start to dominate the discussion. The question of the quality of the Chinese citizenry or, to put it more dramatically, of ways to create a people worthy and capable of being citizens, arose mostly in discussions of the need to spread school education. Liang’s ideas about the new novel marked a break here. The novel recasts the readers as the potentially enlightened public and draws this newly created public into the political process as an object of instruction and guidance, and ultimately as a participant in the national renewal at a time when the notion of a “society” with anything resembling

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agency was still unarticulated in China.111 This new dimension was inspired by the example of Japan and received its authority from Japan’s success in adapting to things “new” and modern. In Liang Qichao’s argument the political novel was part of the “daily progress” toward the state of a civilized (wenming) nation. China was now to join in this process and become part of a worldwide march. China, like Japan, was nobody’s colony, and advocates of the political novel saw its function in helping promote the need for and direction of institutional reforms within the existing state. The new political novels took on broader themes of crisis and reform as well as specific issues brought up by the Reform of Governance policies. In the first phase, namely, the first two years after the publication of Liang’s Future Record and the first two years of the court’s new policies, the freshness and newness of the genre produced a variety of attempts both in translation and in creative writing. Most of these novels interacted directly with the Xinzheng reforms. In the second phase, from 1903 until 1905 (after the Russo-Japanese War), the novels focus much more on the immediate political concerns of the country, with Russia’s encroachment on China’s three northeastern provinces setting the agenda. A small number of more radical political novels identified the main problem as the Manchu “occupation” of China and advocated a “racial” revolution. Besides utopian projections, dystopian warnings about the “danger of the nation’s demise” (wang guo zhi wei 亡國之危) and the misery of life in such a state (wang guo zhi hen 亡國之恨) abound. Although both the reformist and the radical or revolutionary currents made use of the genre, the overwhelming majority of works followed a reformist track. The origins of the political novel predisposed it to be used by reformers. Works often dealt explicitly with the fundamental difference in outlook by including discussions between the two approaches. Even authors leaning toward “revolution” often ended up making reform proposals. The third phase of the political novel in China came after the court’s announcement of the project for constitutional reform in 1906. We now find utopian or “historical” projections of the outcomes of different reform strategies. 111.

Wagner, “Formation of Encyclopaedic Commonplaces,” p. 111.

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We thus see interlocking literary, political, social, and technical factors that have a tight connection to the immediate political situation framing the rise of the political novel in China. The development of the advocacy novel by missionaries and educators, and the elevation of the status of the novel by the Shenbaoguan had opened the way. The perceived power of the genre in achieving reforms in the West and Japan decided the choice of a particular subgenre and came with the promise of proven effectiveness. The popularity of the traditional novel, especially with young literate readers, suggested its usefulness for radically different contents and ends. The ability of fiction to present a concrete and interesting scenario of complex issues regarding the transition to modernity of state institutions, social practices, and personal behavior made it an ideal tool to reach the new urban classes with their often bemoaned lagging interest in “national” issues. The flurry of political novels in China during the first decade of the twentieth century firmly established the novel as a platform for the public discussion of—and education about—the pressing social and political issues of the country. Although the genre itself did not outlive the decade, strong forces both among later urban intellectuals and among state and party propagandists in China continued to claim that it was the true calling of fiction to serve as such a platform and that other uses were trivial abuses. It is difficult to determine the number of Chinese political novels published during this period. Already in the West the perception of the genre had become fluid, with quite a few political novels not explicitly identified as such. Others were described as such but turned out to be different from the general pattern of the genre. Japanese translators would announce English texts as political novels that had no such marker in the original. Other works, such as Bellamy’s Looking Backward or Jules Verne’s works, had a strong impact on the political novel in East Asia without being themselves included in this category by Western authors. The fluidity persisted in China, and sometimes the borders between political novels and the large body of novels of social exposé published during the same decade are hard to define.112 112. Chen Pingyuan has calculated that the number of novels, including translations, published between 1898 and 1911 was higher than the total for the first 250 years of

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Even though it is thus difficult to arrive at definite numbers, an order of magnitude can be determined. Many of the journals and newspapers established between 1902 and 1904 promoted politically oriented novels. Besides Xin xiaoshuo, which led the way, many new and often very political periodical publications started serializing such novels. By 1906 novels dealing with the establishment of a constitution proliferated, and a rough and conservative estimate suggests that in 1907 political novels represented about a quarter of the creative works published. By 1909 this share seems to have even increased.113 Biographical information about most authors is scant or nonexistent. Although a few specialized in the genre, from most authors we only have a single, often not completed, work signed with a pen name. This suggests that the political novel was not a stable genre with a substantial number of writers committed to it but is better understood as a timely literary genre for articulating a specific set of political opinions on a particular constellation of actual concerns and as a medium for offering visions of a new China. Although specific literary forms were used, the genre does not dissociate itself from the political and social environment to constitute an internal history of its own; nor were its authors professionalized fiction writers to the degree that their main framework of reference was other works of fiction rather than political essays, memorials, newspaper editorials, and government pronouncements. Some of the authors—Liang Qichao is only one prominent example—are known to have written on

the Qing dynasty. Between the 1860s and the late 1880s one or two new novels were published annually. This compares to 269 original Chinese novels and 85 novel translations in 1909, at the height of the late Qing media explosion. My own calculation is based on the publication data provided in Tarumoto, Shinmatsu Minsho shōsetsu nenpyō. Tarumoto Teruo’s analysis of Chinese novel publishing history between 1902 and 1912 shows a peak in 1907. The difference between his statistics and those of Ouyang Jian results from Tarumoto’s inclusion of translations of foreign novels, which make up the lion’s share in the statistics; see Tarumoto, “Shinmatsu Minsho shōsetsu no futakobu rakuda,” pp. 305–17. 113. Tarumoto lists 202 original novels for 1907 (Shinmatsu Minsho shōsetsu nenpyō, pp. 30a–36b). As far as I am able to identify them, 48 among them are political novels. Most of the other novels, moreover, also seem to deal with political issues of the day. Judging from the number of newspapers and journals in which works of this kind were published, the share of political novels increased for 1909.

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the same issues in many different genres, including nonfictional ones such as newspaper articles, essays, or memorials to the court, and partly or entirely fictional ones such as biographies, dramatic works, and novels. In each they would follow the genre’s particular conventions. As most authors of political novels were using the genre as one among many platforms for engaging in political advocacy, they joined a political and social current rather than a literary circle. This gave their “new novels” a certain freedom from traditional norms of Chinese novel writing even when they were presented as updated versions or sequels of older Chinese novels. Spanning the decade-long Reform of Governance period, the Chinese political novel highlights the shared issues as well as the individual voices in the collective and contentious search for answers. The novels thus become the locus for the intersection of literary invention with political ideas, reform advocacy, and educative purpose. At the same time, much in the same way that Japanese political novels were instrumental in the development of the genre in China, the Chinese political novel, in its turn, had a major impact on other East Asian countries such as Vietnam and Korea.

The Political Novel in Korea Between 1894 and 1910 control over Korea was contested between Russia and Japan. Japan gained ascendancy, but Korea had not yet become a colony.114 In the early phase of the Japanese political novel, Yano Ryūkei had asked a Korean political activist, Kim Ok-kyun 金玉均 (1851–94), who himself appears in Yano’s Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship as one of the spirited Asian reformers, to write a preface to this novel.115 The political novel found its way to Korea through politically active students studying in Japan, through the model set by Liang Qichao, and through translations and summaries of Liang’s arguments in Korean newspapers. 114. I thank Barbara Wall for helping me with my research on the Korean political novel. Vladimir Tikhonov from Oslo University was kind enough to offer critical suggestions on this section. Yoon Sun Yang kindly made corrections in the Korean spelling. 115. Sakaki, “Kajin no kigū,” p. 98.

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As Li Jingmei has documented, Liang Qichao’s writings on the political novel were quoted and translated in Korean newspapers at the time. His translation from the Japanese of Verne’s Deux ans de vacances was retranslated into Korean, as was Zheng Guangong’s translation of the Wilhelm Tell story. The same is true for Liang’s political histories of Poland as well as his biographies of Madame Roland and of the “three heroes from Italy.” Liang is even directly quoted in the most important Korean political novel. After the Japanese established colonial rule, Liang’s works, many of which had been published in Japan, were banned in Korea.116 During this time, which Korean historiography refers to as the Period of Enlightenment 開化期, social and political reforms were pushed through by modernist forces who took their cues from Japan. These reform measures, which were aimed at modernizing Korean society, soon provoked controversy. Critics denounced them as Japan’s meddling in Korea’s affairs, and anti-Japanese sentiment rose.117 Korean officials and intellectuals were active in organizing resistance to Japanese designs for annexation. However, following the defeat of Russia by the Japanese in 1905 and with the acquiescence of the Western powers, Japan took control of the kingdom in 1910. Korean political novels, which appeared beginning in 1905, were first motivated by the struggle against the threat of Japanese occupation and later advocated the restoration of Korean sovereignty.118 Compared to the Philippines, where Rizal had argued that institutional change—above all the development of education and the abolition of the privileged position of the Dominicans—was necessary as a condition for a civilized Filipino polity, in Korea institutional change was pressed by modernizers associated with Japan. They may have felt that modernization would eventually create the conditions for a sustainable Korean sovereignty. Their soft stand, however, on sustaining Korean sovereignty in the face of increasing Japanese pressure made them the target of criticism. In this manner, the linkage between the struggle for institutional reform and the struggle to maintain independence was contested. The Korean political novel became a major platform for articulations of this contention. 116. 117. 118.

Li Jingmei, “Liang Qichao yu Hanguo jindai zhengzhi xiaoshuo.” Pratt, Rutt, and Hoare, Korea, p. 194. Serikawa, “Hanil kaehwagi,” p. 6; Song Min-ho, Han’guk kaehwagi, p. 179.

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Although it has also been argued that it would be hard to find a single novel during the Period of Enlightenment that was not influenced by politics,119 the emergence of the political novel as a genre in Korea was the most important literary development of the period and heralded the beginning of modern Korean literature.120 Some of the earliest works were serialized in Korean-language newspapers. An example is “Sogyŏng kwa anjŭnbangi ŭi mundap” (Dialogue between a blind man and a cripple), by an anonymous author, which was serialized in the Daehan Daily 大韓每日申報 in 1905. The story, in dialogue form, involves a blind fortune-teller and a crippled headband maker whose skill was no longer needed when topknots were banned as part of the social reforms of 1895. The use of the dialogue form may go back to early Korean philosophical texts and later missionary novels,121 but there is a difference. The traditional model involves a discussion between one partner who is in full possession of the truth and a counterpart who is learning about the truth, whereas in the Dialogue between a Blind Man and a Cripple both men are groping for the truth. The dialogue includes a critique of Korean politicians selling their country out to Japan to promote their own careers. The discussion becomes increasingly defiant, with calls for freedom of speech as a basic right encoded in the Enlightenment project: for the country to become a civilized nation, this right must be secured. To achieve true independence, Korean citizens must be united and work together. The country needs reforms, but not the kind being conducted at the moment, because they produce only “pseudoenlightened persons” 似而非開化人. For the future of Korea and for true progress, education is critical; only through education can the country renew itself. Thus the novel proposes to replace the harsh top-down measures carried out by the pro-Japanese faction in government with 119. Song Min-ho, Han’guk kaehwagi, p. 179. 120. Serikawa Tetsuyo, “Hanil kaehwagi,” p. 4. 121. Hong Taeyong’s 洪大容 Ŭisan mundap (Dialogue on the medical plant mountain; 1766) is an example. The author, who is otherwise known for a pioneering introduction of some elements of Copernican theory in Korea, was influenced by Korean sirhak 實學 (practical learning) philosophy. For the use of the dialogue form in fictional writings by missionaries to China, see Milne, Zhang Yuan liangyou xiang lun.

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a genuine bottom-up transformation of the hearts and minds through education. The anonymous Kŏbu ohae 車夫誤解 (Misunderstandings of the rickshaw men), which was published between February 20 and March 7, 1906, in the same paper, was also in dialogue form. The story centers on a conversation about national affairs in a group of rickshaw pullers. Through a series of plays on words it satirizes how these men fail to make sense of current political and economic reforms, such as the new monetary system, showing with some dark humor that the reforms instituted by the pro-Japanese Korean modernists lack a social base.122 In 1910 the same paper serialized [Sin soseol] Kŭmsu chap’an [新小說] 禽獸裁判 (Trial among the beasts. A new novel).123 Featuring animals and insects holding a meeting to restore order in their world, this novel is an attempt to critique the Darwinian jungle of the modern world from an ethical point of view. The biggest problems mentioned by the animals and insects in the novel are that the weak are the prey of the strong and that their territory is invaded and plundered by outsiders. The giraffe acts as the president of the trial, the sheep and the crane are the judges of the left and the right, and the parrot plays the role of the speaker. Other birds, animals, and insects explain their situation. For example, the magpie accuses the pigeon of appropriating her nest. In their defense the animals revert to fixed sayings and proverbs in classical Chinese that are familiar to the common reader. Although the trial is an allegory on the contemporary brutality of Korea’s colonial subjection by Japan, the story does not hesitate to describe what Korea lacks and needs to survive in a social Darwinist world.124 This thinly veiled, harsh criticism of the Japanese occupation brought a swift reaction by the Japanese authorities. The Daehan Daily was suspended from August 19 to 26, and the further serialization of the novel was ended.125 The use of animals as symbolic representations of nations with a collective will and the interactions among animals as reflecting the social Darwinist survival of the fittest is

122. 123. 124. 125.

For a detailed analysis of this piece, see Ch’oe, “Kaehwagii sinmun.” Hŭmhŭmja (An Kuksŏn), [Sin soseol] Kŭmsu chap’an. Quoted in Serikawa, “Hanil kaehwagi,” pp. 70–72. Quoted in ibid., pp. 101–2.

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a standard feature in political cartoons of the time126 and in novels.127 The most exquisite Chinese example is [Yuyan xiaoshuo] Xin shu shi [寓言小説]新鼠史 (The history of the rats’ reform. An allegorical novel; 1908).128 In this novel China has degenerated from being a tiger to being a rat. Facing extinction, the Rat Country rallies for reform and regains independence and ascendancy. That the intention in these novels was to educate the common people is indicated in the choice of the Korean vernacular (rather than literary Korean with many Chinese characters) and the fact that they were serialized in newspapers for popular consumption. Chayujong 自由鐘 (Bell of liberty; 1910), by Yi Hae-jo 李海朝 (1869– 1927), again uses the dialogue form. In this novel the ideas of Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei on women’s education are discussed at length.129 The author himself calls it a “discussion novel” 討論小說.130 All the characters are women. Song Min-ho points out that Bell of Liberty, unlike Dialogue between a Blind Man and a Cripple and Misunderstandings of the Rickshaw Men, deals with “real ideas of enlightenment.”131 In their dialogues, the women explore topics such as the necessity of modern education for national development, especially education for women and children; language reform and the creation of a national script; the role of religion in a modern state; the problem of illegitimate children; and the social gap between rich and poor, high and low. The women share their dreams about the “great Korean Empire” 大韓帝國 that will one day become prosperous and independent. Traditional culture and modern ideas are not presented as mutually exclusive. The discussion about education for women mentions that “even in the [Confucian primer] Xiaoxue 小學 [by Zhu Xi] the education of women can be found right at the beginning,” and the education of children is explained with a reference to prenatal education by the mother

126. For an analysis of such uses, see Wagner, “China ‘Asleep’ and ‘Awakening.’ ” 127. For a study of the impact of social Darwinism on the Korean discussion, see Tikhonov, Social Darwinism. 128. You Fu, Xin shu shi. The novel is complete in twelve chapters. 129. Li Jingmei, “Liang Qichao yu Hanguo jindai zhengzhi xiaoshuo,” p. 70. 130. Quoted from Song Min-ho, Han’guk kaehwagi, p. 177. 131. Quoted from ibid., p. 180.

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through model behavior and another to the care with which Mengzi’s mother pursued her son’s education.132 Although the women agree that the gap between high and low must be overcome, they also come out against revolutionary solutions and agree that national order must have priority. The novel is a well-developed political program piece that presents in a pragmatic fashion the necessary steps for Korea to achieve enlightenment. Among the political novel writers, we know a little more about An Kuksŏn 安國善 (1854–1928), author of the Kŭmsu hoeŭuirok 禽獸會議錄 (Protocol of the meeting among the beasts), published in 1908. This was the first Korean novel to be banned by the government (in May 1909). An Kuksŏn had been a political science student in Japan from 1895 to 1899. Four years after his return from Japan, he was arrested, accused of planning a revolt (which in fact had been organized by a friend of his), and sent into exile until 1907. Between 1907 and 1913, however, he seems to have regained the government’s trust and was appointed to several government posts, such as county magistrate. Most of his friends were Enlightenment figures with political connections in Japan, and his appointments were related to the gradual consolidation of Japan’s influence in Korea as the country was turned into a Japanese protectorate.133 In a dream, the author joins an assembly where animals criticize humans for lacking a spirit of independence and denounce the enlighteners as “fake” 似而非開化人, the same term used in Dialogue between a Blind Man and a Cripple. They are corrupt and must be seen as traitors to their country. The beasts also condemn the Japanese occupiers.

132. Quoted from ibid., p. 189. 133. Kang Sang-dae tracks the transformation of An Kuksŏn from critic to compromiser or opportunist. This transformation becomes visible when The Protocol from 1908 is compared with An’s collection of short stories Gongjin hoe 共進會 (The Society for Joint Progress)—the first collection of short stories in Korea—which was published in 1915. Whereas in The Protocol An demands the political enlightenment of the masses and the extension of national power, and criticizes the corruption of Korean politicians, his attitude in Society for Joint Progress is much more compromising and can even be called opportunistic toward the Japanese. Kang points out that An’s ideals seem to have changed around 1908, when he was appointed to several high positions. See Kang, Gaehwagi jeongchi soseol, p. 14.

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Serikawa Tetsuyo has argued that a second novel by the same author, Manguk taehoe rok 蛮國大會錄 (Record of the great meeting of the barbarian nations), and his Trial among the Beasts, discussed above, were directly influenced by the 1885 Japanese political novel The Animal Parliament. Mankind’s Attack, by the journalist and dramatist Tajima Shōji 田島 象二 (1852–1909).134 From the biographical link of An Kuksŏn to Japan, this connection seems plausible. The connection is reinforced by Serikawa’s calculation that between 1904 and 1908 57 percent of Korean novel translations or adaptations were based on Japanese novels or adaptations, often through their Chinese translations.135 These include the Wilhelm Tell story in The Founding of the Swiss Republic,136 Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship, Aikoku saishin dan 愛國精神譚 (The spirit of patriotism),137 and Baikoku do 賣國奴 (The traitor of one’s country).138 Relevant nonfiction titles included Luolan furen zhuan 羅蘭夫人傳 (The biography of Madame Roland), Aikoku fujin den 愛國夫人傳 (The biography of a patriot lady), Aiji[pudo] kinseishi 埃及近世史 (A history of modern Egypt),139 and Dreams about [the third-century CE Chinese strategist] Zhuge Liang 夢見諸葛亮.140 However, if we look at the list of the novels, essays, and translations compiled by Liang Qichao, who happened to be in Japan and was advocating the writing of political novels when An Kuksŏn studied there, it turns out that the Koreans made many of the same choices as Liang. Liang had close contact with Koreans in Japan and wrote about Korea’s loss of

134. Tajima Shōji, [Jinrui kōgeki] Kinjō kokkai. 135. Serikawa, “Hanil kaehwagi,” pp. 56–57. 136. This Japanese translation was then translated into Chinese by Liang Qichao’s former close associate, Zheng Zhe, as Ruishi jianguo zhi. 137. This appears to be the 1891 Japanese translation of “Tu seras soldat”: Histoire d’un soldat français, récits et leçons patriotiques d’instruction et d’éducation militaires by the French military author Émile Charles Lavisse (1855–1915). 138. Translated by Tobari Chikufū 登張竹風 (1873–1955). It is not clear from which Western text this has been translated. 139. Shiba Shirō, Aiji[pudo] kinseishi. 140. A Korean text of this title by Yu Won-pyo 劉元杓 was published in 1908 in Seoul.

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sovereignty to the Japanese.141 The link between Liang and the Koreans must have been closer than Serikawa Tetsuyo acknowledges, and Liang Qichao, whose fate matched that of many exiled Koreans, may have discussed the options with them. (An important group of Korean exiles in Shanghai published a bilingual Korean-English paper there, the Independent.) Chinese political and exposé novels must have had strong influence on Korean novels of the Period of Enlightenment. By the time Korean authors started to write political novels, this genre was long out of fashion in Japan but was having its heyday in China.142 The moment of the Korean political novel ended in 1910, when Japan annexed the country and banned such publications. Nothing is known about political novels being written underground, at least for the following decade, although quite a few works of proletarian literature were published in Korea between 1920 and 1935 in close connection with Japanese literary and political trends at the time. The main reason this “moment” ended was not the ban but changes in the institutional environment. Japan’s annexation of Korea created a major new fault line for which the political novel, with its essentially conservative focus on institutional modernization of an existing system, was no longer appropriate. Still, short-lived as it may have been, the Korean political novel, like its counterparts in Japan and China, played a key role in establishing the novel as a serious genre that offered an attractive platform for public discussion of the grand issues of the nation in a manner that could reach a wider urban audience and offered a vigorous public voice to a new breed of public intellectuals.

141. See Xinhui (Liang Qichao), “Chaoxian wangguo shilüe”; Liang Qichao, “Chaoxian miewang zhi yuanyin”; and Cangjiang (Liang Qichao), “Riben bingtun Chaoxian ji.” 142. Niu Linjie argues in his “Kaehwagi soŏl changrŭ” that the biggest influence on Korean novels in dialogue form came from Liang Qichao’s (published under the name Aishi ke) “Dongwu tan” 動物談 (Animal talk). This was especially true for An’s The Protocol and Yi Hae-jo’s Bell of Liberty. Niu first compares Liang’s “Animal Talk” with The Protocol and demonstrates that the concept and the composition of the two are very similar. He points out that An even borrowed the pen name “Yinbingshi zhuren” 飮永室主人 (Master of the Ice Drinker’s studio) from Liang (p. 89). In Bell of Liberty, Yi Hae-jo did not only borrow some paragraphs from “Animal Talk” for the discussion about the education for women; he also directly quoted Liang (p. 92).

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The Political Novel in Vietnam The political reform movement in Vietnam began in the early twentieth century, with Phan Châu Trinh (1872–1926) and Phan Bôi Châu as the most prominent figures. A study by Sính Vĩnh serves as my main point of reference here.143 With literary Chinese being Vietnam’s official written language until 1910, the two Phans and their colleagues in the Duy Tân Hôi (Modernization Association, founded in 1904) received their information on current world conditions, in particular the spectacular rise of Japan in the East Asian political arena, through the writings of Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei.144 These Vietnamese reformers closely followed Liang’s journal Qingyi bao. They noted his efforts to rejuvenate China through new knowledge and new literature, which he had acquired largely from and through the Japanese, including his translation of Tōkai Sanshi’s Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women. Phan Châu Trinh eventually retranslated Liang’s translation into the most popular form of poetry in Vietnam, the six-eight couplet. Like many political reformers of the period, Phan Châu Trinh had traveled to Europe, and in 1905 he visited Japan for a few months. He was introduced to many important Japanese and Chinese reformers; it is likely that he met Liang Qichao in person.145 He probably did his translation in France in 1912–13. His life in Paris resembled that of the characters in the novel: among his circle of friends were two from Ireland, a group of Koreans, a Japanese, a Swede, and an Indian, all engaged in political reform.146 Phan’s intention with his translation was to educate and inspire Vietnamese readers with the ideals of liberty and independence as exemplified by the characters of the novel. Just as Liang Qichao had made textual adjustments to avoid the nationalistic and imperial tone of the later chapters of Mysterious Encounters, Phan eliminated references in Liang’s translation to “the glory of France,” as the nation representing the ideals of freedom, because France was the colonial power in Vietnam. He changed other passages to strengthen Vietnamese national feeling. 143. 144. 145. 146.

Vĩnh, “ ‘Elegant Females.’ ” Ibid., p. 196. Ibid., p. 201. Ibid., p. 202.

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The example Vĩnh gives is the poem sung by Kôren (the Spanish heroine in Mysterious Encounters) to express her wish to visit Japan. The lines in the original poem and in Liang’s faithful translation read: What I am longing for now is the end of the Eastern Sea I want to go there, yet the waterway is treacherous, At the end of the sea, there is Japan, Its customs and manners are elegant, The imperial house reigns in unbroken line, Its fame resounds through generations, The samurai treasure honor and take profit lightly, Self-denyingly, they revere their emperor.

In the Vietnamese translation she aspires to visit Vietnam. It begins: What I am longing for is the end of the Eastern Sea, I want to go there, yet the rough waves are boundless, The vestiges of Lac Hong [legendary ancestors of the Vietnamese] still remain after four thousand years of history In the mountains and in the sea, in the rivers, in villages and in cities, Since Dinh Tien Hoang [founder and first emperor of the Dinh dynasty (968–80), which was created after Vietnamese acquired independence from China] raised the flag of sovereignty . . .147

When Phan’s translation was eventually published in 1926, it was regarded as an original Vietnamese work. The French authorities confiscated and burned it as an incendiary political novel.148

Conclusions In East Asia the political novel was a consciously and explicitly adopted genre. In this adoption Japan became the hub for the further spread. Adoption included assigning the label “political novel” to the translation 147. Ibid., pp. 204–5. 148. Ibid.

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of novels from England and France (by Disraeli, Bulwer-Lytton, Scott, and the older Dumas) as well as newly written Japanese and Chinese novels; essays about the characteristics and potential of this genre; and polemics about its lack of features “essential” to literature. The connection to the foundational works, especially by Disraeli, is closer in East Asia than it had been for Ruffini, Adams, or Rizal. Japanese translators and publishers recast some European works as political novels on the basis of their perceived shared political and literary features. They thus created a more distinct identity for the genre. The core political and literary features of the genre remained stable. They were part of the genre’s perceived effectiveness in publicizing the need and the strategies of reform that had made it attractive in East Asia in the first place. However, we also find important adjustments to local political constellations as well as literary traditions. Among the former, projection of a way out of the perceived crisis and an anticipatory description of the results developed and sometimes formed the main content. Questions of national sovereignty (Japan), territorial integrity (China), and independence (Korea) are added to the national issues to be dealt with. The notion of a community of people from different nations devoted to similar ideals and supporting each other develops features already found in Ruffini and, to a degree, Rizal. The centrality of the reformist political agenda for the genre shows up in the discontinuation of political novel writing in Korea. The association of modernist reformers with the abolition of Korean sovereignty by the Japanese colonial government exploded the genre’s cohesiveness. The same fault line is visible in the attacks against government actors or revolutionaries who are accused of reneging on the nation’s true interests. As to new literary features, the “future record,” miraiki or weilaiji, developed into a subgenre of the political novel in Japan and China. It came with a narrative stance that claimed to base itself on the laws of social Darwinism when narrating projections into the future as already experienced realities. The “wedge,” which is often the place where the “future record” is anchored, is a specific Chinese contribution that reflects uncertainties about readers’ political ability and willingness to keep the particulars of plot and protagonists tied to the abstract and grand issues of the nation’s fate. The use of colloquial dialogue as the basic form in some Korean works builds on the regular genre feature of political debate as well

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as traditional forms but ironically undermines the claim of the underlying rationality of the discussants. However, the self-critical and even ironic distance of the narrator to himself (Ruffini, Adams) found no echo in East Asia. The time and space of the political novels are directly linked to the struggles presently going on in the world, and they offer a program that draws its strength from evolutionism. When a story is told through a historical parallel, its only content is the allegorical meaning. Regarding the dynamics driving the genre’s moves across language and cultural borders, the agency in the selection, translation, and adaptation is entirely determined by pull, whatever perceived asymmetries in power might have existed. This is true for the Japanese pioneering effort to bring the genre to Japan as much as for the Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese efforts to introduce it in their own national context. The motive power driving the dynamics of this transcultural interaction is the understanding that all nations share a similar optimal trajectory so that best concepts, institutions, and practices from others can be meaningfully employed. While always leading in a similar direction, this trajectory was wide enough to allow different political actors and authors to adjust it to different political scenarios in their political novels. The channels for the interaction are travel, study abroad, bilingualism, contact with foreigners in the country, and exile. The agents involved are politicians and political activists with aspirations to a leadership role in the reform process and members of the new class of urban public intellectuals (journalists, editors, teachers). These agents are aware of the need for secure channels to publicize their opinions, critiques, and visions. In the Far East the search for such venues, especially by Chinese and Korean authors, might involve compromises with the authorities controlling these venues. The works maintain to different degrees the implied assumption of the genre that “the people” are in need of enlightening education to qualify as true citizens of the nation. As outlined above, the genre’s political agenda and literary forms are intricately connected. The new vision of the world is carried by the genre’s literary forms. Focusing on Chinese translations of such novels from the Japanese, the next chapter will explore the specific process by which the world was brought home to China.

Part ii Bringing the World Home: The Political Novel in China

Chapter 3

The Migration of Literary Forms Transcultural Flow and the Japanese Model

L

iterature migrates through form. The political novel manifests its identity through a core set of formal elements.1 These elements were maintained throughout the genre’s migrations because they offered literary expression to a particular constellation of political issues: the misfit between the “old” institutions and the changed local and international context; the need for a group of “young” people who were dedicated to their country to propose and lead the necessary reforms; the necessity to rally public support for such changes through advocacy in the public sphere rather than through the old political institutions; and the notion that, according to the laws of historical development and evolution, these reforms were objectively necessary and therefore would be successful. The literary form of the political novel thus embodies its content, or, in an early suggestion by György Lukács that has been reinstituted by Franco Moretti although Lukács himself later disavowed it: “In literature what is truly social is form. . . . Form is social reality, it participates vivaciously in the life of the spirit. It therefore does not operate only as a factor acting upon life and molding experiences, but also as a factor which is in its turn molded by life.”2 1. The title “Bringing the World Home” for part 2 of this book was inspired by Theodore Huters’s 2005 monograph Bringing the World Home: Appropriating the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China. 2. Lukács, Drama moderno, p. 8, quoted in Moretti, Signs, p. 10.

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The lifeline for the political novel to become a world genre is in its ability to keep its core intact while finding new sources for revitalization through local adoptions and inspirations. The complexity of the particular literary traditions and political reform agendas to which the genre has been adapted inadvertently confirms our understanding of the genre’s formal structures as well as the central idea of political reform. Yet this process of adaptation to local problem constellations and a locally shared world outlook also shows up through new literary forms such as the “future record” in Japan, the “wedge chapter” in China, the animal allegory in Korea, and the ballad in Vietnam. This chapter will focus on the agency driving the genre’s migration from Japan to China as shown in translations and adaptations. A good test case for the former is Chinese translations of Japanese political novels. If the argument outlined above applies, these translations should stress what is seen as the formal core features while bringing in new formal elements to reflect the Chinese problem constellation as well as the selective inheritance and rejection of Chinese literary traditions. The farther the source work is from the writing routines of the target language, the higher the creative agency required of the translator. This creative agency shows up in the development of a new writing routine in the target language that leaves untouched neither the source work nor the language into which it is translated. The new routine comes with its own logic, and this requires often massive visible interventions into the original work through cuts, additions, changes in plot lines, and recast social functions. Thus, a translated work is simply part of the local literary scene and has to be read as such.

Resetting Space and Time: The World and the Present The political novel can be credited with having established a new literary space in its migration from Europe to East Asia. It is centered on the world as its implied mental as well as literary platform. It is not the familiar space/time of the Buddhist chiliocosm but an evolutionist and modern world that manifests itself in the literary form of the genre. Translations

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of Japanese works brought this world home to Chinese readers. These translations expanded the available arsenal of narrative devices, while also narrowing their leeway by keeping a strong focus on promoting a particular political vision. In terms of space, each of these translations situates its action in the “world” and not within the tightly sealed borders of one country. The world enters through terms such as “five continents,” wuzhou 五洲, or “ten thousand nations,” wanguo 萬國; through the travels of the protagonists; through their interaction with foreigners; through their adoption of worldly ways, including foreign-sounding personal names; and, finally, through the “worldly” nature of the genre of the political novel itself. In maps of the mind, this “world” had gained an ever stronger presence in China since the 1840s, with military conflicts, treaty ports, the first Chinese-language world geographies, and introductions to the political history of other nations among the visible markers, and the gradual reorganization of the order of things through translingually shared key terms as the pervasive but less visible forms. The political novel adds a popular platform to bring the world home and to insert China into a world context. As the world moved into the Chinese mental horizon, not only was the notion of the “unheard of ” and extraordinary—qi—redefined, but China began consciously to join a translingual and transcultural universality of ideas, ideals, conflicts, and controversies. In terms of time, this is the world of the present. The focus is on the problems of a given country or group of countries in the contemporary world, the causes of these problems, and the ways to overcome them. This sense of the world as a present-day reality was reinforced by the spread of daily newspaper reports and popularized by images about and from the world in illustrated journals such as the Dianshizhai huabao since the 1880s and, with a higher claim to authenticity, by photography since the turn of the century. Both the translation of Tōkai Sanshi’s Kajin no kigū—Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women—which was started by Liang Qichao in 1898, and that of Yano Ryūkei’s Keikoku bidan—Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship—which was started by an anonymous translator in 1899, situate their stories in this new world. The former had the Wanderer of the Eastern Seas learning about the ways of the world through travel, meeting

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kindred souls from other nations, and returning home in the end to devote himself to reforming his country.3 The latter, situated in ancient Greece, highlights the Western origin of the idea of representative government, but by showing the bitter struggle of “men of valor” from Thebes to regain the control of their city and to establish republican rule, it connects directly with the struggle for parliamentary representation in Japan during the 1880s and in China during the time when the translation appeared. Inspiring Instances operates on the notion that the world is one entity with a common core of shared “civilized” values and political ideals, the highest of which are independence from foreign domination and commitment to the “people.” Several of the novels translated from Japanese followed the model of Inspired Instances and situated their action in Europe and the United States, which were considered best-practice examples for East Asia. Hisamatsu Yoshinori’s 久松義典 (1855–1905) Shokumin iseki 殖民偉蹟 (The great achievements of colonization; 1902) is a case in point. Although only partially translated, the novel’s guiding theme of a celebration of liberty and the dignity of being free as represented in the founding of the United States comes through well enough. The first chapter, headed “The Despotic and Cruel Rule of a Monarch [Charles II of England] Brings about the Struggle of the People to Uphold Their Rights and Freedoms,” opens with the claim that if one loses one’s freedom, then one’s life is no more than that of an animal. The path to prevent this fate is shown by history because “since ancient times there were so many heroes who brought about earth-shaking events because they were struggling for freedom” 古來多少英雄豪傑，因爲爭自由權做出驚天動地的事情.4 The novel focuses on William Penn (1644–1718), the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania. The Fantastic Tale of Saving the Nation ([Zhengzhi xiaoshuo] Huitian qitan [政治小說]回天綺談), with the horn-title “A Political Novel,” is another translation employing the foreign to discuss one’s own country.5 3. For a detailed synopsis of this novel see Keene, Dawn to the West, pp. 82–93. 4. Hisamatsu Yoshinori, Zhimin weiji, serialized in Xinmin congbao, vol. 20, p. 1. 5. Katō, [Zhengzhi xiaoshuo] Huitian qitan. For my analysis I use the Xin xiaoshuo edition. The translator, Mai Zhonghua from Shunde county, Guangdong province, is the younger brother of Mai Menghua 麥孟華, who in turn was a student of Kang Youwei. He was also the author of a political drama, Xue hai hua chuanqi 血海花傳奇

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This 1903 translation by Yusezhai zhuren 玉瑟齋主人 (Mai Zhonghua 麥仲華, 1876–1956) of Katō Masanosuke’s 加藤政之助 (1854–1941) 1885 novel Eikoku meishi kaiten kidan 英國名士回天奇談 (Fantastic tale of the outstanding men of England saving the nation) deals with the struggle of English noblemen and commoners to limit the powers of the king and establish rights for the citizens under King John (1199–1216).6 At the end of the novel, the reformers succeed in forcing the king to sign the Magna Carta, which gave the country a constitutional foundation. This important turn in English history was well suited to the agenda of Chinese political reformers, which must have prompted the later translation of this rather early novel. Annals of the Future Warring States (Weilai zhanguo zhi 未来戦国志, 1902–3), is a translation based on Takayasu Kamejirō’s 高安亀次郎 Sekai ritsukoku no yukusue 世界列国の行く末 (The fate of the nations of the world; 1887).7 This story is not set in the past but in the twenty-sixth century. The “warring states” are Russia, as the “Autocracy of the Baltic” (Boluodi zhuanzhi guo 波羅的專制國); the United States of America; Japan, as Sandao 參島 (the three islands); and the Empire of China, Zhina diguo 支那帝國. After it has conquered most of the European territory, Russia’s power is now on a par with that of the United States. It aims to get the upper hand through the occupation of Japan. According to the author’s preface, the novel hopes to warn its readers against complacency with regard to Russia’s strategic ambitions. The novel’s translation in 1902–3 fits with the anti-Russian agitation among Chinese students in Japan at that time. You Yazi’s 憂亞子 1901 adaptation of Ōhashi Otowa’s 大橋乙羽 1896 novel [Seiji shōsetsu] Ruiran tōyō [政治小説]累卵東洋 (The threatened Pacific), with the horn-title “a political novel,” takes on the theme of (The flower in the sea of blood), based on the story of Madame Roland as published in Xinming congbao (1903); see A Ying, Wan Qing xiqu xiaoshuo mu, p. 13. Mai Menghua claimed that this work was a “retranslation” 重譯 but that he added a first act. Ibid. 6. Katō, Eikoku meishi kaiten kidan. 7. Takayasu, Weilai zhanguo zhi, translated by Nan Zhina lao ji (Ma Yangyu). Ma Yangyu was also the author of two novels, Qin jian (Self-examination), an exposé novel set in the Xinzheng period that deals with fake reformers; and [Yuyan xiaoshuo] Daren guo (The country of giants. Allegorical novel), which is modeled on Oliver Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

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oppressed peoples.8 The novel deals with India under the British, but the focus is on internal causes that brought on this situation, not on the role of Britain or the struggle against colonialism. The evolutionist structure of these novels was attractive to Chinese translators, as it helped define the core identity of the political novel as a tool in the battle for the survival of the nation now and here. The Chinese writers found their historical place and mission in a particular recasting of evolutionism, namely, that there is no determinism but that the fate of nations depends on men and women of valor and purpose devoted to their country and able to make the best of evolutionism. The translations showed that only by pushing for reforms in active cooperation with other countries and their people could one’s own country compete in the world. The translations thus helped Chinese writers and readers to find their own place and hope in the trajectory of history’s progress. Like other nations before them, their own efforts would eventually be crowned with success because they were based on the same aspirations and objective laws that had led to such startling results elsewhere—if only they could mobilize the energies required. The present world also enters the translations in the shape of the foreigner. This frequently encountered character helped transform the Chinese mental universe—and with it the character of bona fide Chinese reformers. The fictional foreigner offered a chance to test and prompt new ways of thinking and acting about political issues and to highlight the importance of human agency. The popularity of describing foreign nations, focusing on the struggle for independence, and using foreigners as heroes helped fashion a subgenre of the Chinese political novel. An example is [Lishi xiaoshuo] Sugelan duli ji [歷史小説]蘇格蘭獨立記 (The record of Scotland’s independence; 1906), the translation of an unidentified English-language work by Chen Hongbi 陳鴻璧 (1884–1966), one of the few identifiable women translators of the time. It is the story of Scottish national hero Sir William Wallace, who led his people to victory against England in the battle of 1297 and became for a decade Guardian of Scotland. 8. Ōhashi and You Yazi, Leiluan dongyang. You Yazi (meaning “the master who worries about Asia”) declares at the end of the novel that 30 to 40 percent of the story is his own creation; pp. 103–4.

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Figure 3.1a. Front cover of Sugelan duli ji (The record of Scotland’s independence) featuring a fighter for Scottish independence with flag framed by the mountains of his country. ([Lishi xiaoshuo] Sugelan duli ji [1906].)

The cover of the book illustrates the program (figure 3.1a). A singular hero is needed to provide a vision for the country. The country is present in the flag and the mountains, and the hero’s pensive stance highlights his pondering how to mobilize his people for the struggle ahead, which is described in the novel itself. Figure 3.1b commemorates the victory in this struggle with a statue of Sir William Wallace (Heershi 和耳士). From these images the political message of the translation is clear: the struggle for independence is a universal goal, and heroes who lead their country share the same ideals. The foreign hero is thus an appropriate model for Chinese who are pursuing similar goals. Another example of this subgenre is Taixi lishi yanyi 泰西歷史演義 (A historical romance of the West; 1903), by Xihong’anzhu 洗紅盦主, an original work based on a composite of segments from the political history of different regions and nations. The opening words provide the new geopolitical frame: “We now are talking about the five continents under heaven. Europe must be counted as being the first among them to

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Figure 3.1b. Statue of Sir William Wallace from the second page of Sugelan duli ji. The inscription reads: “Portrait commemorating Sir William Wallace—an expression of the esteem of the later born for his uprightness and patriotism” 和耳士遺像——後人尊敬忠心保國者之表記. ([Lishi xiaoshuo] Sugelan duli ji [1906].)

achieve wealth and power” 卻説天下五大洲，其中富強最早的，要算 是歐羅巴.9 The story about Europe starts with France and centers on the life and deeds of Napoleon I. For England, it focuses on the “discovery” of India and the history of the East India Company, detailing how England brought civilization and modern standards to this country by building schools, establishing newspapers, opening up mines, promoting modern medicine, eradicating old customs, and instituting effective forms of government. The story of America is centered on George Washington and the war of independence, with an emphasis on resisting and confronting British colonialism. The novel ends with Peter the Great and his reforms. The formal element of dealing with the Chinese present through the past of foreign countries is used to put forward the notion that history is 9. Xihong’anzhu, Taixi lishi yanyi, p. 1.

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always driven forward by the struggle between defenders of the old and advocates of the new, with political reform and national independence at the heart of the struggle. It challenges the Chinese reader to think about the still uncompleted political reforms in China and envision the political leadership and citizenship needed to implement them. There are no clear borders separating translations and original works with regard to the perception of the new time-space of the present world and the theme of national independence. The original Chinese Meilijian zili ji 美利堅自立記 (A record of America’s independence; 1901), by Xuan fanzi 宣樊子 (Lin Xie 林獬, 1874–1926),10 outlines the path from the American rebellion against English unjust taxation to independence from the leading world power at the time. Feiliebin waishi 菲獵濱外史 (An unofficial history of the Philippines; 1904) by Xia Min 俠民 deals with the struggle for Philippine independence, focusing on the hardship endured by the common people under Spanish colonial rule, as represented by the Dominican Friars, and the resistance and protests by young political activists.11 [Xiayi xiaoshuo] Lengguo fuchou ji [俠義小説]冷囯復仇記 (Revenge at Cold Mountain. A knight-errant novel; 1907.)12 uses the story of Wilhelm Tell to detail how Switzerland gained independence from Austria. In the preface to this novel, the author cries out: “[Everyone] shouts, ‘Establish a Constitution! Establish a Constitution!’ yet they all are just skimping along as in the past; [and they shout] ‘Revolution! Revolution!’ yet all we see is factional fighting. [All the while] China is facing the danger of being partitioned!” The aim of this novel is to use the history of another country as a bell to awaken the Chinese people.13 Duoshao toulu 多少頭顱 (How many martyrs?; 1904), by “One of the Refugees from a Doomed Country” (Wangguo yimin zhiyi 亡國遺民之一), provides the counternarrative through the tragic history of Poland’s loss of sovereignty 10. Xuan fanzi (Lin Xie), Meilijian zili ji. Lin Xie, also known as Lin Baishui 林白水, was a political activist and journalist. Founder of the Zhongguo baihua bao 中國白話 報 and chief editor of Hangzhou baihua bao 杭州白話報, he wrote many political newspaper commentaries and was executed for his comments by a warlord in 1926. 11. As this novel remained unfinished, it is hard to tell where it would have led and what role Rizal would have had in it. 12. Linxia laoren, Lengguo fuchou ji. In the preface to the novel, the author claims that his work is a translation. 13. Ibid., p. 250.

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to Russia.14 Although this unfinished novel tells of a brutal massacre of Polish civilians by Russian invaders and of the hardship the people have to endure, its emphasis is on the undying spirit of a people that will not be subjugated. The emphasis of the story is on the valor and fighting spirit of the Polish heroes, men for whom a life in slavery is not worth living. In the new Chinese novels, with the globe as their stage, the great men of recent Western history take the place of heroes from traditional Chinese yanyi novels such as Zhuge Liang 诸葛亮 and Cao Cao 曹操.15 With these new characters, a new vocabulary and a new kind of historical action together with a new value system come into play. To convey the story, however, writers adopted many familiar Chinese narrative styles, tropes, and dictions and interlaced them with new vocabulary describing the Western lifestyle and concepts. This resulted in a rich hybrid that combined translation, adaptation, and creation. A Historical Romance of the West, to give an example, integrates new forms of expression and new vocabulary (double underlined below) with traditional idioms and narrative styles (underlined): However it was said that in the town of Paris there was a parliament, and the people who are in it [parliamentarians] became jealous when they saw how popular Napoleon was with the common people. One day they gathered together in the meeting hall to devise a strategy. For a while, the arrival of carriages made quite a bit of noise as the meeting gathered. Upon which, the discussion began. [However,] all of them were ignorant of how to go about 14. See Wangguo yimin zhi yi, Duoshao toulu. 15. In their own ways some premodern Chinese novels had also been situated in the “world” and were read as dealing with the “present” even while being situated in the past. Journey to the West offers a Buddhist space/time frame and has pilgrims travel from Tang China to the Buddha’s seat in the West in search of scriptures that will open the way to enlightenment. This novel has been considered an allegory of China’s travails in its search for “Western” enlightenment, and some sections have been used to discuss political struggle within the People’s Republic and within the socialist camp. The Dream of the Red Chamber has been read as a record of the decline of Han Chinese banner families at the time of its writing, much like Balzac’s Comédie humaine. Both rereadings, however, follow rather than precede the political novel and are indebted to its coding devices. For the Dream of the Red Chamber, see, for example, Wang Meng, Honglou qishi lu; for the Journey to the West, see Wagner, Contemporary Chinese Historical Drama, chap. 3.

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things and had no judgment whatsoever, [except] for one person among them. He was cunning and capricious, and had the nickname “Cunning star” [= the nickname of Wu Yong, a character in Shui hu zhuan, or Water Margin]. He then told everyone “thus and thus, and thus and so.” All those who heard him clapped their hands and declared that he was very ingenious. 卻説巴黎城中，有一個國會，那國會中人，見拿破侖為百姓推戴，大 家就起了嫉妒之心。有一天約了許多人，在議會廰商量辦法，少時車 馬喧譁，會齊了。當下開談，都是築室道謀，毫無主見，内有一個 人，刁鑽古怪，綽號智多星，就對着衆人如此如此，這般這般，衆人 聼了，各個拍手稱妙。16

This juxtaposition of traditional stylistic features with new narrative elements produces a sense of strangeness and even alienation. Yet, it was precisely this sense of strangeness and alienation that made the story read like an exotic modern saga.

The Making of the Chinese Columbus These novels were also used to create models for new kinds of heroes. Not all heroes were of the same kind. Napoleon, for one, represents the hero of great personal vitality and of vision and great ambition as a leader; Washington and William Tell are heroes of the people who were able to lead them to independence; Sofia, the Russian anarchist to be discussed below, is the heroine who dares to go against her own despotic government. Through this variety, the theme of the universality of political reform with foreigners as fictional characters living out features the authors wanted to impress on their readers enlivened the Chinese literary scene. Earlier Chinese translations of foreign novels such as Bulwer-Lytton’s Nights and Days (1873),17 Conan Doyle’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Xieluoke He’erwu biji 歇洛克呵爾唔筆記; 1896),18 or the Younger 16. Xihong’anzhu, Taixi lishi yanyi, p. 3. 17. Bulwer-Lytton’s Nights and Days (1873) was translated into Chinese as Xinxi xiantan 昕夕閒談 and serialized in the Shenbaoguan journal Xunhuan suoji from 1872. See Hanan, Chinese Fiction, 85–109. 18. Conan Doyle, Xieluoke He’erwu biji. It is analyzed in Nakamura Tadayuki, “Shinmatsu teitan shōsetsu,” part 1, pp. 14–16.

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Dumas’s La dame aux camélias (Bali chahuanü yishi 巴黎茶花女遺事; 1899)19 had introduced fictional foreigners, but these works had done so in a self-contained and homogeneous “foreign” environment. Tōkai Sanshi’s Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women, in contrast, has Asian reformers interact with Westerners in foreign countries. This model was followed in most Chinese political novels. Huang Keqiang 黄克强 in Liang Qichao’s Future Record travels through Europe in search of education and a solution for China’s political problems. The depiction of heroic figures from the West was also used to recast heroes from the Chinese past into a modern mold. [Shehui xiaoshuo] Luosuo hun [社會小説]羅梭魂 (The spirit of Rousseau. A social novel; 1905), by Huai Ren 懷仁, depicts fictional encounters and interactions on an equal footing between foreign and Chinese reformers. In the novel’s wedge chapter, the spirit of Rousseau meets up in the netherworld with the spirits of three Chinese from the past who are said to have fought for similar ideals: Huang Zongxi 黄宗羲 (1610–95), the undaunted intellectual of the Ming-Qing transition who organized a resistance against the new “foreign” Manchu rulers; Zhan Mingxiong 展名雄 (also known as Liuxia Zhi 柳下跖), the leader of a revolt in 475 bc; and Chen She 陈涉 [勝] (?–208 bce), who organized an uprising against the tyrannical second emperor of the Qin dynasty. In this recasting men from the West and from China’s past share an understanding of the basic rights of the common people (min quan 民權) and of the people’s welfare as the basis and the most important concern of a state, minben 民本. The march to civilization is the universal goal of all nations wanting to survive the “selection of the fittest,” with China being no exception. Newly written Chinese novels also followed the translations in resetting the fictional space and time to the present-day world of nation-states. The Chinese novel that most clearly exemplifies the merging of heroes from East and West, as pioneered by the Japanese novels, is one of the most influential novels of the time, Dong’ou nühaojie 東歐女豪傑 (Heroines of Eastern Europe; 1902), by an author with the pen name Lady with Feather Dress from Lingnan 岭南羽衣女士. In this work the female Chinese character Hua Mingqing 華明卿 meets up with Russian 19. Dumas, Bali Chahuanü yishi, translated by Lin Shu and Wang Shouchang. For an analysis, see Leo Lee, Romantic Generation, pp. 44–46.

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anarchists represented by Sofia Perovskaya and goes on to learn about their struggles and beliefs. Xi chi ji 洗恥記 (The record of washing away shame; 1904) is another novel of this kind. It is written under the name of The Han Chinese Misanthropist (Hanguo yanshizhe 漢國厭世者) and told by The Woman of Frozen Feelings, Lengqing nüshi 冷情女史.20 The two key protagonists, Ai Zirou 艾子柔 (a pun on ai ziyou 愛自由, “lover of freedom”) and Chi Beihua 遲悲花 (a pun on 恥悲華, “ashamed for sad China”) are Filipino freedom fighters. Following the annexation of their country by the United States, they have come in exile to China, where they have joined the struggle to overthrow the Manchus. The Chinese heroes of the novel refer to them as “heroes from overseas” 海外豪傑. In a further step we find bona fide Chinese heroes who bring civilization to other peoples in the world. Whereas The Spirit of Rousseau makes a point of guiding the oppressed peoples of the world within a general constellation of equality between races, a different point of view is found in Shizi xue / Zhina Gelunbu: 獅子血/支那哥倫布 (The blood of the lion, or The Chinese Columbus; 1905). The author, He Jiong 何迥, created a Chinese hero named Cha Erlang 查二郎, an “adventurer” (maoxianjia 冒險傢) who fights injustice all over the world. During a huge storm at sea with freezing temperatures, two flying monsters attack Cha’s ship and carry it off to a distant place, which turns out to be in Africa. Cha gains the trust of the barbaric locals to support him in his fight against monsters, beasts, and social injustice. He acts as the colonizer who brings “civilization” to the locals. Factories are built, industrial discipline is introduced, trade with the outside world is established, and school attendance becomes mandatory. Even though the novel remained unfinished, the general outline is clear: we Chinese can also have the wherewithal to become modern heroes, namely, to be courageous, adventurous, and physically vigorous, and at the same time strong leaders with a colonizer’s vision for a better future. The 1906 novel Glaciers and Snowdrifts with the horn-title “Novel of Colonization” ([Zhimin xiaoshuo] Bingshan xuehai [殖民小説]冰山 雪海), evinces a similar plot line and type of hero (figure 3.2).21 In the twenty-fourth century a group of Chinese explorers set up a new colony in 20. Lengqing nüshi, Xi chi ji, p. 421. 21. [Li Boyuan?], Bingshan xuehai.

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Figure 3.2. The front cover of Glaciers and Snowdrifts (1906), with horn-title “Novel of Colonization” boldly printed across the top. Cover designs of political novels were often striking, with political agendas evoked through graphic or typographic means. ([Li Boyuan?], [Zhimin xiaoshuo] Bingshan xuehai [1906].)

the Americas only to become model colonizers in creating an egalitarian (datong 大同) society for all races of people who happen to be living there. The qualities of their leader Wei Dalang 魏大郎, who sports a pseudoJapanese personal name with a pun on “the super hero” (weida lang 偉大郎), resemble those of Cha. He offers succor to Jewish and black people who are seeking an escape from backwardness, oppression, and slavery and teaches them the meaning of being free in an egalitarian society. The story ends with a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the founding of their ideal society that is attended by world leaders. A similar scenario is found on the Island of Immortals in Lü Sheng’s 旅生 Chiren shuo meng ji 癡人説夢記 (A fool’s tale of his dream; 1904). The types of reforms needed in these distant places match those needed in China so closely that we are forced to refine our reading. The slaves and destitute people in these novels are the image of the Chinese people caught in the trappings of the past. Castigating the Chinese as

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“slaves” is a standard feature in late Qing political rhetoric. The Chinese Columbus who with a firm hand guides the slaves out of their misery and pushes them to modernity is not a figure of the present but of the future. In a pointed reading, we thus have modern adventurous Chinese reformers colonizing the enslaved Chinese past to prod it into becoming a modern nation. The explicit justification of colonization as a way to civilize a backward population signals the reformers’ deep distrust in the spontaneous desire of the populace for the modern dispensation and explains the need for a muscular intervention from above, optimally a state government bent on reform, for which these reformers continued to hold out hope.

A New Utopian World The search for a clean testing ground for a new world that is not encumbered by the fetters of tradition and the power structures of the present— including the nation-state—is at the origin of “utopian” narratives and even of the word “utopia” (ou-topos = nonplace) itself. Such a literary and virtual testing ground might be found at the bottom of the ocean or on some uninhabited island or planet, options that have been explored, for example, by Jules Verne—whose novels were translated and widely read in Japan and China at the time and which in their turn became models for Chinese writers. Huang jiang diaosou’s 荒江釣叟 A Novel on the Colonization of the Moon (Yueqiu zhimindi xiaoshuo 月球殖民地小說; 1904) makes the uninhabited moon into a colony of humans. Like the crew of Captain Nemo’s submarine, they are not defined by their nationality but by their being part of humankind. In a dream, the young Japanese (not Chinese!) hero, who has joined the cause of Chinese political reform, is taken to an imaginary world (Heaven) by an angel. There he enters a great hall where he sees three great personages sitting together passing final judgment on human affairs.22 They are Buddha, Confucius, and George Washington. Combining Buddhist self-control, Confucian rational state management, and republican involvement of citizens in public affairs, they together represent the highest of moral values and the commitment to a better human society independent of culture, nation, and language. 22. Huang jiang diaosou, Yueqiu zhimindi xiaoshuo, p. 70.

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The idea of beneficial interaction in the future “world” comes into the political novel with the world’s fair, where different nations exhibit their industrial know-how and cultural achievements. The popularity of this theme in political novels reflects the desire by writers to see their own country one day standing tall among the advanced nations. Among Japanese authors Suehiro Tetchō was among the first to explore this topic in his 1890 Future Record from Meiji Year 23.23 Liang Qichao adopted it for the opening of his Future Record with the Shanghai industrial exhibition that is attended by world leaders. Ma Yangyu’s 馬仰禹 Qin jian 親鑒 (Self-examination; 1907) and Lu Shi’e’s 陸士諤 Xin Zhongguo 新中國 (New China; 1910) followed suit. At the same time, the world’s fair is a reminder that peace and prosperity can only be achieved once nations have become equal in their development and level of civilization. These lofty goals cannot be attained by a single nation alone but depend on a world community. In these utopian texts, the globe has become the unit of thinking. Similar to their role in Japanese political novels, foreign places and characters were intended in the Chinese counterparts to evoke the universality of the struggle for national salvation. With them came new concepts and metaphors. New terms such as “globe” 地球, “compatriot” 同胞, “comrade” 同志, “man of valor” 志士, “public enemy” 公敵, “barbaric” 野蠻, “developed” 進化, “science” 科學, “electricity” 電氣, and “humanity” 人類, as well as new geographic denominations such as “Asia” 亞細亞 or “the Indian Ocean” 印度洋, all signal a new discursive universe. As for metaphors, the “ocean” is a new Chinese metaphor for the political environment in which, another new metaphor, the “ship of state” fights storms, waves, leaks, and dissent among the crew.24 The use of literary tropes such as the description of distant and sometimes virtual places by late Qing authors might suggest literary continuity.25 However, although these stories try to appeal to existing literary sensibilities, they do so to strengthen their political appeal. The element of

23. For a discussion on the novel’s impact in Japan, see Hill, “How to Write,” p. 344. 24. See the wedge chapter of Liu E, Lao Can youji; on that wedge see also chapter 7. 25. “For late Qing authors, writing science fantasy meant to foreground the classical aesthetic of the strange anew and to renegotiate the figurative basis of language in light of a different topological pattern.” David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, p. 257.

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novelty and rupture dominates together with a strategy of writing and reading that is focused on the political/allegorical elements.

Closing Time: The Present in the Light of the Future The Japanese utopian and dystopian narrative created a way to narrate the path from the present into the future in a scientist way. More important for China, however, was the inversion of this narrative from an advocacydriven projection of hopes to a retrospective “factual” record of “past” achievements from a future perspective, the class of works that have “future record”—miraiki in Japanese and weilaiji in Chinese—in their titles or simply proceed in this manner.26 The idea of political progress and its relationship to science and technology in the early Japanese translation of Anno 2065 by the Dutch author “Dioscorides” (Pieter Harting) inspired the Japanese miraiki, and then miraiki as well as Bellamy’s Looking Backward formed the backdrop of the Chinese weilaiji.27 The “future record” further develops the core element of time and space in earlier political novels. Operating on three different time horizons—future, past, and present—it is a form of literary narration that attempts to extrapolate future realities from past experience and present thinking, and it became the most distinctive feature of Japanese and Chinese political novels. Its ideological stance is expressed through the formal structure of setting the story in the future with the aim of dealing with the present. The implication is that the move of the evolutionary machine toward the hoped for future hinges on particular reform actions that need to be taken now. The device had been known in China since the 1891–92 Chinese summary translation of Bellamy’s Looking Backward (see chapter 1), but its use

26. The role of the miraiki in the Japanese political novel is discussed in Kurita, “Meiji Japan’s Y23 Crisis.” 27. Below I will refer to both Japanese and Chinese works of this type with the general term of miraiki.

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in Japanese political novels made this option concrete and accessible for Chinese writers. The foundational works that introduced the term miraiki were Suehiro Tetchō’s Future Record from Meiji Year 23 (1885–86) and Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow (1886). Although three of Suehiro Tetchō’s political novels were translated into Chinese and Suehiro was therefore well known in China,28 Future Record from Meiji Year 23 was not among them—possibly because of its censure of the corruption in the future Diet. However, it had a direct impact on Liang Qichao’s Future Record of New China, the key link for the introduction of the device of the miraiki in China and its eventual popularity there. In Liang’s Future Record, the task of the historian/narrator Mr. Kong Lao is to remind the citizens of these later times of the events of the “past.” Since the narrator lives in this future, he is able to look back while enabling the actual author, Liang, to look forward. Liang was thus able to offer two different perspectives at once, the future seen from the perspective of the present in which his readers lived and the present seen from the future in which the protagonists of the novel lived. This dual perspective gives the author unique freedom and enhances the lure of the narrative. It enables him or her to treat fantasies as facts, facts as memories, and needed political reform as glorious achievement. From the perspective of China’s wealth and power in the future’s “present,” criticism of the present, the future’s “past,” becomes amply justified; given the “indisputable” success story narrated by the future Mr. Kong Lao, the foretelling of China’s possible future by the present Liang Qichao can be delivered with complete confidence. Unlike utopian fantasy the miraiki offers concrete strategies and practical steps for reaching that future state. And the innovative timeline of this type of narrative has its own philosophical foundation: the necessity/inevitability of progress and evolution. David Wang has argued that Liang Qichao was not able to finish his novel because the three

28. Suehiro’s novel Setchūbai was translated into Chinese as [Zhengzhi xiaoshuo] Xue zhong mei [政治小説]雪中梅 (Plum blossoms amidst the snow. A political novel) by Xiong Gai in 1903; and Kakan’o as [Zhengzhi xiaoshuo] Huajian ying [政治小説] 花間鶯 (Orioles among the flowers. A political novel) by Liang Jidong between 1908 and 1909.

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conflicting time structures in the plot robbed him of the freedom to imagine alternative histories.29 As a literary form, however, the miraiki was chosen for a specific purpose: to provoke action on the part of the reader through the examples of the successful measures taken by the characters in the story. The freedom that these narratives offered to both writer and reader was a release from what was seen as an intransigent political system stuck in a present burdened with a dysfunctional tradition and a backward people. Looking back from the realized ideal in the future, the tone of these “future records” is both positive and inspiring. With their time inversion and “reality”-based flights of fancy, they made engaging reading. The narration of the miraiki as a daydream was pioneered in Anno 2065 and then emulated by Toda Kindō in Stormy Seas and the two miraiki novels by Suehiro Tetchō. Upon waking up in the nightmare of the present, the narrator and the reader realize that the hard work is still ahead. This notion of dream as reality achieved inverts the Buddhist notion of this world as illusion, evoked, for example, in Dong Yue’s seventeenth-century Sequel to the Journey to the West (Xiyou bu) and Cao Xueqin’s eighteenth-century Dream of the Red Chamber. Cai Yuanpei’s 蔡元培 (1868–1940) Xinnian meng 新年夢 (A New Year’s dream; 1904), made use of this new device. Frustrated with the inept Qing government and the backwardness of the people, the central character, “A Citizen of China” 中國一民—the author himself—goes to sleep. A dream takes him into the future. Not all of the political and social problems of the present have been solved, but they are addressed and the measures to solve them outlined in detail. The result is a utopian world in which China’s backwardness and ineptitude have been eliminated; its people are enjoying freedom, democracy, and all that science can offer; and this in a world without national borders or private property, where everybody speaks Esperanto. Firecrackers from a New Year celebration bring the narrator back to the present. The dream is not an empty illusion, however, but the idea of what should, and could, be. Another miraiki containing a dream is Nüzi aiguo xiaoshuo: Qingtian zhai 女子愛國小說. 情天債 (Debts in the realm of love: a novel of

29. David Wang, “Translating Modernity,” pp. 311–12.

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women’s patriotism; 1904), by Xu Nianci 徐念慈 writing under the pen name Donghai jue wo 東海覺我 (One awakened to our [situation] from the East China Sea).30 As the wedge chapter opens, the storyteller addresses his readers, using new colloquial vocabulary wherever possible: Hello you all! We are already in the first month of the year 1964, or jiachen 甲辰!31 Nowadays our empire is independent on the Asian continent and enjoys equal relations with the other nations in the world. Who would have thought that we would have become the leader among the Asian nations! Our citizens are breathing the fresh air of freedom, but we are also shouldering the responsibilities that come with this privilege. Although today the world has not yet achieved the Great Commonweal (datong shijie 大同 世界), the golden Asian mainland has gradually released this glorious and splendid radiance. Talking about internal governance, officials in the different localities all abide by the constitution of our empire to bring about orderly self-rule without any chaos. Talking about foreign relations, the ambassadors from various nations and our dignitaries sent to those countries are uniformly respectful and behave with decorum; relations are altogether friendly and harmonious.32

China’s accomplishments “now” include the modernization of the military, the development of martial spirit, universal education, and scientific discoveries that are “truly something the Yellow Race can be proud of.”33 “So how was our Empire of the Old and Sick of sixty years ago able to get to this point with a single change?”34 asks the narrator. “Everybody believes that this was because of the powers of the heroine Su Huameng 蘇華夢 [meaning ‘rousing China from its dreams’], that revolutionary flower.” The novel fills in the details of the magical transformation from the “past” to the “present” through the efforts of this heroine, starting with an allegory in which people are deeply asleep in a house (= China) and

30. Donghai jue wo, Nüzi aiguo xiaoshuo. 31. By using both the Chinese and the Western calendar systems the author made it clear that the novel is set sixty years into the future. The Chinese lunar calendar has a sixty-year cycle, and jiachen 甲辰 is also the year 1904, when the novel came out. 32. Donghai jue wo, Nüzi aiguo xiaoshuo, vol. 1.1, p. 39. 33. Ibid., vol. 1.1, pp. 39–40. 34. Ibid., vol. 1.1, p. 40.

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being slaughtered by intruders as they refuse to wake up to the reality of the crisis of their home. In miraiki narration protagonists can also freely travel through time. In the anonymous novel Huangren shijie 黃人世界 (The world of the yellow man; 1903), Wu Yong 吳用 from the novel Water Margin comes back to life in a descendant of the same name and announces to his surprised son: “Today is the twentieth anniversary of our nation’s revolution.” Unperturbed by his son’s objection that this is the twenty-ninth year of the Guangxu reign (1903), Wu Yong proceeds to tell him the history of the six great reforms of the “past,” which brought about “the world of the yellow man.” These reforms again include items from the agenda of political reformers, such as defeating the invading Russian army, establishing regional and international alliances to secure peace, securing local selfgovernment, and introducing universal education with scientific advances as a consequence.35 The author of the widely reprinted Xin jiyuan 新紀元 (The new century; 1908)36 was inspired to focus not just on the past and the present, but on the future, by two foreign novels about the future, H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine: An Invention (Weilai zhi shijie 未來之世界) and Camille Flammarion’s La fin du monde (Shijie mori ji 世界末日記), both of which had been translated into Chinese.37 His novel thus deals with the century that had just begun—and during which China “had” become the most powerful nation on earth after the Xinzheng reforms modernized its government with a constitution and its educational system with the

35. Huangren shijie was published in Youxue yi bian 游學譯編, a journal edited by overseas Chinese students from Hunan studying at the Hong wen xueyuan in Tokyo. 36. Biheguan zhuren, Xin jiyuan. Before 1933 no fewer than eight reprints of this long novel (70,000 characters) have been counted; see Liu Delong, “Wan Qing zhishi fenzi xintai,” p. 92. 37. Biheguan zhuren, Xin jiyuan, chap. 1, p. 2. The Chinese translation of H. G. Wells’s Time Machine (1895) had a different title from the one given by the author of Xin jiyuan; it was translated just a year before Xin jiyuan as Zang sang bian 滄桑変 (The transformation of the world) by [Yang 楊] Xinyi 心一 in Shenzhou ribao 1907.7.3– 8.10. Camille Flammarion’s La fin du monde (The end of the world; 1893) was translated as [Zheli xiaoshuo] Shijie mori ji [哲理小說]世界末日記 (La fin du monde. A philosophical novel). Partially translated by Liang Qichao in 1902 and published in Xin xiaoshuo magazine.

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wherewithal for scientific progress. In return for past humiliations, China has now has imposed unequal treaties on others. The author’s ambivalent feelings about this success story are expressed at the end, when some of the poorest nations refuse to sign a treaty with China because of its tyrannical behavior. In addition, the grand hopes put by this novel into magical solutions brought about by science reflect a lack of self-confidence in the effectiveness of the political program of the reformers, as even the technical devices that secure the victory over the white race have all been imported from the West.38 A similar ambivalence about dreams of power can be found in Xu Zhiyan’s 許指嚴 (1875–1923) The Electrical World, which has the horn-title A Utopian Novel ([Lixiang xiaoshuo] Dian shijie [理想小説]電世界; 1909). Writing under the ironical name Gaoyang shi bu caizi 高陽氏不才 子 (Kid without talent from the Gaoyang Clan), Xu starts out by describing China as the world’s main contributor to a universal science-based progress.39 At the center of a centennial celebration of the new city of Shanghai, which is now simply called Utopia (Wutuobang 烏托邦) and stands for future China, is a new hero, the Chinese scientist and “king of electricity” Huang Zhenqiu 黃震球 (the yellow man who shakes the globe). His scientific innovations, which have found support by parliament, the government, and the constitutional monarchy, have helped China to gain supremacy in the world. With the advanced weapons Huang has developed, it fights off the Kingdom of the Threatening West (Xi wei guo 西威國), the Northern Alliance (Bei he guo 北合國 = North America), and the Kingdom of the Shady East (Dong yin guo 東陰國 = Japan), and ends up uniting the world (tongyi shijie 統一世界) as the universally appreciated Kingdom of Great Harmony (Datong guo 大同國). It has given 200,000 Europeans work as laborers to explore Antarctica and has resettled the entire Japanese population in China after Huang found out that the Japanese islands were in danger of exploding.

38. See Liu Delong, “Wan Qing zhishi fenzi xintai,” p. 98. 39. Xu Zhiyan was a prolific writer; among his politically oriented works is Aiji canzhuang tanci (Tanci ballad about Egypt’s sad fate [of losing its independence]).

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This is an absolutist technocratic state based on “science,” and the author wastes no time on describing political or social reforms. Huang’s priorities are to use science for the exploration of new resources, the acquisition of wealth, and the maintenance of social order. An elaborate electrical surveillance system has been installed to make sure that the social relationships run harmoniously. But what started out as an upbeat, pride-enhancing story of Chinese superiority achieved ends up in a form of dystopia. The King of Electricity is a very lonely man. At the end of the novel, he is confronted with the fact that his grand didactic enterprise has not fully succeeded in remaking humankind. His solution is to leave the planet in search of more promising venues. In spite of the original confidence of the hero in his ability to bring about a world of prosperous harmony through science, doubts creep in. Alhough they are not developed in any detail, these doubts do not concern the potential misuse of science but reflect the pessimism shared by many reformers at the time that their countrymen were so set in their backward ways that the chances of success in fully remaking them were slim. The literary form of “looking back from the future” avoids advocacy rhetoric by “retrospectively” narrating the political ideal as accomplished reality and describing that future as objective necessity and effective trajectory. It is a form of narrative that involves not simply individual characters but a wider historical process. It echoes the understanding of an objectively evolutionary process that is realized through conscious participation. It is designed to call on the unconcerned onlooker of the historical process and transform him or her into a conscious participant in the shaping of it. In this sense the literary form of the miraiki embodies the message it carries.

Foregrounding the Lone Hero: The Disappearing “Scholar and Beauty” Motif The process through which literary forms migrate is made concrete by their localization. Rejections, however, accentuate the social character of literary forms even more clearly. Chinese writers had to cope with the

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tension between emulating the global model of the genre and their desire to produce works relevant for and understandable in China. The study of their negotiation can pinpoint the agency involved in the dynamics of this cultural flow. Formal features are among the markers of a genre that accompany it as it is drawn into new environments. Operating first as a stimulus, these markers interact with the new environment, often leading to a new interpretation of the form itself. Through this reinvention of the form, which includes the rejection of certain elements, the genre itself is rejuvenated time and time again. Were such rejections based on formal literary grounds of incompatibility with local reading traditions, or do they confirm the social nature of literary form and suggest a rejection of the ideology implied in these literary forms? The “talented scholar and beauty” (caizi jiaren) motif is a case in point. This motif, with its implications of amorous relations and its potential for political symbolism, is one of the defining features of Meiji period political novels, and Chinese translations faithfully reproduced it.40 It had been an earlier Japanese import from China, where it had come to full bloom during the eighteenth century with the Dream of the Red Chamber. Chinese novels of this type were popular in Edo Japan,41 and they inspired a wave of Japanese novels that made use of the motif, among them many Meiji political novels.42 In Japan, however, the motif found an utterly different social context. Although Japan did adopt the Chinese examination system, it did not adopt its meritocratic structure. There was no way in Japan for a “talented scholar” to reach high office and marry the daughter of the emperor if he was not privileged by high birth from the outset. The motif was therefore largely read as exotic literary fantasy from China

40. This is the case for novels dealing with political reform but less so for those advocating racial revolution. I will return to the latter type later in this chapter. 41. See Zwicker, “Long Nineteenth Century,” pp. 582–88. The earliest edition of Yu xiao li 玉嬌梨, commonly recognized as the first “talented scholar and beauty” novel, was found in the National Diet Library in Japan. See Qiu Jiangning, Qing chu caizi jiaren xiaoshuo, p. 18. On the Japanese political novel and the “talented young man and beautiful lady” motif, see Kamei, Kansei no henkaku, pp. 53–54. 42. See Sakaki, “Kajin no kigū,” p. 86n6.

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without the strong cultural and social implications it had in its place of origin.43 In its traditional form the motif functions both as the plot engine that propels the story forward and as the main content—there is no other story but that of romantic love, and it is not a narrative structure that is used as a vessel for a different message. With translations of Western political novels as their models, Japanese writers were able to reconfigure the motif. Suehiro’s Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow, for example, follows the model of Disraeli’s Coningsby, which had been translated into Japanese in 1884,44 in using emotional attachment for the symbolic representation of the linkage between two different social forces, which, once united, would muster enough strength to bring about the needed political reform. Tōkai Sanshi’s (Shiba Shirō) Mysterious Encounters, in contrast, presents a collective image of world revolutionaries, where men and women are more comrades-in-arms than lovers. There might be love and emotional attachment between the hero(s) and heroine(s) in these stories, but the focus of the narrative is reserved for the revolutionary cause. In this manner, the novel recast the “talented scholar and beauty” motif for the political novel, while still employing the familiar plot elements of sadness and happiness, separation and reunion. This linkage of political romance and adventure is also characteristic of Sasaki Tashi’s 佐々木龍 [Nihon seikai] Shin haran [日本政海]新波瀾 (New stormy waves. The Japanese sea of politics; 1889) and was preserved in the 1903 Chinese translation, Zhenghai bolan 政海波瀾 (Storm in the sea of politics).45 As one of the first theorists of the modern novel in China, Liang Qichao recognized the fit of the recast motif for the Japanese context, as did other translators of Japanese political novels.46 In the foreword to his translation of Jiaren qiyu, Liang writes that the political novel uses common human feelings including love as a way to educate the reader:

43. See Zwicker, “Long Nineteenth Century,” pp. 588–90. 44. The translation of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake, which shares the “scholar and beauty” plot line, was also read as a political novel. See Keene, Dawn to the West, pp. 62–71. 45. Translation by Laizi. I have not been able to find information on this translator. 46. Mabel Lee, “Liang Ch’i-ch’ao,” pp. 203–24; Xia Xiaohong, Jueshi yu chuanshi, pp. 40–76.

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Someone good at educating will go by the feelings of people to lead them on. Thus, he might express something through satire or entrust something to a parable. In the Mengzi there is the comparison between loving material goods and loving sex; Qu Ping [= Qu Yuan] had the phrase about the fragrance of the beauty. The former was entrusting an indirect remonstrance to a jocular remark; the latter brought out [the idea] of loyal devotion through [the notion] of intoxicating fragrance—and [both] profoundly altered people’s attitude.47 善為教者，則因人之情而利導之。故或出之以滑稽，或托之于寓言。 48 孟子有好貨好色之喻， 屈平有美人芳草之辭。寓譎諫於詼諧，發忠 愛於馨艷。其移人之深。

The Chinese translators—in principle—accepted the usefulness of romantic love as a plot strategy in Japanese political novels, sometimes even emphasizing the motif by adding explicit references to a chapter heading.49 Even in the Chinese version of Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow, Xue zhong mei, where this happened, the translator showed that he was aware of the transformation of the motif at the hands of the Japanese author by changing the “talented scholar,” caizi, to “youth” (shaonian 少年) or “gentleman of high purpose” (zhishi 志士), leaving only the “beauty” unchanged. In such translations the phrase “The stronger the sentiments of love, the weaker the heroic valor” 兒女情長,英雄氣短 may appear.50 The incompatibility it suggests between sentimental and private attachments, on the one hand, and the public heroic valor needed for someone fighting for the nation’s interests, on the other, ties in with Liang Qichao’s denunciation of the traditional novel. The scholar and beauty motif was shunned by authors of Chinese political novels, however. Given its pervasive presence in other fictional works at the time and the Japanese adaptation of the motif for purposes of the political novel, this omission cries out for an explanation. What might have prompted Chinese authors ostentatiously to reject this recast motif, which translators had so carefully preserved? Is the form purely literary? 47. Ren Gong (Liang Qichao), “Yi yin zhengzhi xiaoshuo xu,” p. 13. 48. Mengzi 1B, discussion with King Huan of Qi. 49. An example is Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow, where the translator, Xiong Gai, added the expression to the titles of chapters 1, 11, and 13. 50. For example, in Donghai jue wo’s Nüzi aiguo xiaoshuo.

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Following Lukács’ early suggestion that “in literature what is truly social is form,” what might this deviation from the formal structure of the Japanese model say about the way Chinese reformers thought about the substance of their political project? In late Qing fiction and fiction discussion, this motif with its focus on sentimental attachment, often simply referred to as the ernü 兒女 (boys and girls), sat uneasily beside the “hero” (yingxiong 英雄) motif.51 As there is a rich scholarship on both motifs, I will simply outline their basic literary features as relevant for this discussion. At the core of the scholar and beauty motif is sublime love, qing 情. During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, this motif had entered the novel from the “high” genres of the classical tale, poetry, and drama. Used more as a narrative device than a new opening for writing about love, the device quickly turned formulaic with the fixed plot elements “sadness, happiness, separation, and reunion”—bei huan li he 悲歡離合— stultifying characterizations, and a happy ending. Heroism as a literary motif is a marker of the popular knight-errant stories that goes back to the biographies of such men in Sima Qian’s Shiji (Records of the historian) from the Former Han dynasty.52 As Chen Pingyuan has shown, the early uses of the knight-errant motif left room for both martial spirit, wu 武, and sublime love.53 Only with Water Margin did the knight-errant motif change to an exclusive focus on loyalty and righteousness, zhong yi 義忠, unperturbed by love. To be a hero now presupposed being unmoved by love or sex in strict contrast to the lovesick young inmates in the Great Prospect Garden in the Dream of the Red Chamber, who are utterly devoid of either martial ambitions or virtues.54 51. Lu Xun’s comments on the knight-errant and court case novels of the Qing can be found in his Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe, pp. 420–33. See also Chen Pingyuan, Qiangu wenren xiake meng, p. 28. 52. James J. Y. Liu, Chinese Knight-Errant, pp. 14–40. 53. Chen Pingyuan, Qiangu wenren xiake meng, pp. 89–90. 54. See Luo Liqun, Zhongguo wuxia xiaoshuo, pp. 113–21; for a general discussion of the disappearance of qing in the knight-errant novels of the Ming, see Chen Pingyuan, Qiangu wenren xiake meng, p. 90. Chen Pingyuan has argued, however, that Water Margin does not belong to the knight-errant tradition. He treats it under the category of dynastic heroes (yingxing zhengshi) involved in preserving the state and its dominant ideology. I will come back to this point.

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A number of important works of fiction kept the issue of the relationship between martial virtues and qing alive after the late Ming,55 but late in the nineteenth century a very pointed rebellion came with Wen Kang’s 文康 (1798?–1872) Ernü yingxiong zhuan 兒女英雄傳 (A tale of heroes and lovers; 1872). The title already implies a link between the two motifs; the novel’s preface then boldly claims that “only those endowed with the disposition of an ultimate hero are capable of the tender feelings of a lover, and only after people have experienced the genuine sentiments of a lover can they achieve great successes as a hero.”56 As David Wang argues insightfully, love and heroism in this scenario “are names of moral options that should be subsumed in a higher mandate.” Wen Kang does not present them as two parallel virtues but as belonging in the same “universe.”57 This is the birth of the “emotionally attached hero,” qing xia 情俠, motif.58 The Chinese political novel rejected this link and with it the option of describing love relationships that would allow for an allegorical interpretation. In his first treatise on the political novel, Liang Qichao reflected scornfully on the public success of scholar and beauty novels, and for that matter, also of Water Margin. Both, he wrote, had become models for endless imitations that in effect “entice [male readers] to banditry and [female readers] to lust” 誨盜誨淫, by describing either swashbuckling outlaws or [illicit] romantic love. The novel form, he said, had proved to be as powerful and successful as it was problematic.59 Although he admitted 55. Kong Shangren’s (1648–1718) early Qing chuanqi drama Taohua shan chuanqi (The peach-blossom fan) addressed this quandary between personal feelings and the call for a higher cause, which remained unresolved well into the post–Cultural Revolution years of the People’s Republic. The historical background of The PeachBlossom Fan is the demise of the Ming dynasty. The key protagonists are a famous public intellectual from the Restoration Society and an equally famous courtesan. According to the plot routine of the “scholar and beauty” trope, the story should have ended with the happy reunion of the two. Instead, they realize the inappropriateness of their private feelings in the face of the ultimate public crisis and choose to be parted forever. For a study on The Peach-Blossom Fan, see Wai-yee Li, “Representation of History.” For examples of the merger between the “scholar and beauty” and the knight-errant motifs in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, see Martin W. Huang, “From Caizi to Yingxiong.” 56. Wen Kang, “Yuanqi shouhui,” p. 359a, lines 13–16. 57. David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, p. 160. 58. Chen Pingyuan, Qiangu wenren xiake meng, pp. 92–93. 59. Liang Qichao, “Yi yin zhengzhi xiaoshuo xu.”

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that knight-errant novels could at least instill some martial spirit in the male reader, the scholar and beauty novels came in for a harsh critique. They were encouraging young people “to be frivolous and without scruples, to wallow in lewd desires, obsessed with bedchamber matters, tangled up in joy and tears of love throughout the years, and thus to waste the lively energy of their youth” 輕薄無行，沉溺淫色，眷戀牀第，纏 綿歌泣於春花秋月，消磨其少壯活潑之氣. The harm they were doing to society was immense: “Young men between their fifth and their thirtieth year have nothing else in mind but their manifold attachments, sentiments, regrets, and sufferings; they are full of girlish feelings and lack in martial spirit to the point of pursuing a course of action that is detrimental to good customs and toxic for society” 青年子弟，自是 五嵗至三十嵗，惟以多情，多感，多愁，多病為一大事業，兒女情 多風雲氣少。甚者為傷風敗俗之行，毒徧社會.60 In short, such novels were responsible for China’s backwardness! Liang ends his essay with a call for a new kind of novel that would have similar emotional impact but would truly meet the needs of the nation. “Therefore, any desire to reform the management of society has to start with revolutionizing the realm of the novel, and any desire to renovate the people has to start with renovating the novel” 故今日欲改良 群治，必自小説界革命始；欲新民，必自新小說始. The political novel will lure young readers with literary means, but instead of weakening their manly spirit and patriotic commitment, it will help to strengthen it and thus “renovate the people.” It was not simply adding a variant to the literary field; it would contest the ground of the novel altogether and would counter and—Liang hoped—eliminate the sentimental novel from the bookshelves and bedsides of Chinese youths. In the perception of Chinese reformers, China’s crisis was of an altogether different order of magnitude than that of Japan, especially after the proven success of the Meiji reforms. Although the scholar and beauty motif in its recast form was acceptable in Japanese political novels, the burden of this tradition and the requirements for heroes-to-be were considered to be so much higher in China that its use was largely precluded for Chinese authors. The rejection of the scholar and beauty motif left only one viable candidate for the role of key protagonist. Freed of 60. Liang Qichao, “Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi,” pp. 7–8.

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romantic diversions, this key protagonist is a loner, who now can be single-mindedly devoted to the pursuit of political reform. The result was the rise of single-hero novels in China. This rejection of the scholar and beauty motif, however, did not answer the question of what qualities were needed by to lead the Chinese people out of their crisis. The talents of the “talented scholar,” who had by now become the butt of satire for his book-learning and incompetence in dealing with the problems of the present, would not do. Prototypes were needed that would demonstrate how such a new hero—with his patriotic devotion to save the fatherland, his new knowledge, his understanding of China’s standing in the world, and his vision—looked, spoke, and acted. The aspired-to persona was often (and sometimes in ironical inversion) expressed through pen names. Liang Qichao pioneered this fashion by calling himself “The Youth of Young China” (Shaonian Zhongguo zhi shaonian) 少年中國之少年. Zeng Pu ironically inverted it by writing under the pen name “The Sick Man of East Asia” (Dongya bingfu 東亞 病夫). Models for the description of the lonely key protagonist were offered in Japanese novels such as Mysterious Encounters, Storm in the Sea of Politics, or The Threatened Pacific. Most of these protagonists made friends on their journey of discovery, and the development of an emotional attachment was part of the regular plot, but they were essentially loners. The Japanese novels treated the “scholar and beauty” element more as a plot routine independent of the huge investment young Chinese men at the time put into developing their “scholarly” talent for success in the examinations and in their careers. In the Chinese context the use of this motif would have undermined the claim of the political novel to break with the past, show the way to the new society, and present the types of heroes who would lead China on the way there. Although the title of Mysterious Encounters suggests a scholar and beauty romance, the “beauty” does not become a key protagonist, and the novel refuses to follow the trope to the happy final union. Both key protagonists of this novel end up devoting themselves individually and separately to the struggle for liberty and republican ideals. The Chinese single-hero political novel accordingly split up the scholar and beauty pair, with the talented scholar returning as the young reformer who is so completely devoted to the cause of the nation that he

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is “without love and sexual desire.”61 This transformation of the motif through a delinking of the fate of the two protagonists makes possible the development of an open plot structure that does not lock the protagonists into a narrow range of options. As opposed to the formal rigidity of other forms of Chinese writing at the time, such as parallel prose and rhymed poetry with their manifold rules and the authority bestowed on these through the state examination system, the novel as a “low” genre was more open not only formally, but also socially and ideologically. One can thus read the young man who is now the political reformer as one-half of the scholar and beauty pair. Examples are Huang Keqiang in Future Record and Cha Erlang 查二郎 in Shizi xue (The blood of the lion). Into the space freed by the beauty, the authors wrote an oversized new hero with an intellectual horizon, a commitment, and a moral fiber infinitely superior to that of the scholar. The lone hero thus became the dominant literary figure in these novels. Although we find Chinese antecedents of such lone hero stories in Sima Qian’s biographies of assassins/knights-errant as well as in Tang stories, their features in the political novel are quite different. Whereas the earlier literary figures “addressed injustice in society by aiding the weak and neutralizing the strong,”62 the new political hero is struggling to save the country by challenging its basic social and political order. For this purpose he or she must come in contact with society and work within it with like-minded persons. The model for this type of hero can be seen in Coningsby, in the hero in Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow, and even in the figure of Captain Nemo in Jules Verne’s novels.63 The figure of the lone hero, with its revolutionary romanticism and self-assuredness, was also less challenging than “scholar and beauty” plots for Chinese authors writing their first novel. The plot structure of the political novel is characterized by a narrow focus rather than complexity or “width,” with side-stories, metareflections, and detours from the main story line. It was set to go to produce a straight “evolutionist” plot line 61. For an analysis of the feature of being “without love and without desire” (wuqing wuxing 無情無性) in Ming dynasty knight-errant stories, see Chen Pingyuan, Qiangu wenren xiake meng, pp. 90–91. 62. Chen Pingyuan, Qiangu wenren xiake meng, p. 79. 63. For the interaction of political novel heroes with the characterization of traditional heroic figures, see chapter 6.

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and not more than a handful of characters.64 The evolutionist narrative mechanism is well suited for a single hero and his single-minded pursuit and devotion. The breakdown of the scholar and beauty motif freed not only the talented scholar but also the beauty. This figure did not disappear; she took up her own literary life and transformed into the figure of the lone heroine. Again there are precedents for this figure in Tang chuanqi stories and Song-Ming storytelling about chivalric women who abstain from romantic love so as to get revenge and maintain their independence.65 However, they are never fully disentangled from relationships with men, although it is these women who do the choosing.66 There are quite a few new political novels in which women heroines dominate the story, including Huang Xiuqiu 黄秀球; Nüwa shi 女娲石 (The stones of Goddess Nüwa)—with the horn-title: A Novel of Maidens Saving the Country: Zhongguo xin nühao 中國新女豪; and Nüyu hua 女獄花 (Flowers from the women’s hell). These novels make an urgent political call for the liberation of Chinese women and provide role models for their female readers, prompting them to dare to think outside of the normative framework of accepted female roles. Mostly detesting men while on their way to revolutionary adventure, the lone heroines accentuate the abnegation of qing, or love, as an essential condition for women’s liberation. They are not simply “without love and sexual desire” but must fight such emotions to become revolutionary heroes. This treatment greatly differed from the early Meiji depiction of emotionally involved women to allegorically represent the nation’s people or political ideals.67 In Stormy Seas, for example, the heroine stands for people’s rights, and in Plum Blossoms Amidst the Snow she represents the rising bourgeoisie and her union with the hero ensures the political future of the nation. The female political reformers or revolutionaries of the Chinese political novel are cast more along the lines of the Russian anarchist Sofia Perovskaya in Heroines of Eastern Europe. In literary terms 64. The terms “wide” and “narrow” to characterize prose are borrowed from Franco Moretti; see “Novel,” pp. 111–24. 65. David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, pp. 167–70. 66. Hsia, “Military Romance.” 67. Mertz, Novel Japan, p. 148.

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the lone female knight, more so than her male counterpart, helps redefine the notion of the “sensational” and “unheard of,” qi 奇, in the context of the political novel, which enhanced its attraction. The lone female protagonist is the new metaphor for the Chinese nation. It talks back to features associated with women that were symbolically associated with China’s standing at the time: women’s powerlessness and ignorance are characteristic of China’s relationship with the West; and their obeisance to male authority evokes Han Chinese subservience to the Manchu court. The resurrection of China is symbolically lodged in a female persona overcoming these obstacles, with Huang Xiuqiu as the most outstanding representative. The salvation of China is linked to the actions taken by the lone female protagonist. The sharp contrast between these women and the actual behavior of both Chinese women and the Chinese nation highlights the long way China will have to go. This Chinese figure of the lone female heroine is unique in the global genre of the political novel. The character does not exist in EuropeanAmerican or Japanese works. As Nakamura has pointed out, the Meiji political novel in general took the line that the ideal woman will not meddle with national affairs.68 This Chinese innovation demonstrates the dynamics of what started off as a model case of asymmetrical cultural interaction, with the Chinese emulation of the Japanese political novel through reading, claims for the general applicability of the genre, translation, and creative writing. But the issue of women’s emancipation and education was increasingly seen as crucial by the Chinese reformers. Women’s education had been a discussion topic among literati since the eighteenth century, and it became a topic of public discussion and reformist action by the late nineteenth century.69 Now it was of importance for the standing of the Chinese nation because of the strong current in international opinion that measured a nation’s progress by its treatment of women. In the top-down modernization drive in Meiji Japan, women’s education had been taken care of from early on.70 By the late nineteenth 68. Nakamura Tadayuki, “Seiji shōsetsu,” p. 915. 69. For more detailed references to studies on late Qing women’s education, see chapter 4. 70. The argument was first articulated by Scottish enlightenment thinkers such as William Alexander and later reflected in late Qing discussions regarding female education; see Wagner, “Women in Shenbaoguan Publications,” p. 254.

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century, however, Japan conceived of itself as a nation characterized by the bushidō, the male way of the samurai. The rapid rise in its international standing had led to a shift in political novels, which started to depict a much more muscular role for Japan in East Asia. But in China many of the features traditionally associated with women’s proper and even ideal behavior, such as meek subservience to “male” authority, were seen replicated in China’s behavior toward the outside world, a behavior that now seemed utterly dysfunctional and counterproductive in the battle for survival among nations. The social and political content of the form shows up in the shift in the plot machine from personal karmic rebirth to national evolutionism; the abandonment of regulated genres and the transition to more open prose as the new “high” medium; the break-up of the core scholar and beauty motif with its concern for personal happiness; and the new futuristic figures of the lone hero and the lone heroine with their commitment to the common political good. With these shifts, the political novel marks a decisively new stage in the development of the Chinese novel. The abandonment of the binary structure inherent in the scholar and beauty motif as well as of complex multicharacter plots opened the way for a single-hero and single-theme focus that suited the new political purpose.

Taking Over the Story Frame: Old Form, New Mission I have thus far outlined the adopted and the rejected features in the process of the migration of literary forms and the emergence of the Chinese political novel. There is a third option besides adoption and rejection, however: a violent appropriation of the text by the translator that further highlights his or her crucial agency in the dynamics of cultural interaction. Although in many respects the Chinese political novel prided itself on being a global genre that rejected core elements of traditional prose fiction, one traditional element survived that is found neither in the European antecedents of the genre nor in the Japanese models, and that is the

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wedge chapter, or xiezi 楔子.71 The first Chinese political novel, Liang Qichao’s Future Record, shows this surprising feature. The wedge in that work is the first chapter, which defines, mostly in a symbolic or allegorical form that is independent of the rest of the narrative, the political problem the work will deal with as well as the solution and the way to reach it. Another traditional element inserted into translations are “closed” chapter headings that summarize the chapter’s content. Paratexts by Chinese translators, such as prefaces or commentaries that often give substantial contextual information, are part of the same process. But the most extreme case of formal appropriation is the translator’s insertion of a newly written wedge from his own hand. It is a form of literary violence that hijacks the text from its original context, redirects the narrative structure, and establishes translatorial control over the reading strategy. It in effect reframes and repackages the work to claim it for a different agenda. Ma Yangyu’s 馬仰禹 (pen name Old Charger from South China, Nan Zhina lao ji 南支那老驥) 1902–3 translation of Sekai ritsukoku no yukusue 世界列國の行く末 (The end of the nations of the world; 1887), by Takayasu Kamejirō 高安亀次郎 (pen name Tōyō kijin 東洋奇人), as Weilai zhanguo zhi 未來戰國志 (The future annals of the Warring States) serves as an example. In his statement of “editorial principles” (fanli 凡例), Ma Yangyu simply states that he himself has added the wedge. He does not mention that his new wedge in fact replaces Nakamura Masanao’s 中村正直 (1832– 91) rhymed dedication 題辭 in the original72 and that it turns that dedication’s characterization of the novel’s message on its head. This dedication from 1887 had emphasized the need for unity among Japan, China, and Korea, who were said to “depend on each other like wheel and carriage, teeth and lips,”73 if they were to resist Russian expansionist designs. At the time of the translation in 1902–3, the Russian threat was still seen as virulent, but Japan had defeated China, and militarism had become a dominant feature of its nation building. Given these changes, the 71. The wedge chapter is the subject of a detailed study in chapter 7. 72. Nakamura Masanao, “Daishi.” After studying in Britain, Nakamura translated Samuel Smiles’s Self-Help and John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. See Ogihara, Nakamura Keiyu. 73. Nakamura Masanao, “Daishi.”

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translator felt prompted to provide a new political framework and reading for the novel. The new wedge offers an elaborate allegorical scenario of the politics of the Far East. In it a young Rascal from South China (Nan Zhina Wulai 南支那 無賴) decides that he might as well see a little of the world, as he is useless anyhow. As his travel companion he has chosen an old horse “because of its wisdom, boldness, and ability to make out what might be the right path.” The “old horse” is a pun on the translator’s pen name, Old Charger from South China. The translator himself thus enters the novel as guide. After being robbed on his way north toward Russia and wandering around aimlessly until his horse refuses to go any farther, Rascal sees from afar an Old Man in the East (= China) who is dying on a coastline. Wild beasts (= the powers) are waiting for his death to divide and devour his body. Farther off in the distance Rascal sees three small family homesteads 椽筑 (= Japan). Their walls are made of dung and dirt, but their very young inhabitants “are dressed in brocade, yet inside they are stuffed with dry wasted cotton; their airs of pride and extravagance are all on the outside. In fact, they are like a little family that all of a sudden got rich and now likes to sit on others’ heads.” The depiction of the Japanese as living in institutional structures that are still made of “dung and dirt” but strutting about pompously is certainly at odds with the original purpose of the novel as well as Nakamura’s own preface. Turning West, Rascal sees three grand buildings (= England, France, and Germany). They are already old and are likely to collapse after another hundred years. The people there “are dressed in riches and seem very content with their situation. One can see that their wealth is based on commerce. However, they are old, and there is a deep sense of lethargy. On top of that, these people are becoming deaf and dumb, need help to move about, and are not able anymore to take care of themselves.”74 As the Old Man in the East is gasping for his last breath, a strange cry suddenly comes from the Northwest Mountains (= Manchuria). A double-headed eagle (= Russia) comes swooping down. Before reaching the old man, it looks toward the three small families. Seeing that nothing is happening there, it decides to finish off the old man first and then go for 74. Nan Zhina lao ji, in Takayasu, Weilai zhanguo zhi, p. 1.

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the three homesteads. Pleased, it notices that people in the West seem to be waiting for the kill so that they can use the old man’s house to store their provisions. The wedge then offers two possible scenarios. In one, the Japanese families join up with the three big Western families, with one group rescuing the old man, the next confronting the double-headed eagle, and the last going straight to the Northwest Mountains where this eagle has its nest to attack and destroy it together with all its young. The old man is saved, and the others can enjoy peace in their own houses. In the alternative scenario, the eagle swoops down and devours the old man. In two quick moves it then overwhelms the three families and the West and ends up reigning supreme in the world. But suddenly and with a loud crack, a rock opens. An old man emerges, the (otherwise utterly unknown) English novelist Mr. Bolan 勃蘭士, who assures Rascal that “you have seen into the future” and that “this will occur during the twentieth century” (p. 2). He then offers him a novel with the title The End of the Nations of the World (Shijie lieguo zhi jieguo 世界列國之結果), explaining that it is “by a Japanese author named ‘The Extraordinary Person of Japan’ 東洋奇人 [the pen name of the actual Japanese author] and thus was in Japanese.” “But as you have foreseen just now in the fate of the three small families, this novel exaggerates the benefits Japan will gain from China’s demise. You should return home and translate the novel to warn the world. Where the chapter divisions and headings are not smooth or helpful for reading, go ahead and delete or cut them down. Once published, this novel will greatly benefit China” (p. 3). Bolanshi then shows the horse the right way. Once back home, Rascal directly translates the novel with the changes as directed. The translator’s wedge picks up the novel’s major themes—the designs of Russia, the apathy of Europe, the helplessness of China, and the rising prowess of Japan. But whereas in the novel China and most of Europe have already been lost to Russia, and Japan fights for its survival, the wedge, guided by Mr. Bolan,75 challenges the author’s assessment as 75. The figure of the unknown English novelist is of particular interest. Although I cannot say whether Mr. Bolan (Brown?) refers to a historical author of political novels or is an invented name, Bolan has the wherewithal of a political novelist by knowing where things will go, and he is familiar with the global production of such novels,

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offering a romanticized and unrealistic solution for Japan and effectively imposes a new meaning onto the text. This wedge reflects the strong agency of the translator and recipient. It shows a literary genre taking on a new shape and function in a new environment, and this even in translations of foreign works. It even half-ironically provides a free pass to the translator to change chapter headings, trim the work, and add the wedge itself, and it installs him through his own pen name within the novel as the trusted horse that, once shown the right direction, understands and promptly gets his master home. While still emulating the model to the point of offering a translation rather than an original work, it employs substantial creativity and imagination to adjust the work to a different time, place, and political agenda. In the process it guides the reader toward a critical reading of the original’s agenda, a sophisticated twist in a genre that otherwise makes sure that the main protagonist gets things right. In effect, this wedge retraces the path of the political novel to China from England through Japan. Through the triple authority of age, being Western, and appearing in a miracle out of nowhere, Mr. Bolan helps Rascal understand what he has just seen and gains credence for his critical views about Japan. By superimposing a Western foreigner as the authority explaining the vision and introducing the Japanese book as important, the translator undercuts the authority of the Japanese author. In the end it is Rascal from South China—a transformed young China—who points the right way. His instrument for doing so is the added wedge.

Reading the Originals: Revolution versus Reform In the migration of literary forms, translation is only the most elaborate vessel. Translators, however, are a part of a much larger bi- or multilingual including political novels written in Japan. He introduces such a novel to Rascal— becoming in effect the guide for the lost “rascal youths of China” by informing the translator-horse about the way to take. In the process he acts as an intermediary in the cultural interaction between Japan and China.

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group of people with Chinese as their native tongue who are able to read Japanese literature in the original and might be authors of Chineselanguage writings. We see the impact of this channel of interaction in the more “revolutionary” political novels, which hark back to a group of Japanese political novels that advocated revolutionary change. These works were not translated into Chinese but were themselves—truncated and adapted—translations of works about the French Revolution and the deeds of Russian nihilists. Hiroko Willcock has suggested that among the radical Japanese novels read by Chinese students, reformers, and revolutionaries one might find Sakazaki Shiran’s 坂崎深澜 Jiyū no hannagasa 自由之花笠 (The flower crown of freedom) as well as Miyazaki Muryū’s 宮崎梦柳 Jiyu no kachidoki 自由之凯歌 (Triumphal song of freedom) and Kishūshū 鬼啾啾 (Wailing ghosts).76 These works all draw their stories of revolution from France and Russia. The Triumphal Song of Freedom, for example, is a translation/adoptation of Alexandre Dumas’s Ange Pitou about the French Revolution and the taking of the Bastille; Wailing Ghosts dramatizes the lives of the Russian nihilists who assassinated Czar Alexander the Second. The author of this novel received a three-month jail sentence.77 Given the tight network linking reformist authors, advocacy publication ventures,78 and politicians, it is probable that the Chinese “radical” authors had their own direct links to radical political parties such as the 76. Willcock, “Meiji Japan,” p. 4. The only novel with a radical hue that was translated into Chinese was Sasaki’s Nihon seikai: Shin haran (1889), which has been discussed above. 77. Mertz, Novel Japan, p. 125. 78. Liang Qichao made sure that his voice continued to be heard in China even after the 1898 debacle. An important outlet was the publishing house Guangzhi shuju 廣智 書局 (Diffusion of Knowledge Bookstore). Established in Shanghai in 1901 under the name of Feng Jingru 馮鏡如, a businessman with a Hong Kong British registration who was also the father of Feng Ziyou 馮自由, a close associate of Liang’s, it managed to secure the distribution in China of works deemed important by Liang Qichao and his associates. This was an effective way to bypass the efforts by the Qing court to block the import of such works from Japan via the official postal routes. The Diffusion of Knowledge Bookstore published translations of Japanese and Western educational and social science works. Most important, it was the main publisher for translations of Japanese political novels, for original works of this genre in Chinese, as well as for the novels of social criticism that flourished at the same time as the political novels. Its name is inspired by that of the British Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,

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Tongmeng hui 同盟会 as well as their publication organs and publishing houses.79 These links will be shown for Chen Tianhua. Quite a few late Qing political novels followed a “revolutionary” line by calling for the overthrow of Manchu rule. Best known among these are Shizi hou 獅子吼 (The roar of the lion; 1906), Ziyou jiehun 自由 結婚 (Freedom in marriage; 1903), Xi chi ji 洗恥記 (The record of washing away shame; 1904), and Guafen canhuo yuyan ji 瓜分慘禍預言記 (A prophecy about the sad fate of being carved up; 1904). These novels openly denounce the Qing court as weak and ineffectual in the face of foreign aggression and strongman politics. Furthermore, as the Manchus ruling the Qing dynasty are in fact a “foreign” race, and the Chinese had let themselves be dominated by them for three hundred years, the very existence of this dynasty was made into a symbol of Chinese humiliation and shame. These “radical” novels claimed that the Qing government had to be overthrown to save China from being partitioned by foreign powers or that at least regions should dissociate themselves from the central government and declare autonomy from both the Qing and the foreigners. The existence of such radical Chinese novels highlights the fact that the translators of Japanese political novels, most of whom were associated with the network set up by Liang Qichao, selected novels that supported institutional reforms rather than radical solutions.80 The authors of these “radical” Chinese novels all had strong Japan connections and were able to read Japanese literature.81 Chen Tianhua, the which had been responsible for publishing the famous Penny Cyclopaedia, the Penny Magazine, and a wealth of books containing practical knowledge. The Diffusion of Knowledge Bookstore had Liang as a shareholder. His “investment” consisted of the rights to publish his works. In 1903 the bookstore published Liang’s collected essays Chong ding fenlei yinbingshi wenji quanbian 重訂分類飲冰室文集全編 (Complete classified collection of the writers from the Ice Drinker’s Studio) and was the distributor in China of Liang’s journals Xin xiaoshuo and Xin min cong bao 新民叢報. For a specialized study that includes a list of the publications of this bookstore, see Wu Yuhao, “Guangzhi shuju yanjiu.” For the date of the opening, see p. 16. 79. John Mertz has argued that the Meiji political novel was more personalized than factional; Novel Japan, p. 249. I think that the same is largely true for the Chinese case. 80. Mertz, Novel Japan, pp. 247–49. 81. For an in-depth analysis of the relationship between the rise of modern Chinese literature and the personal experiences Chinese reformers had in Japan, see Li Yi, Riben tiyan.

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author of The Roar of the Lion, was born in Xinghua in Hunan and went to Japan as a student in 1903. Active in the Chinese protests “against Russian aggression,” he wrote “with his own blood” a protest against Russia’s annexing northern Chinese territory and organized an “Anti-Russian Volunteer Corps” (Kang E yiyong dui 抗俄義勇隊) as well as a Society for Citizen Education (Guomin jiaoyu hui 国民教育会). In 1904 he returned to Hunan to help organize a revolutionary uprising against Manchu rule but was forced to escape back to Japan after the plot was discovered. In Japan he joined Sun Yat-sen’s Tongmeng hui in 1905; became editor of the association’s newspaper Minbao; and published three novels, Jingshi zhong 警世鍾 (Wake-up call for the age), Meng huitou 猛回頭 (Sudden turnabout), and The Roar of the Lion, none of which was finished. When the Japanese government issued regulations to curtail radical activities by Chinese and Korean students, he threw himself into the Sea of Japan, leaving behind a five-thousand-word suicide note.82 About the other authors we have fewer details. Zhang Zhaotong (Freedom in Marriage) from Wuxi in Jiangsu province was one of the editors of the radical literary magazine Jiangsu 江蘇, which had come out in Tokyo since 1903. The author of The Record of Washing Away Shame stated in his preface that he was a native of Hunan, had traveled to Japan, and that his novel was published in Tokyo. The author of A Prophecy on the Sad Fate of Being Carved Up claimed that his novel was based on the Japanese translation of an originally Chinese work. The wedge chapter of Roar of the Lion looks at the future of a China that had first been conquered by a “tribe from the North”—the Manchus—was then swallowed up by the strong foreign powers, and had finally seen its people annihilated as a race.83 This turns out to be only one possible future for China, as a different future is also offered. In the alternate future China has become a republic as in Liang Qichao’s Future Record and it is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. This alternate future is not told by a historian, as in Liang’s novel, but by the narrator on the basis of a book with a (fully awake) lion on the cover that he had accidentally discovered. 82. See Zhu Qingbao and Niu Li, Zou Rong, Chen Tianhua. 83. Guo Ting (Chen Tianhua), Shizi hou, p. 30.

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This “I” narrator disappears once the actual novel begins with heroes fighting for China’s survival. They are three brothers and some close friends, and they come from the Village of Citizens’ Rights (minquan cun 民權村). Their teacher has the telling name Civilized Race (Wenming zhong 文明種), and the three brothers are Bring Glory to the Race (Sheng Zu 繩祖 = 盛族), Devoted to the Race (Xiao Zu 肖祖 = 孝族), and Care for the Race (Nian Zu 念祖). One of their friends is Resist the Enemy! (Di Birang 狄[敌]必攘). The teacher uses Rousseau’s Social Contract to enlighten his students about nationalism and civilization. After his departure the four friends decide to expand their studies by going abroad. By now their anti-Manchu feelings are already strong. They part with one goal in mind: to study and become part of the revolutionary cause. Three of them go to America, Germany, and Japan, respectively, to learn from the strengths of these countries. The United States is the model for democracy, Germany excels in military training, and Japan has mainly to offer that it is close by. Resist the Enemy! stays in China, sets up his own newspaper, and starts to write (political) novels to educate the people. He becomes the lone hero of the novel. Instead of following the young people abroad, the novel turns to commotions in China to overthrow the Qing government. As we only have this beginning, it is hard to tell how the three brothers reentered the novel to assist Resist the Enemy! The agenda encoded in the form of the political novel is reformist. The Chinese writers of revolutionary novels were hard put in retooling the form for this new revolutionary agenda, especially as they themselves were not clear whether to follow an anti-Manchu line that would preserve the monarchy or a republican agenda that would do away with the emperor altogether. Neither novels of national liberation like the Wilhelm Tell story nor Japanese political novels that advocated freedom from tyrannical rule against the Meiji government solved the dilemma. The tension shows up in the fact that Roar of the Lion failed to find a form for itself and ended up closely resembling Liang Qichao’s Future Record. Whereas most Chinese political novels deliberately dropped the scholar and beauty motif altogether, some of the radical novels tried to recast it along the lines of Coningsby and the Japanese models. Freedom in Marriage offers in its title a polemic against the trope in its traditional form.84 As in some Japanese novels of the genre, the hero and the heroine 84. Zhendan nüzi ziyouhua (Zhang Zhaohou), [Zhengzhi xiaoshuo] Ziyou jiehun.

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here sacrifice romantic love and marriage to be free for their total commitment to save China. A “love-friendship” develops between two teenage youngsters, the boy who adopts ironically the name Yellow Peril (Huang Huo 黄禍) for himself and the girl Guanguan 關關 (the first two characters in the first poem of the Book of Poetry, thought to refer to a lady of exemplary virtue), who put off their engagement and devote themselves to the revolutionary cause. Unfortunately, the novel is rather schematic. The relationship develops neither on a personal nor on a symbolical level (as it does in the case of Coningsby) and does not go beyond the recasting of the scholar and beauty relationship into a relationship between comrades-in-arms along the lines developed in Storm in the Sea of Politics. The Record of Washing Away Shame tries to take this motif into a different direction.85 After a brutal opening where the “old hero” Ming Yimin 明易民 (= surviving adherent of the Ming dynasty 明遺民) slaughters the local Manchu government officials and is about to be defeated by the army of Jianmu wang 賤牧王, “The Prince of the Despicable Herders” (= the Manchus), with the aid of foreign troops, he sends his son Choumu 仇牧(= Herder [= Manchu] Hater), the eventual hero of the novel, to study abroad. While waiting for his boat to take him to Shanghai, Choumu bids farewell to the two women he loves. Their names present alternative paths, the one being called Ge Minghua 葛明華 (= 革命華, Revolutionary China/Flower) and the other Chi Rouhua 遲柔花 (= 志柔華, WeakWilled China). He pledges himself to Revolutionary China, with whom he is on “brother and sister” terms—implying intimacy and romantic attachment. This is a symbolic link between “Manchu Hater” and Revolution. However, the potential of this recast pair of descendants of the scholar and beauty motif to provide the novel with a plot structure does not materialize, and the narrative throughout is dominated by the hero alone. Instead of going abroad to study, Manchu Hater joins the revolutionary army. Receiving news from him, the two women set out to join him. At this point, the narrative strategy of the novel abruptly changes from the realistic to the fantastic. The two women get lost on their travels and enter a land of Utopia, where Han Chinese have lived for over two hundred years beyond the reach of Manchu rule. The heroine here is a women warrior who went into exile from Dewa 德瓦 (= Taiwan) after the 85.

Lengqing nüshi, Xi chi ji.

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island had been subjugated by the Japanese (Yang guo 陽國, the Kingdom of the Sun). The novel remained unfinished and ends here. From the copper illustrations (made in Japan) it is clear that there will be a victory in a war of liberation (figure 3.3a) and finally the establishment of an independent China (figure 3.3b). It is a future with hope and victory. A Prophecy about the Sad Fate of Being Carved Up sets out to foretell future events.86 Again the scholar and beauty motif is suggested but directly subverted by being transformed into a revolutionary relationship. At the center of the story is the presence of the “world” in the form of young people from different national backgrounds coming together. The transmitter of the book that foretells the sad future fate of China is a young Japanese woman named Zhongjiang Duji 中江篤濟 (Faithfully Support China). One of the key protagonists, Huang Bo 黃勃 (The Yellow Race That Stands Up and Fights), meets her on a ship to Japan. When Duji by chance reads the book that predicts the future demise of China, she realizes that Japan would be the next to fall to foreign domination. She then translates the book into Japanese to warn her countrymen. This Japanese translation is the only surviving copy of the original work. Under the tutelage of this Japanese young lady and her sister Zhongjiang Dawang 中江大望 (Great Hope Resting upon China), Huang Bo learns from the book about the future of his own country, an example where the links of political novels to Japan reappear in fictionalized form. The close friendship developing between Huang and the sisters resembles that in Mysterious Encounters. It happens that the author of the original prophecy had announced that the future of China could be changed from doom to victory if someone turned his book of prophecy into a novel so that thousands of people would read it and become involved. As Huang Bo reads on, he sees himself in that future, and he realizes that the responsibility for changing China’s fate rests with his writing this novel. In this opening and only surviving chapter, the theme of the camaraderie between the oppressed peoples of the world and the pivotal role of the political novel in social transformation sets the tone for the rest of the novel. The genre of the political novel is advertised here as the crucial medium to translate an esoteric prophecy into a message that broad masses of readers can understand and use as a guide for action. 86. Xuanyuan zhengyi (Zheng Quan), Guafen canhuo yuyan ji.

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Figure 3.3a. “Picture of Victory” (“Zhansheng tu” 戰勝圖). (From Lengqing nüshi, Xi chi ji [1904].)

Figure 3.3b. “Independent State” (“Duli guo” 獨立國). (Lengqing nüshi, Xi chi ji [1904].)

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In the prophecy, which the author and the reader seek to counteract, China has been taken over by the “world.” She has been divided up by the Western powers and Japan, and the Manchu government is busy assisting this foreign encroachment by suppressing resistance. The male and female main protagonists with the programmatic names Hua Yongxing 華永興 (China Rising Forever) and Xia Zhen’ou 夏震歐 (China That Shakes Europe) are both political and military strategists set to save China by leading a war of independence. What at first seemed like a perfectly predictable revolutionized scholar and beauty plot structure, however, is now turned on its head. The two not only become wife and husband to signal the linkage of China’s rise with its militant resistance, but the heroine Xia Zhen’ou rather than her husband Hua Yongxing becomes the leader of the independence movement. One of the first steps they take to save this colonized China is to set up an autonomous region. From this base they organize resistance against the foreign invaders. The unusual detail with which the author describes the massacre of Chinese by foreign troops and the revolutionaries’ fight against them makes tangible the pain and suffering of a people after losing their sovereignty and offers a heroic fighting scenario as a roadmap out of this misery. Although the novel maintains a hostile attitude toward the Manchus throughout, its attitude toward the Western powers is ambivalent. They seem to encroach on China because of China’s internal weakness and inability to set up a government structure able to sustain sovereignty. The novel here mixes sentiments of hatred and respect, anger and admiration. The key to a solution lies in a fundamental change in Chinese behavior. Once this is achieved—doubtless through the impact of the novel—the attitude of the powers will change from disdain to respect. At the end of the novel, all Chinese living in the Lower Yangzi territory, which is controlled by the British, are indeed offered equal rights with the British themselves, the reason being that the British are much impressed by their valor and fighting spirit. In both the prophecy and its putative inversion through the effects of the novel, China is set in the contemporary world, whether as a disdained corpse managed by the effete Manchus and languidly carved up by the powers, or as a respected country with citizens willing to stand up for sovereignty and push for the political changes necessary to secure it.

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Wu Rucheng’s 吳汝澄 Chiren shuo meng 癡人説夢 (A foolish man’s dream talk; 1904) also shows the importance of the Japan experience of Chinese students. It has Chinese military heroes with a Japanese military education resist Russian aggression. In the novel Zhu Xianjue 朱先覺 (= The First to Understand), a descendant of the Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi 朱熹, tells his friend Min Ziqiang 閔自強 (= Self-Strengthening People), a descendant of a student of Confucius, the dream he had when he swooned after hearing the bad news about foreign designs to divide China. In the dream Confucius himself calls for a meeting of all his disciples and other famous persons in Chinese history to offer a solution to China’s present danger of being carved up by the major powers, with Russia as the most immediate threat. Speaking for Confucius, someone suggests that the main purpose of the meeting is to instill the Chinese with the “spirit of iron and blood” (tie xue zhuyi 鉄血主義). The German chancellor Bismarck had called for such a spirit that combined military prowess with the ability to endure hardship and not being afraid of death. In a formula taken from the Japanese mobilization for the Russo-Japanese war in 1905, the novel develops this doctrine into a call for “martial citizens” (junguo min 軍國民) and provides concrete models for readers’ emulation. In a dream the narrator receives a list of heroes who will help fight the Sino-Russian war and be the role models for the new citizens. They go into action as part of a Chinese alliance with Japan, England, and the United States to drive Russia out of China’s three northeastern provinces. Other themes of the time are taken up: abolition of extraterritoriality; an elected National Assembly; free speech; universal compulsory education; military draft; and promotion of agriculture, industry, and mining.87 At the end of this again unfinished novel, the heroes help win the first battle against the Russians. As the reference to the Confucian background of the narrator and his friend suggests, Chinese tradition will have a positive role to play in developing the new citizens. Although the formation of the band of warriors in the novel takes after Water Margin and The Three Kingdoms, these are very modern heroes with Japanese training who employ international joint action to defeat Russia. 87.

Wu Rucheng, Chiren shuomeng, 2:28.

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Conclusions The migration of literary forms is the migration of ideas and social thought. This chapter has explored the background and logic of these pivotal changes in the context of the dynamics of transcultural interactions and has traced the consequences for the structure and character line-up of the Chinese works. The process of acceptance, adaptation, and open rejection of models offered by the Chinese translations of Japanese works reflects the very dynamics and nature of this cultural exchange. In particular it highlights the agency of the latecomer in the selection of the pieces to be translated and in the creative adaptation and redefinition of the genre’s features to make them fit the new social and cultural needs without abandoning the core. The ability of the political novel as a genre to continuously be adapted and adjusted to local needs is the source of its vitality as it spread into different cultures, languages, and constellations and gave the genre its “international” standing. The adoption of the political novel by Chinese writers based on Japanese models brought about a paradigm shift in the plot and narrative structure of the Chinese novel. The acceptance and reformulation of the notion of the world as a political system of nations evolving along a linear trajectory toward civilization and modernity propelled by massive and collective human agency implies a renunciation of the traditional Chinese novel’s Buddhism-derived circular plot and narrative structure with its iron karmic determinism. The Chinese novels for the most part retained the reformist agenda implied in the formal structure of the genre. They emulated the form of the future retrospective, miraiki, which silently translated the rhetoric of reform advocacy into a scientist record of past developments that were driven by the confluence of human agency with the laws of evolutionism. However, Chinese authors also boldly went their own way in two distinct areas: they chose to abandon the well-established scholar and beauty motif that had been used in Japanese texts, where it was seen as part of the Western mother lode of the genre through its use in Coningsby and elsewhere; and they revived with the wedge a feature from the traditional Chinese novel—and this at a crucial place in the narrative—that had no Japanese counterpart, in some cases going so far as to add a wedge

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chapter to a translation from Japanese. They replaced the scholar and beauty motif with the figure of the lone reformer-hero, thwarting the traditional reader focus on the romantic features of the narrative and the option to disregard the political implications. Reinventing the wedge, they provided themselves and their readers with clear and definite guidelines concerning both the writing and the decoding of the political symbolisms of these novels. As these works were written and published in installments, this closure prevented the reader as well as the narrative itself from taking over the construction of meaning. With these shifts in form, the political novel became the genre that linked the Chinese novel with modern world literary trends. We are now able to make four specific assertions about the dynamics of the transcultural interaction through which the form of this genre was anchored in China: first, Japanese political novels were not translated into the existing Chinese genre of the novel but created a new Chinese literary genre together with its narrative and coding strategies. Second, the agency in this process was in the hands of Chinese translators with their own agenda and their anticipation of the interests of potential readers. Third, the translation itself involved often substantial interventions by the translator in the form of changes in plot and language or of attached commentary. Finally, once inserted into a Chinese environment, the new literary forms interacted in the minds of writers and readers with the Chinese political situation and narrative traditions (the “countertext”) in a manner that recast and “localized” the profile of the genre.

Chapter 4

“Reform of Governance” and the New Public Sphere

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iterary genres have their timelines. They do not perennially exist in a hallowed and timeless realm of categories. Their rise and fall are interwoven with historical circumstances, with fashions, and with works that are regarded by others as models to emulate. The timeline varies for different genres: some are made for the longue durée because of the historical circumstances and sensibilities to which they are linked; others are tied to specific historical events and even moments of crisis. The latter will receive maximum attention for their short lives and then fade from view once an event is over, yet they might have a longer lasting impact on literature as a whole. The political novel is a genre of this latter kind. This chapter will investigate the connection between the Chinese political environment of the years 1900 to 1911 and the themes and publication peaks of political novels. The political novel deals with a perceived crisis in a particular political place, a particular nation. Although this political place will be involved with other nations, the perspective remains tied to the time and the place of the political system in crisis. The political novel does not, for example, explore village life or the urban middle class family. It offers in fictional form an analysis of the crisis and a projection of the way out. Its migration and transformation into a global—if short-lived—genre hinge on the perception of a similarity of the local crisis with crises elsewhere, the options for its solution, and the type of players needed to bring this solution about.

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The writers of the political novel are not professional litterateurs. They are primarily political actors or activists who will use any medium and form of action to promote their cause. The newspaper and the journal are their natural media to expand their influence. Writing fiction is only one among their activities, and the often short time leash to which the genre is attached means that writing will be fast and might be abandoned in mid-stream if the occasion has passed. The timeline for the Chinese political novel is the decade of the “Reform of Governance” proclaimed by the Qing court in 1901 after the crushing of the Boxer Rebellion by a coalition of foreign forces and the humiliating occupation of the Chinese capital. Similar timelines can be found elsewhere. For the Disraeli trilogy, it was defined by the commotion in Great Britain spread by the 1830 upheavals in Europe, when it was felt that a fundamental revision of the system of political representation, social values, the role of the public and public opinion, and even Britain’s economic strategy was necessary to forestall the spread of “Jacobinism.” By the 1850s this timeline was over, reforms had been made, and Disraeli’s trilogy landed in the dustbin of novels rejected by critics for their unabashed political advocacy and mediocre writing. The timeline for the Japanese political novel was defined by the commotion around the fundamental reworking of the political system, characterized by struggles over a shift to a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary representation of diverse strands in the public. The Reform of Governance period saw two peaks in political novel publishing, namely, the years 1902–4 and 1907–10 (figure 4.1). These peaks coincide exactly with the two most important court edicts on political reform. The first was the 1901 edict calling for suggestions for a reform of governance, xinzheng 新政, and the second, the 1906 edict in which the court agreed to steps preparing for a constitutional reform. This coincidence is no accident: the political novels published during these two peaks were responding to and engaging with these two edicts and started a broader public discussion on issues raised by them. Ouyang Jian has shown that the 39 novels published in 1903 can all be regarded as “new novels” dealing in various way with the reform agenda.1 He also notes the impact of the two major court edicts on the rise in 1.

Ouyang Jian, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, pp. 5–8.

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Figure 4.1. Chinese fiction publication between 1900 and 1911. The numbers of novels published showed peaks between 1902 and 1904 and between 1907 and 1909. (From Ouyang Jian, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, p. 4.)

the number of the novels published.2 My own research indicates that the majority of the 104 novels published in 1909 deal with constitutional reform. Given the very high proportion of political novels in overall novel publication at the time, the peaks in novel publishing are indicative of peaks in political novel publication. The creation of important literary journals, which served as platforms for the publication of these novels and other writings, also coincided with these peaks. For the first peak these were Xin xiaoshuo 新小説 (New fiction, 1902–6), Xiuxiang xiaoshuo 繡像小説 (Illustrated fiction, 1903–6), and Xinxin xiaoshuo 新新小説 (The newest fiction, 1904–); for the second peak these were Yueyue xiaoshuo 月月小説 (All-story monthly, 1906–8) and Xiaoshuo lin 小説林 (Fiction grove, 1907–8).3 The same is true for journals and newspapers with strong political content such as the Dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌 (1904–) and the Shenzhou ribao 神洲日報 (1907–). 2. See introduction to ibid., pp. 1–9. 3. A Ying, Wan Qing wenyi baokan; Chen Bohai and Yuan Jin, Shanghai jindai wenxue shi, pp. 59–68.

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The concurrence between these peaks in literary journal publication and the edicts highlights the timeline that secured interest for and access to the political novel; it also shows that at other times there was a lack of both interest in and publication venues for the works. Although the genre was politically risqué for publishers as much as challenging for the Qing court, its development was not driven by writers and publications situated outside of the country. Even the flagship Xin xiaoshuo, which had started publishing in Yokohama in 1902, by 1905 had moved its headquarters to the Shanghai International Settlement,4 where the bulk of new political novels was written and published.5 Chinese writers had given up on the earlier practice of reaching the court through high-ranking patrons, as they assumed that these internal channels were clogged. Instead, they chose the very public form of a novel published in newly opened newspapers and journals outside the court’s control. This transition “from petitions to fiction” (Wang Xiaoming)6 signaled a new form of communication by members of the educated elite through the public sphere and a change in the hierarchy of social and political interaction, with the addressee being not just the court but also the public.7 Once the tense and new interaction between government actors and an increasingly self-assertive and articulate public had resulted in fundamental reforms, the basic agenda of the political novel, namely,

4. The more accurate translation of Xin xiaoshuo would be “Reform of Fiction” magazine rather than New Fiction, as xin, “new,” is consistently used as a verb in Liang Qichao’s writing. For simpler identification I have kept the more usual translation. 5. These reform-oriented publishers include the Guangzhi shuju 廣智書局 (1898– 1925), Wenming shuju 文明書局 (1902–32), Kaiming shudian 開明書店 (1902–), Youzheng shuju 有正書局 (1904–43), Xiaoshuo lin she 小說林社 (1904–11), Xin shijie xiaoshuo she 新世界小説社 (1906–), Gailiang xiaoshuo she 改良小説社 (1908–), and Xiaoshuo jinbushe 小説進步社 (1909–), to name but a few. See Zhang Zhongmin, “Wan Qing Shanghai shuju.” 6. Wang Xiaoming, “From Petitions to Fiction.” 7. Joan Judge contrasts the traditional modes of representation, the “imperial,” “official,” or “elite” modes, with the political press, which “not only spoke for the people but to the people.” She argues that the political novel became a force that “took politics out from the exclusive domain of the court and into the realm of the public.” “Public Opinion,” p. 66.

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to preserve the fundamentals of the political system but push for farreaching changes to prevent more radical and destructive forces from gaining the day, had been achieved. Although shortly thereafter the Qing dynasty collapsed and its last baby emperor abdicated, the founding of the Republic was anything but a “revolution”; in general it proceeded along the tracks laid out in the years between 1901 and 1909. At this point the crisis timeframe for essentially conservative solutions, during which the political novel had flourished, was past.

Reform of Governance The period between 1901 and 1910 is marked by the sweeping reforms led by the court under the slogan of Reform of Governance, or Xinzheng. The Chinese term is perhaps more accurately translated as “renovation of the polity” or even “modernization of the polity” in analogy to the old phrase “(moral) renovation of the people,” xin min 新民, that had been given a new lease of meaning by Liang Qichao as “renovation” or “modernization” of the citizens.8 Forces in society used the leeway offered by these government openings to make their own proposals to the court through the public domain, with the added value of generating public pressure, but also set up their own institutions with or without official approval. The link between the flourishing of the political novel and these political and social developments, which were hotly debated, has been missing from the scholarship on late Qing literature as well as that on the political history of this period. 8. Historical scholarship has long disregarded the Reform of Governance efforts as the ineffectual stirrings of a dying dynasty. This judgment has been gradually revised. For early studies see Reynolds, China, 1898–1912: Xinzheng Revolution; Wang Xiaoqiu and Shang Xiaoming, Wuxu weixin; Tan Ruqian, Jindai Zhong Ri wenhua guanxi; Reynolds, China, 1895–1912: State-Sponsored Reforms; and Duara, Rescuing History. This reevaluation has gained momentum; see Bourgon, “Abolishing ‘Cruel Punishments’ ”; Gabbiani, “ ‘Redemption’ ”; Holm, “Death of Tiaoxi”; Kuo, “Emperor and the People”; Strauss, “Creating ‘Virtuous and Talented’ Officials”; and Yu Li, “Training Scholars.” A 2009 overview of recent Chinese-language scholarship on the New Governance can be found in Li Xuefeng, “30 nian lai Qing mo Xinzheng yanjiu.” It does not mention fiction. Other studies in Chinese include Chen Yu, Qing mo Xinzheng.

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Once the trajectory of the political novel and the political developments of the Reform of Governance period are juxtaposed, however, the connection between the two becomes evident. This connection is not only one of theme, time, and place; the political novel was one of the battlegrounds where the two sides of the debates interacted. On the one side, the court was trying to use government instruments to prevent social articulation and action from going beyond the prescribed perimeter of official reform so as to avoid domestic pressure for further reforms in addition to international pressure; on the other, societal articulations made full use of the relative protection offered by the Shanghai International Settlement and some other areas to maintain independence of articulation and increase public pressure on the court. Novelists thus interacted with, in addition to domestic and foreign literary works, the high politics of the court as well as other platforms of public articulation such as newspaper editorials, examination essays, and newly established modern schools. The 1901 reform edict agrees with the argument that China’s crisis resulted from domestic problems rather than foreign pressures. It was therefore explicit in linking its reform policies to internal pressures for political reform that had started to build up since the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 and had peaked in the Boxer disaster and the ensuing foreign intervention in 1900. In their turn, many political novels made their links to court measures clear by quoting into their novels long excerpts from key edicts. The court edict of January 29, 1901, asserted that institutional renovation to adjust to changing needs and circumstances was as necessary as the unchanged adherence to basic values; that this combination of change and continuity had been the practice of successive Qing rulers; and that the court had never abandoned the reform impulse of 1898 to achieve wealth and power for China. “The empress enjoins upon us to take what is superior in foreign countries so that it may supplement what China is lacking and to examine the failings of the past so that they may be teachers for the future.” Rebels such as Kang Youwei were justly persecuted for “recklessly splitting the new from the old” and creating a chaos worse than the “red scarves” (Boxers). The new program would be “to devote ourselves fully to China’s revitalization, to sternly ban appellations such as ‘new’ and ‘old,’ and to blend together the best of what is Chinese and what

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is foreign.” After a scathing denunciation of the “selfishness” of the people and officials (rather than foreign powers) for being at the “root of China’s weakness,” the edict called on a narrow circle of leading officials to offer reform proposals on a specified range of topics: We therefore call upon the members of the Grand Council, the grand secretaries, the Six Boards and Nine Ministries, our ministers abroad, and the governors general and governors of provinces to reflect carefully on our present sad state of affairs and to scrutinize Chinese and Western governmental systems with regard to all dynastic regulations, national administration, official affairs, matters related to people’s livelihood (minsheng 民生), modern schools (xuexiao 學校), systems of examination (keju 科舉), military organization (junzheng 軍政), and financial administration (caizheng 財政). Duly weigh what should be kept and what abolished, which new methods should be adopted and which old ones retained. By every available means of knowledge and observation seek out how to renew our national strength 如何而國事始興, how to produce men of real talent 如何而人才 始出, how to expand state revenues 如何而度支始裕, and how to revitalize the military 如何而武備始修. For our reference, submit detailed proposals within two months. These will be reported to the empress dowager, in consultation with whom and on whose advice the court shall adopt methods best calculated to achieve our objectives and to secure their full execution.9

This edict refers to an earlier edict written in Taiyuan during the flight of the court. It had “asked for proposals” 求言, seemingly from a broader range of officials and gentry, and “numerous sealed [secret] memorials” 封章屢見 had been submitted.10 The responses, however, were dismissed 9. Qing Court, “Chi neiwai chengong,” p. 29a. The English translation largely follows Reynolds, China, 1898–1912: Xinzheng Revolution, pp. 201–4. The edict was written by Fan Zengxiang 樊增祥, who was a student of Zhang Zhidong and at the time was on the staff of Ronglu 榮祿 (1836–1903), a high-ranking cousin of the empress dowager; see Li Xizhu, Zhang Zhidong, p. 85. 10. The empress dowager had issued this edict while in Taiyuan in flight from Beijing to Xian to avoid the foreign troops. This edict “asked for proposals” 求言 and received “numerous sealed [secret] memorials” 封章屢見; see Qing Court, “Chi neiwai chengong,” p. 29a. This edict seems to address the broader segment of officials and gentry. Reynolds’s translation of 求言 as “sent out a request for expressions of public opinion” introduces a concept (public opinion) that certainly was not on the empress dowager’s mind (China, 1898–1912: Xinzheng Revolution, p. 203).

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as shallow and not well thought through. The new edict called on only the highest officials to submit proposals. The reform policies finally adopted by Empress Dowager Cixi’s court in August 1901 were based on three internal memorials jointly submitted earlier in the year by two high-ranking officials, Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837–1909) and Liu Kunyi 劉坤一 (1830–1902), both of whom had sided with the empress dowager in 1898 after having first tolerated the activities of reformers under their jurisdiction. They used the established channel of the secret memorial.11 The second important edict, “Announcing the Process of Preparation for the Establishment of the Constitution” (1906), enlarged the agenda in another attempt to recapture the initiative through a discussion that had largely developed outside and even in opposition to court circles. Although no dates for the eventual adoption of a constitution were set, the content of what was needed in preparing a constitution was outlined. It claimed that it followed suggestions by a court-appointed 11. The first memorial, “A Proposal in Accordance with the Imperial Request to Reform Governance by Giving Preference to Talent” 變通政治人才為先遵旨籌議折, argued that any social and political reform hinged on the quality of the government personnel. It proposed wide-ranging changes in civilian as well as military education and examinations. The second memorial, “Twelve-Point Draft to Adjust Chinese Methods [of Appointing Government Officers] in Accordance with the Imperial Request to Submit Reform Proposals” 遵旨籌議變法擬整頓中法十二條折, had five key points: reform the way court officials are appointed—talent and ability to get things done should be key qualifications; abolish the option of buying official posts and start paying sustaining salaries to government officials so as to prevent corruption; overhaul the judicial system following Western models; abolish superfluous official posts to prevent waste and save funds for reform projects; and improve relations between Manchus and Han Chinese. The third memorial, “Eleven Points of an Initial Draft on the Use of Western Methods in Accordance with the Imperial Request to Submit Reform Proposals” 遵旨籌議變法謹擬采用西法十一條, provides a detailed blueprint for military and economic reforms. The memorials are in Zhang Zhidong, “Jiang Chu huizou.” All the suggestions in these memorials were accepted and implemented over time. Both authors were also appointed as advisors to the newly created Political Affairs Bureau (Zhengwu chu 政務處), which was to oversee the reform process. Although they pushed hard and successfully for dramatic reforms in many core areas, there was an obvious lacuna in these memorials: constitutional reform. It had been included in one of the first drafts but was cut by Liu Kunyi, who considered it premature at the time because the court had not even made it back to the capital. See Wu Chunmei, Yici shikong, pp. 46–61; Li Xizhu, Zhang Zhidong, pp. 96–105.

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group of high officials led by Zaize 載澤 (1876–1929) that had been sent around the world to study constitutional systems: Recently, Zaize and others have returned and memorialized. They are convinced that the real reasons for the nation’s weakness lies in the fact that those above and those below are separated and that the court and the provinces are alienated from each other. The officials do not know how to protect the people, and the people do not know how to protect the country. The real reason other countries have become wealthy and powerful lies in the fact that they have a constitution and decide through public discussion. Their army and people form one indivisible unity. . . . However, at present [in China], neither are the regulations ready nor is the knowledge of the masses sufficient. If we hastily indulge in false pretenses and empty words, how can we then inspire confidence in our subjects? Therefore, we must begin with the government structure with a view to sweeping away the evil practices and defining the responsibilities. First of all, the civil service system should be discussed and decided upon in detail and revised step by step. Next we shall carefully codify the different kinds of laws and promote everywhere a police force. We shall make the gentry and the people understand state affairs in order to prepare the foundations for a constitutional government.12

The edict’s assessment that China’s weakness was caused by the lack of communication between high and low, center and provinces, but that the masses’ “lack of knowledge” and the absence of a detailed system of new political institutions and regulations forestalled quick solutions was actually largely shared by the leading reformers. The court, however, made efforts from early on to retain its monopoly of agency by trying to curtail the competition and public pressure from voices in the public sphere. The new Press Code in the 1901 Great Qing Code established hard censorship measures for all publishing with severe punishments reserved for the crimes of manufacturing “demonic books and statements” 妖書妖言 and selling “lewd lyrics and novels” 淫詞小說 with the purpose of influencing public opinion.13 Newspapers were randomly banned. The Subao case in particular shows the lengths to which the government was willing to go 12. Qing Court, “Xuanbu zhunbei lixian shiyi.” The translation largely follows Meienberger, Emergence of Constitutional Government, pp. 42–44. 13. Zhang Jinglu, Zhongguo jindai chuban, pp. 311–12.

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toward securing its monopoly in the articulation of political reform.14 The high energy with which these repressive measures were initially pursued, however, subsided quickly, hampered further by the peculiar status of the International Settlement, where most publishers were concentrated. In the standard narrative of scholarship that sees the Qing as being on its way out after 1898, this would be attributed to a lack of political will and strength. However, the continuing effectiveness and acceptance of the court during the Xinzheng years suggest, rather, that the threat to Cixi’s rule was seen as receding, that most public voices were engaging in the court-sponsored reform process rather than going for radical alternatives, and that therefore the enforcement of censorship measures subsided. A sizable number of reforms were effectively enacted between 1902 and 1909. They included the following: Abolition of useless government offices (1901–2). Reorganization of the government with new ministries for Foreign Affairs (1901–5), Commerce (1903, expanded into the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce in 1906), Police (1905), Education (1905), and the Army (1906).15 Military reforms with the establishment of provincial military academies (1901) and a Bureau of Military Training (1903). Educational reforms, including state examinations in political economy for Hanlin members above the compiler level (1901); recruitment of Chinese students abroad for service at home (1901); replacement of the “eight-legged essay” in the provincial and metropolitan examinations with current affairs topics, to begin in 1902 (1901); an order to transform provincial academies into colleges, prefectural schools into middle schools, and district schools into elementary schools, with a curriculum that included the study of foreign political systems (1901); an order to provincial authorities to select students for stipends (1906); the abolition of government examinations (1905); and the promulgation of rules and regulations for female primary education 學部奏定女子小學堂 章程 (1907). Social reforms such as permission for marriages between Manchus and Chinese (1902), prohibition of foot-binding (1905), and prohibition of opium (1906).16 14. See Lust, “Su Bao Case.” 15. Zhang Deze, Qing dai guojia jiguan, pp. 287–90. 16. The impact of these reforms should not be easily dismissed. The ban on opium delegitimized opium consumption among officials and gentry and led to a sizable reduction in upscale opium dens and users. See Paulès, Histoire d’une drogue.

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And, finally, the start of a process to set up a constitution (1906); a timetable, however, was fixed only after the death of the empress dowager in 1908.17

The Xinzheng reforms have sometimes been presented as a passive reaction to foreign pressure with little muscle left to act enact them. This greatly underestimates the agency of public voices, high court officials, as well as foreigners from Japan and the West who were committed to the betterment of China.18 Although the court retained the capacity to set the agenda, these measures and their implementation were part of a political process in which forces within and outside the administration interacted and competed. The rapid pace of the changes and the many obstacles they encountered gave a particular urgency to public interventions such as the political novel and prefigured many choices with regard to subject matter and literary technique. The restriction of legitimate participation to high officials notwithstanding, the 1901 edict was widely read and treated as opening the “way of speech” (yanlu 言路), entitling a much wider range of officials and gentry to come up with ideas and publish them within as well as outside official channels.19 Serialized in journals and newspapers, political novels were part of a consciously public articulation. The subjects taken up in them address in both a general and a very specific manner the same issues outlined in the edicts. The memorials mentioned in the Reform of Governance edict as having been submitted to the court were part of a public chorus that also included editorials in newspapers, essays, treatises, and reinterpretations of the classics. Some people went a step further by putting their ideas into practice, for example, setting up new schools—including schools for 17. The reform edicts together with all the relevant memorials are found in collections such as Shen Tongsheng, Guangxu zhengyao, and Zhu Shoupeng, Guangxu chao. The list follows Hsu, Rise of Modern China, pp. 488–501. 18. For the achievements of the Reform of Governance, see Strauss, “Creating ‘Virtuous and Talented’ Officials.” 19. An example is Sun Yirang 孫詒讓 (1848–1908), who held no official position. In 1902 friends pressured him to write up his insights about the similarity of the concepts underlying the institutions of the Zhouli and those of the modern West. Within ten days, he had finished his Zhouli zhengyao 周禮政要 (Political essentials of the Zhouli; 1902); see Wagner, “Classic Paving the Way to Modernity,” pp. 86–87.

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girls—with modern curricula.20 An influential collection of Xinzheng statecraft essays edited by the Qiushizhai 求是齋 publishers in 1902 offered proposals on achieving “wealth and power” (fu qiang 富強); on education, schools, and academies (xueshu 學術, xuexiao 學校, shuyuan 書院), including women’s education; on the issue of foot-binding; on establishing a parliamentary system (yiyuan 議院); on management and government officials (lizhi 吏治); on reform of the army and navy; and on state policies regarding manufacturing, agriculture, and finance.21 Political novels shared the issues and the orientation toward the state leadership of these other articulations, but also their frustration about lack of progress and their anger about corruption. Although these manifold articulations and activities of society were important in their creation of a public space more independent of the court, they all treated the court as the key player in the Chinese public sphere, and political novels likewise had the court among their key implied readers. Rather than engaging in politically inspired literary rebellion, they participated in a reform process in which the court was also strongly involved, and in some instances they took the lead in pushing the agenda. The engagement of authors of political novels with the court’s effort toward political reform came in a variety of forms. These ranged from offering specific suggestions and a road map forward to sharp critiques of the way in which policies were implemented. The writers of political novels were mostly not high officials or famous intellectuals. Rather, they belonged to a newly forming class of urban intellectuals. Although imbued with a tradition in which men of letters had the duty and the privilege of serving the state, both writers and the public increasingly took their cues from transnational and increasingly global intellectual and political currents (as well as lifestyles) with new catchwords such as evolution, Darwinism, democracy, and race. They were part of an increasingly self-assertive social environment, especially 20. There is much scholarship on these topics of social reform; see, for example, Xia Xiaohong, Wan Qing nüxing; Fong, Qian, and Zurndorfer, Beyond Tradition and Modernity; and Fong, Qian, and Smith, Different Worlds. 21. The criteria for the selection of the essays appearing in the volume included their popularity and their importance at the time; see Qiushizhai, “Xu.”

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in the country’s wealthy Jiangnan region around Shanghai, that put growing reform pressure on the Qing court.22 The potential of the fictional medium in this process should not be underestimated. It allowed writers to give life to the human agency involved on all sides of the process and to present in a concrete—and at best convincing—manner the potential outcomes of the proposed reforms or the failure to enact them. These novels tend to see different aspects of the reforms as interconnected and therefore do not make a neat separation between the two stages of the Reform of Governance or between the different items of the reform. They were most interested in themes such as setting up schools or changing the status of women, where society could play an active role, whereas elements such as military, police, legal, or administrative reform were more under the control of the court and less suitable for representation through fiction. I will therefore focus my detailed analysis of a selection of these novels on the three issues that were discussed most intensely: the agency of state and society in the reforms, the relationship between the quality of the citizenry and the establishment of a constitution, and the importance of women’s emancipation for the reform project. Opinions expressed in fictional or other forms about these three issues showed the greatest range of difference. My criterion of selection of a work for detailed analysis will be its capacity to highlight this range.

The Agency in the Reforms How is the political novel situated within the Reform of Governance? It is an expression of the quandary of not being able to trust either the court’s commitment to reform or that of the people. The empress dowager’s edicts claimed the full top-down agency for mapping and driving the reforms. For the reformers the credibility of the willingness and ability to deliver on it had been all but lost with the empress dowager’s 1898 coup against the Guangxu emperor, who they 22. See Rankin, Elite Activism. For a fine study of the first steps in the formation of this new urban segment, see Vittinghoff, Die Anfänge des Journalismus.

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had hoped would follow the example of the Meiji emperor or Peter the Great to take the lead in modernizing China. This hope for a top-down reform not only emphasized the importance of the state in such a gigantic turnaround, but also demonstrated a deep distrust in the capacity and willingness of both the common people and the educated elites to institute and sustain such a reform. Their initial hope that “the citizens” or “the people” could step in gave way to frustration about their lack of “civilization” and “patriotism” as well as the rampant antiforeignism, antimodernism, and superstition of the Boxers. Where then was the agency to be found that would mobilize the scattered forces in state and society for the reforms needed for China’s survival and that would make sure they stayed on track? Local gentry and officials had begun to act and connect independently of the court since the last decade of the nineteenth century in a sign of the development of a “society,” a thing for which there was not even a common name yet. As a further sign that new forces were developing, the Shanghai International Settlement became the hub of a rapidly growing and increasingly politicized periodical press with a widening distribution throughout the country and little control from the court; and, with the growing number of Chinese students who were exposed to states that had undergone successful modernization such as Japan and urban intellectuals who lived in “Western” environments such as Shanghai, the number of people with the necessary qualifications to push for and handle modernization increased exponentially. Finally, the court itself shifted gear as foreign troops occupied Peking, announcing a “Reform of Governance” that took up the 1898 reforms although many high-ranking officials were still reluctant to support this move. The political novels set out to show a way out of the crisis. They made full use of the opening provided by the court edicts without being bound by the court’s claim to exclusive agency; they appealed to an enlightened public that would come to its own conclusions independent of the court and the “people” without forgetting that this “public” had to be created and educated in the first place. They invested protagonists with the agency to implement the necessary measures but located them in the future tense of hope. Their true discovery, however, was the public sphere as the space between state and society that would allow them to reach those who might be mobilized for reform, grandly enhance their own voice, and

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thus help in creating the social forces whose agency would drive and guide the reforms.

The Social Activist: Huang Xiuqiu During the first years after the beginning of the Reform of Governance and the implementation of the new policies, public discussion was strongly focused on modernizing education. This focus countered the ubiquitous and well-established voices that were defending the traditional education and examination system and derided it as educating people who were incompetent to deal with the modern world. The new focus reflected the larger agenda of fostering through education what was seen as the bedrock of any national renaissance—a modern citizenry. The discussion was not only one about abstract principles, but often took the form of setting up schools with a “modern” curriculum independent of the court’s attitude. This happened either in the protected environment of the treaty ports or with the silent forbearance of local officials. It prefigured the drive for local autonomy that became increasingly dominant during this decade but that also reflects frustration with the slow pace of reform on the national level. Between the two reform impulses of 1901 and 1906, the most widely discussed issue was the question of the agency for implementing and financing the reforms. Quite apart from inefficiency, corruption, and reparation payments, it was clear that the court would be unable to finance these huge reform undertakings alone. At stake was thus the interaction between the court’s regulatory powers and responsibilities, on the one side, and the role of society in reforming institutions at the grass-roots level, on the other. Yi Suo’s 頤瑣 (= Tang Baorong 湯寳榮) (1863–1932) serialized novel Huang Xiuqiu 黃綉球 (1905–) takes up this issue.23 The work is named 23. Chapters 1 to 26 of Yi Suo’s novel were serialized in Xin xiaoshuo, vols. 15–24 (Jan.–Dec. 1906); the complete thirty chapters were then published in book form by the Guangzhi shuju in Shanghai in 1907. The question of Yi Suo’s identity has been settled only recently. Lin Wei’s suggestion in 1991 that this was Liang Qichao himself has not found support (Lin Wei, “Huang Xiuqiu de zuozhe,” p. 294). Ample evidence has been amassed that the author’s full name was Tang Baorong. After a classical

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after its key female protagonist, whose telling name translates as “the Yellow [Race] Embroiders the Globe.”24 The novel has been studied primarily as a treatise on women’s emancipation.25 Only Fan Zijiang addresses its relationship to particular New Governance topics such as the constitution and local self-governance.26 The novel engages with a wide range of Reform of Governance issues and with societal activities going on at the time. On the court side, these activities include the reform of the legal system, creating a local police force, and advancing local self-government, but its primary focus is on the ways to bring about the reform of education for boys and girls and the action needed to overcome obstacles along the way. There is a direct connection with the transformation of the Association to Promote Natural Feet for Girls (Tianzu hui 天足會).27 The novel’s linking of education for girls with abolishing the practice of foot-binding in girls’ schools might have set the stage for the official policy of this education, Tang moved to Shanghai in 1898 and eventually became an editor at the Commercial Press. He knew English well enough to translate a book by Charles Kingsley. An overview of the debate about the author’s identity, a description of what is known about his life and other writings, and a detailed exploration of the links of Huang Xiuqiu with debates at the time concerning women’s education, footbinding, and regional self-government can be found in Fan Zijiang, “Qing mo youxiu changpian Huang Xiuqiu.” 24. She originally was called Xiuqiu 秀秋, which means “beautiful autumn.” After she decided to join the political reforms, she changed her name to Xiuqiu, meaning “to embroider the globe.” As she puts it, “Through my efforts I am going to make our village like a beautifully embroidered ball; let its brilliant light beam throughout the world, so that all will know about us. Although we are only a fraction of the world, we will make a difference. In the future, people from everywhere in the world will be coming to us to learn the pattern of my embroidery. I will show them all that I know and help in the process of making the whole world a brilliant ball.” Yi Suo, Huang Xiuqiu, 184. 25. Examples are Mabel Lee, “Chinese Women”; and Ying Hu, Tales, pp. 154–62 and 167–71. 26. Fan Zijiang, “Qing mo youxiu changpian Huang Xiuqiu,” pp. 322–36. 27. This association was formed in 1895 by the indefatigable Mrs. Archibald Little (1845–1926) 立德夫人 and was still headed by her in 1906. Its program had received a boost from the court’s official ban on foot-binding in 1902. Mrs. Little was now returning to England, and Chinese leadership was installed in November 1906 and the association renamed the “Chinese Natural Feet Association” (Zhongguo tianzu hui 中國天足會). Guan He, “Tianzu hui,” p. 7.

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association to promote the opening of schools for girls a year after the publication of the novel.28 The wedge chapter of the novel identifies the crisis of the land through the allegory of a decaying house.29 The crisis was not brought about by outside forces but by internal rot. The master of the house, Huang Tongli 黃通理 (Mr. Yellow Who Understands Principles), notices that his village in the eastern part of Asia, ironically called “Village of Freedom” (ziyou cun 自由村),30—which also has the meaning “village self-absorbed”—is not doing as well as the neighboring villages. His illiterate wife, Huang Xiuqiu, alerts him to the decay. The collapse of the rotten part of the house threatens to bring down the entire house and even other closely connected houses in the village, in which “several clans” (= ethnic groups) are living but where Huang, or Yellow, clan members (= Han Chinese) are “most numerous.” This village is short on neither wealth nor talent. However, the educated gentry care only about succeeding in the imperial examinations and are otherwise ignorant about what is happening around them, even within their own households. Quoting the words of the reform edict, the decay of the village/nation is caused by “the lack of communication between high and low, and the alienation between the court and the provinces.”31 The village has closed itself off from other villages (= nations), and now these others are looking for ways to get the better of the village “Self-Absorbed.” When Mr. Huang discusses the problem of the house with the elders of the village, they see no crisis and suggest makeshift repairs while waiting for the fundamental analysis of the problem by a feng shui specialist. This is a satirical reference to the unscientific nonsense of traditional learning, which is called upon by educated elites when discussing state policy. 28. Fan Zijiang, “Qing mo youxiu changpian Huang Xiuqiu,” p. 326. 29. The title of the wedge chapter makes the allegory explicit and announces the key role Huang Xiuqiu will play: “Detailing the house as an allegory for the [fate] of the nation; describing how family relations bring forth an emotional response from the wife” 論房屋寓民族主義，敘天倫動巾幗感情. At this time, minzu zhuyi did not yet mean “nationalism.” 30. This name combines an ironic take on the new word for “freedom” with a verbatim reading of the characters used in translating this concept, which mean “basing oneself on oneself alone.” 31. Yi Suo, Huang Xiuqiu, pp. 169–70.

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The task at hand is a fundamental “national” renewal. Mr. Huang discusses ways to proceed with his two young sons. One of them proposes to repair this beautiful structure, the other to tear the house down and build a new one—obvious references to reform or revolution. Huang Xiuqiu, who has heard this discussion and also has heard that elsewhere “in the world” women have become engaged in public policy, herself takes on an active role and becomes the lead protagonist in the novel. Her husband supports and advises her but does not take practical steps himself. In this allegorical scenario, the purpose of the novel is to show the way to reestablish the communication between high and low in the process of reform. This seems most feasible at the local level, and the novel thus inscribes itself into what at the time was called “local reform.”32 Inspired by a dream about Madame Roland, the idealized heroine of the French Revolution, Huang Xiuqiu decides to dedicate herself to the reform cause.33 Like Madame Roland’s, her action justifies the participation of women in the nation’s political life and fleshes out a previously unimaginable social and political role.34 The relationship between husband and wife thus becomes part of the political allegory, with the husband standing for the shang 上 (above), or the court, and his wife for the xia (below), or the citizens in society. Huang Xiuqiu’s first step toward “renewing national strength” is to come out against foot-binding. The court had banned it for Han Chinese in 1902, but implementation was slow. The novel shows that actually abolishing the practice depends on local women activists such as Huang Xiuqiu and the social skills they bring to the cause. Avoiding confrontation, Huang invites her women friends to see what she herself has done and to discuss the issue. These women in their turn take the message back to their homes and discuss it with their husbands. 32. An example of this type of bottom-up effort to mobilize the citizens—articulated in a political essay rather than a novel—is Guan Yun, “Keguan zhi guo.” This local mobilization retains its focus on the state, as it is seen as important for the central government to help combat corruption among local officials. I am grateful to Professors Jin Guantao and Liu Qingfeng for allowing me to draw on their rich database of late Qing texts. 33. On the role of Madame Roland in China, see Xia Xiaohong, “Jieshou guocheng zhong de yanyi”; and Ying Hu, Tales, pp. 153–200. 34. Judge, “Mediated Imaginings,” p. 148.

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After this first didactic point—reformers must secure support from people close to them—the next step was to win over public opinion. Huang Xiuqiu herself ventures—without her husband’s consent—out into the public arena with her unbound feet. She takes her two young sons to signal that she is neither a servant nor a loose woman. Although the sight of a woman from a “good family” with unbound feet on the street creates quite a stir, she avoids provocation. Gentle methods such as discussion, persuasion, and demonstration are shown to be the most effective. There will be local resistance, the author warns, and a price will have to be paid. Resistance comes in the shape of one bad person—ironically named Huang Huo 黃禍, which here means “Disaster for the Yellow [Race]” rather than the “Yellow Danger” (for the white race) conjured by Kaiser Wilhelm. He has Huang Xiuqiu thrown into jail for infringement of public morals. There she draws courage from her earlier vision of a conversation with Madame Roland. She is released through the intervention of a law clerk won over to the reform cause through personal discussions with her and her husband. For success, local support, including support from local officials, is crucial. These officials might be lowly law clerks or even the local magistrate. Only with their support and protection can reform on the local level take root. But lurking in the background is the need for judicial reform as well. The need to create new schools and a police force was next on the agenda. These were the two high-profile Reform of Governance items most directly involving the gentry at the local level (Huang Xiuqiu, p. 296). The novel’s reference to court policy here is explicit. “During the last few days, [a local clerk] had heard that the magistrate was preparing to implement the Reform of Governance policies of creating a police force and setting up new schools” (p. 228). Press attention to educational reform was intense at the time, as were efforts at setting up local schools with new curricula. The discussion was extremely specific, including textbooks, curriculum reform,35 and local funding for these schools given that the central government was strapped 35. Liu Kunyi quotes Lü Haihuan, saying, “As China presently goes full steam ahead with reforms, it is in great need of funds. If the import customs are reduced, there is no way around an increase in taxation.” Liu Kunyi, “Nanyang dachen,” p. 8a. Zhang Zhidong writes, quoting from a telegram by another official: “However, the things that have to be undertaken in the reform are many, and the funds needed for them

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for funds.36 The novel enters into the thick of this local scene. The directive to the magistrate from the provincial governor to establish new schools is quoted in full. In the capital a university has already been established, and now each district (zhou) and county has been asked to establish middle and primary schools. This top-down mandate comes with an appeal for bottom-up support. The magistrate appeals to those with the necessary means and relevant knowledge to come forth to help in the endeavor (p. 229). The perspective in the novel, however, is that of the townspeople, not the magistrate. And these townspeople, deeply distrustful of local officials, read the directive with eyes wary of grand government schemes that seemingly point in the right direction but lack specifics. How will these new school buildings be financed? Will the old-style academies (shuyuan) continue as before, or will they be converted into new-style schools? Is the local magistrate up to an old trick? Will he accept proposals that stipulate raising funds from private donors and turn down those without financial provisions? Once the funds have been raised, he may merge the new schools with the old academies and pocket the funds himself. Although the author is careful to alert the reader to these problems, he does not stop at this critique. The townspeople themselves are in favor of new-style schools, and the court’s decree only gives a belated and hesitant stamp of approval to their efforts. The novel sets out to show effective ways of handling the troubles encountered. Huang Xiuqiu manages to solve the three core issues. She gains access to the public by recruiting two Buddhist nuns to change their normal and uncontroversial public singing and speaking to skits that include reform themes (chapters 13 and 14). She then solves the financial question by successfully petitioning the local magistrate to issue permits for the new schools and grant are gigantic”; see Zhang Zhidong, “Hu-Guang zongdu,” p. 6a. In another telegram Liu Kunyi writes, “The funds needed for China’s reforms are definitely going to increase” 中國變法需款必多; see Liu Kunyi, “Nanyang dachen,” p. 36b. See also Fang Tulong, “Lun quanguo xiaoxue jiaoyu puji”; “Quan minjian zi she xiaoxuetang shuo”; “Shu keben gaojun hou.” 36. The reparations China had to pay after the Boxer upheaval, the Reform of Governance programs, and regular mismanagement and corruption were overtaxing the country’s finances. “Zhongguo jiyi daxing kuangwu shuo,” p. 1; Cheng Yu, “Fensheng buyong dao.”

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permission to convert the local nunnery into a school for boys37; for a girls’ school she offers the section of her own house that was about to collapse in the wedge chapter and that had been repaired. The third and most complex issue was the curriculum for these new schools. A strategic controversy raged around the question of the language that was to be taught in school, the classical language or a modern vernacular. As early as 1898, some people had argued with examples from the West and Japan that using the vernacular was the “foundation of political reform.”38 The novel joins this discussion through the scene of Huang Xiuqiu teaching the two nuns to sing a tanci ballad—a vernacular literary form that was especially popular among women—in public places to gain support for a new girls’ school. The ballad describes how to become the mother of strong and healthy new citizens, interspersed with comments about the benefits of not binding girls’ feet; the importance of knowledge about hygiene in married life; and the necessity of physical exercise for pregnant women. Building on the success with this ballad, Huang enlarges the nuns’ vernacular repertoire to include other reform topics, such as establishing schools. The nuns are invited by women from affluent families to perform in their homes, which expands the range of women exposed to the reform ideas. Through such diverse and highly personal efforts at fostering favorable public opinion, the fundraising efforts are successful and the new school finds a solid footing. The novel goes through the travails of creating a curriculum for the new schools, which includes new types of knowledge from the West, and of selecting qualified teachers to teach such courses. The political program of this initiative was inscribed in the name of the teacher for the school. The teacher is a returnee with a U.S. education named Bi Qiang 畢強, an appropriate pun on bi qiang 必強 (go all out for strengthening), with the sobriquet Quruo 去弱, which means “get rid of weakness.”39 37. The use of temple grounds, monasteries, and old-style academies for new-style schools was a much-discussed topic in the press at the time. See, for example, “Chuangyi sheli nüxuetang qi,” pp. 4–6b; Ma Guigong, “Nüshi Zhang Zhujun”; “Xuetang nanban”; “E’sheng guanchang jishi.” 38. “Lun baihua wei weixin zhi ben.” 39. This character was most likely based on Kang Aide 康愛德 (1873–1931), a female returnee from study in the United States whom Liang Qichao eulogized in a biography. Liang Qichao, “Ji Jiangxi Kang nüshi.” For studies of these two women, see Ying Hu, Tales, pp. 123–26; and Sudō, “Concepts of Women’s Rights,” pp. 481–83.

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Far from seeing a state-society antagonism in the implementing of reform, the author stresses the importance of linking private and official efforts by highlighting the intense discussions between Huang Xiuqiu and her husband Huang Tongli. Although the husband is sympathetic and supportive, he himself does not become active in implementing the reforms. But it was he who had suggested that Huang Xiuqiu cooperate with the new “enlightened” magistrate. If Huang Xiuqiu represents the local people and Huang Tongli the court, the magistrate is the link or the wall between the two. Both the court and the people depend on the willingness of local officials to make sure that the court’s new policies, which indirectly sanction the independent development of new schools by private citizens, are carried through. At the same time, Huang Xiuqiu’s girls’ school takes issue with the court’s refusal to legitimize such schools in its edict. The novel drives home the point that an active individual and a sympathetic official are not enough; public support is of crucial importance. The test comes when the magistrate is temporarily replaced by a substitute who is opposed to the reforms and promptly disbands the girl’s school on the technicality that it lacks official registration. By now, however, public opinion supports the school. This brings onto the scene a sympathetic higher official, who promptly reinstates the school (chaps. 28, 29). The court’s lack of funds and the reluctance of many officials to implement the Reform of Governance policies opened the way for a “loyalist” argument that independent local activity was necessary to translate the court’s policies into reality so as to create a sense of common purpose. The novel here joins a growing discussion in the press about the need for largely independent local action.40 The explosive potential of this argument was demonstrated a few years later when entire regions declared their independence from the court, and the dynasty eventually collapsed. Huang Xiuqiu joins this debate by having the local community and not the court, society and not the state, at center stage and by showing that the 40. On the necessity of mobilizing local citizens to actively engage in political reform to help the central government combat local official corruption, see Liu Baohe, “Xuebu zhushi Liu Baohe,” p. 109. The effect of the lack of local commitment to implementing the Reform of Governance due to frequent official transfers and widespread corruption is discussed, for example, in Guan Yun, “Keguan zhi guo.”

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implementation of reforms hinges on local activists. Although the ironic name of “Self-Absorbed” village is geographically generic, the environment is clearly the Jiangnan region, with its growing “elite activism” so aptly described by Mary Rankin.41 The novel can be read as being a part of this elite activism, reaching out to broader segments in officialdom and the general public. With this focus, the novel also marks the relative independence of its own agenda while maintaining the crucial importance of central government policies to provide institutional support for local reforms. The novel ends on a high note. Huang Xiuqiu’s efforts bear fruit. With strong local support, general guidance from her husband, and more specific regulatory support from the enlightened magistrate, her school project succeeds. Like most political novels, Huang Xiuqiu depicts the reforms as welcome and necessary but focuses on independent steps by social activists as a condition of their eventual success. Although it is no accident that the main protagonist is a woman and that part of her activism is directed toward improving educational options for girls, her gender mostly figures as a marker of the relative weakness of society vis-à-vis the court and does not signal a feminist perspective. By going through a hypothetical implementation of various measures, the author guides the reader to an understanding of practical steps to get things going; of the support and the opposition to be expected at the local level from society and officials; of avenues that may ensure success; and of the need to go beyond the court’s hesitant steps where necessary, which in turn will keep up the pressure on the court. Rather than opting for more radical and quick measures, it emphasizes the need for education and calm discussions as the most effective means to ensure acceptance on the local level. At the same time, the novel offers central policy makers a bottom-up report about the difficulties of implementing even those reforms that have been approved by the court, with the implication that more decisive steps from the court are needed to ensure compliance by its own officials. Within the dynamics of this novel, the agency of reform is with local society, but the state has to provide an institutional framework to make the reforms sustainable.

41.

Rankin, Elite Activism.

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The Court: Zou [Yan]’s Talk for Everybody’s Amusement Other authors saw the key agency for the reforms with the court. The utopian novel Zou tan yixue 鄒談一噱 (Zou [Yan]’s talk for everybody’s amusement; 1906) is a case in point. Written by an author going by the name Wucheng zhe yuan shi 烏程蟄園氏 (Mr. Wucheng Hibernation Park; Wucheng is a Cockaign-like place where the wine flows), this novel primarily focuses on the establishment of the constitution. It uses the time-honored approach popular among reform-minded writers during the late Qing of projecting the ideal “modern” future governance onto the preimperial past. This was done through a rereading of the classics, especially the Zhouli 周禮 (Ritual of the Zhou) and the Mengzi with their emphasis on responsible governance.42 Whereas other new novels were grafted as sequels onto familiar earlier novels such as the Journey to the West, this novel is directly grafted onto a text on political governance, namely, the Mengzi. This text provided the two main protagonists, Duke Huan of Qi, as the representative of the court, and his advisor and counterpart Meng Ke, as the representative of the educated elite. Not only is the figure of Zou Yan 鄒衍 from the title taken from this text—he appears there as a fine rhetorician—but, as the Mengzi was known by heart to the educated elite at the time, the author of the novel was able to use unmarked quotations to provide his own text with a rich additional layer of meaning. In this way the Mengzi is recruited for a running critical commentary on the Reform of Governance that constantly reminds the reader of the philosophical and moral aims the reforms should aspire to. These aims in turn are anchored in the ideals associated with China’s golden age of the “Three Dynasties”—Xia, Shang, and Zhou—when sages ruled the realm and left behind teachings the author claims should provide the foundations for a constitutional monarchy. The preface affirms the timeliness of the Mengzi’s political doctrines with regard to modern schools (xueguan 學館), customs duties (guanshui 關稅), diplomatic relations (jiaolin 交鄰), a parliament (yiyuan 議院), and a contractual relationship between the ruler and the people (dingyue 訂約). Even modern and “Western” things such as tea, music and dance 42. See Wagner, “Classic Paving the Way.”

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parties, the usage of canons, or the merits of coastal fortifications are all discussed through the Mengzi. “The similarity” with the present “is unmistakable and will be clear to the reader.”43 However, political insights from China’s golden age are largely forgotten, although the nearby country of Teng (= Japan) has made them the basis of successful reforms. With the Mengzi as the model, peace and prosperity for China and legitimacy for its monarch will be ensured. The novel takes the reforms by Duke Huan (d. 643 bce) in the state of Qi upon the advice of Meng Ke—the reputed author of the Mengzi—as an allegorical platform to discuss the Reform of Governance. To meet the need for officials trained in “modern knowledge” to lead the reform process, a new university is built with foreigners teaching foreign languages to train translators; students are sent abroad to broaden their knowledge; and, when they return, they become advisors to the ruler in the development of agriculture, industry, and commerce.44 Qi soon attracts foreign talent and becomes a hub of modern learning. Other reforms in Qi that are detailed in the novel just as strongly echo the Reform of Governance, and even the officials in charge seem to be based on living models. These reforms concern the administrative structure of the central government,45 the institution of a state cult of Confucius46; a new postal system; a reorganization of the customs office with a foreigner hired to run it, who looks like Inspector General Hart, and a steep increase in trade and competition; the development of roads and shipping—an obvious reference 43. Wucheng zhe yuan, Zou tan yixue, preface. The same author seems to have used a similar technique for the novel Biao zhong guan 表忠觀 (Expressing loyalty; 12 hui), grafting it onto historical narratives such as the Shiguo chunqiu 十國春秋 and the Wu Yue beishi 吳越備史. The author has been tentatively identified as Fei Yourong 费有容 from Wuxing, a writer and editor associated with Liang Qichao who was still active during the Republican period. See Xie Fuchen, “Zhongguo tongsu xiaoshuo shumu buyi.” I am grateful to Wei Shuge for having secured a copy of this rare text for me. See Wagner, “Classic Paving the Way.” 44. The urgency of producing and seeking new talent was intensified by the 1905 disbanding of the traditional examination system. See Gabbiani, “Redemption.” 45. Strauss, “Creating ‘Virtuous and Talented’ Officials.” 46. In 1906, the year the novel was published, the court announced the elevation of Confucius to the status of national rather than ancient sage of learning and truth. This came with a set of new rituals through which the Qing transformed Confucius into a political symbol. See Kuo, “ ‘Emperor and the People.’ ”

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to railroads and steamships; and specialized schools for industrial and agricultural skills. These political and economic developments bring huge cultural and social change to the kingdom: they include the establishment of girls’ schools, kindergartens, and exhibition halls to encourage the advancement of handicrafts and technological innovations; the introduction of dance, music, and sports at all levels of education; and, finally, abolishing the examination system. In short, the novel goes through the entire Reform of Governance program and some of its elaborations in court memorials.47 Its critiques notwithstanding, the novel maintains an optimistic outlook. In the end, it argues, there were/would be enough dedicated and intelligent officials serving the duke/ruler to make the reform measures on the whole credible and to have the reforms succeed. Ten years into the reform, communication between the court and the people develops to the point that Duke Huan declares Qi ready for a parliamentary system, and it becomes a constitutional monarchy. This positive outcome contains a prediction about present-day developments if only the court would adhere to the strategies of Duke Huan as advised by Meng Ke. As opposed to Huang Xiuqiu, reform in Zou Yan’s Talk is a top-down affair with the ruler playing the key role. Duke Huan appears in almost every chapter, and, following the motto “with a virtuous ruler on the throne, capable men will be at their posts” 賢者在位，能者在職 (p. 34), success and failure depend on him. This radical difference in emphasis is not innocent. Although it might reflect the assessment, confirmed by the success story of Japan, to which the novel refers, that without strong state leadership such reforms cannot succeed, the novel’s sunny prediction of eventual success, read against the actual situation of China at the time, contains a bombshell. Far from being the busy leader of the reform who would live up to the hallowed image of Duke Huan of Qi and be advised by modern avatars of Meng Ke, the Guangxu emperor had been put under 47. For example, a memorial by Prince Su on July 17, 1902, proposed five measures of utmost importance: stipends for Chinese students studying overseas; enlargement of the navy, army, and local police force; encouragement for the development of technology, especially mechanized manufacturing and textile production; stiff controls on the right to build railroads with limitations to the rights of foreigners; and establishment of a riot-prevention task force by provincial governments. See “Zouchen Xinzheng.”

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house arrest by Empress Dowager Cixi in 1898. The novel has no allegorical female that represents Cixi. This dialogue of the novel with the Reform of Governance court puts it straight into the camp of the Association to Protect the Emperor (Bao huangdi hui), set up by Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei to gather opposition to Cixi and restore the Guangxu emperor to his throne. As a literary form, the play between the “historical” narrative about Duke Huan and the present of the reader makes for a stimulating reading experience, and the distance between often sarcastic critiques of policy implementation and the glorious outcome if only things were done right adds tension to deciphering the implications of the historical narrative.

Failure of Both Court and Society: A New Flowers in the Mirror The positive spin of Huang Xiuqiu and Zou Yan’s Talk did not reflect achievements already at hand, but hopes for the future. A hard look at actual achievements after several years of reform could produce a much more critical assessment of both court and society as agents of reform. A New Flowers in the Mirror is an example. To avoid being tied down by present-day realities and to convince their readers of the viability of their own proposals, many novels used a narrative technique that “proved” that the path proposed by the given novel would bring about glorious results. The basic technique was to depict the proposed reforms as a past event, the results of which were known. This was done either, following Bellamy and Liang Qichao, in the form of the “future record” or by using history, the concluded past, as an allegorical second layer to deal with the future of the present. The latter technique was used in the older Alexandre Dumas’s La Reine Margot and Sir Walter Scott novels such as Ivanhoe, both of which had been translated into Japanese, and in China in Zou Yan’s Talk. In both the “future record” and the case of the concluded past, the reader would be given an alienated perspective that would allow him or her to look at the present from a distance in order to understand its problems, their causes, and the sure prospects of fundamental reform. The concluded past is the technique used to deal with the present in [Yuyan xiaoshuo] Xin Jing hua yuan [寓言小說]新鏡花緣 (A new Flowers

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in the Mirror. Allegorical novel), although with a critical take. Written by an author sporting the pen name Mr. Desolately Depressed (Xiaoran yusheng 蕭然鬱生), and serialized in Yueyue xiaoshuo in 1907–8, it followed the fashion of using characters and plot elements familiar from earlier Chinese novels, in this case by claiming to be a “new” version of Li Ruzhen’s 李汝珍 (1762?–1830) early-nineteenth-century satirical novel Jing hua yuan 鏡花緣 (Flowers in the mirror). Titles formed by adding “new” (xin 新) before the title of a former work are an innovation of an earlier form of sequel marked as “follow-ups” (hou 後) or “supplements” (bu 補). Whereas the older sequels continued where the novel left off and might take it into a different direction, the “new” versions often subvert or exaggerate the plot and sentiment of the original work, while using it as a stylistic model of high quality and a source for a rich array of puns and double entrendres.48 A New Flowers in the Mirror takes up the sarcastic and satirical tone of its forerunner to offer a highly critical take on both the country’s reforms and the elites putting them into practice. The original story was set during the reign of Empress Wu Zetian in the Tang dynasty. A group of disenfranchised gentry members leave the country and on their journey pass through strange places such as the Kingdom of Women, where men have the position that women have in China. As the queen of this kingdom falls in love with one of the Chinese men, the reader is treated to all the details of this man having his feet bound, his body hair shaved off, and spending his time with makeup and small talk. The choice of this novel for a “new” installment immediately signals a critical attitude toward the Reform of Governance project. New Flowers abandons the philosophical foundation of karmic retribution on which the earlier novel had been built and replaces it with evolutionism in its social-Darwinist expansion into the realm of nations 48. The fashion for writing such sequels started during the early Qing, an example being Dong Yue’s 董說 (1620–86), Xiyou bu 西游補 (Supplement to Journey to the West), and became widespread during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Political novels with titles marked by xin include Wofoshanren (Wu Jianren), Xin Shitou ji, and Lu Shi’e’s three novels of this type, Xin Shuihu, Xin Sanguo, and Xin Zhongguo. On the complex relationship between such sequels and the refashioning of the text of traditional novels by editors and commentators, see the volume Snakes’ Legs edited by Martin Huang.

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and international politics. Keeping, however, to the narrative form of the travelogue, a form used often in the political novel, it presents a random sequence of scenes as they might occur during travel and connects them into a panoramic view of the whole. These travels are not for pleasure, profit, or enlightenment, but to understand the station of the places visited in the evolutionist order of things. A New Flowers in the Mirror discusses the present of the Reform of Governance through a time of national crisis during the reign of the Tang emperor Zhongzong (656–710). The Tang dynasty is especially suited to interact with the present because of the strong impact of “Western” (Buddhist and Central Asian) elements in language, religion, the arts, food, clothing, and entertainment. As the country is enfeebled by struggles at the court and the threat of foreign invasion from Central Asia—a reference to Russia—twenty-two noblemen, who are led by Tang Xiaofeng 唐曉峰, the son of the main protagonist of the earlier Flowers in the Mirror, push for political reform. Wu Sansi, the man who with the help of Empress Dowager Wu Zetian has reduced the emperor to a puppet and who is in de facto control of the country, discovers their agitation and persecutes them. This much-maligned empress dowager offers a rich historical screen on which to deal with Empress Dowager Cixi’s coup in 1898, the house arrest of the Guangxu emperor, and the persecution of the modern reformers. The reformers are stripped of their titles and lands and disperse in anger and disillusionment. Leaving China as Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei were forced to do in 1898, Tang Xiaofeng joins his uncle Lin Zhixiang to search for his father, who is now reputed to be a hermit on the mythical paradise island of Penglai. A storm blows their ship off course, and they end up on an island known as the Kingdom of Reform (Weixin guo 維新國). While weixin 維新 is a new calque first used for the Meiji reforms in Japan, the name also puns on the homophonous wei 維 (system) and wei 偽 (fake), which gives it a second meaning: “Kingdom of Fake Reform.” The remainder of the story is mainly about their experiences on this island. The “Kingdom of Fake Reform” is a satire of the Qing under the Reform of Governance agenda following the 1901 edict. The travelers are introduced by an “old man,” who still has a clear sense of what is happening to the country, to the education, commerce, laws, military, and, most important, the foreign relations of the Kingdom of Fake Reform. The name of the country is new, the shops all have new

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names, the people have given themselves new names, the clothes are of a new style, there is a new form for both the written and the spoken language, the style of greeting is new, the everyday utensils people use are new, even the types of food people are eating are new. Whatever is fashionable in other countries that have successfully gone through a process of reform, the Kingdom of Fake Reform immediately imitates it. People are using foreign terms in their native speech; their clothes are Western in style; everything in the country is brand new, but these are all foreign imports; nothing is made in the kingdom itself. The kingdom is so much under de facto foreign control that it is not even necessary to formally make it into a colony. The old man concludes: “This is not the true meaning of reform; reform is nothing but having a new spirit, a new boldness. Once this new spirit and new boldness have been obtained, one has a basis for renewing education and political structures, and for creating new customs. . . . [Yet] we are not renewing the very things that are fundamentally in need of renewal.”49 The indirect critique in the novel reverberates with opinions widely circulating in the Chinese periodical press at the time that, in the implementation of the Reform of Governance, the reforms were “all there in form but no substance is visible” 規模雖具，而實效未彰,50 and in fact “during recent years the monarchy made as little progress as before, the people’s horizon of knowledge was as closed as before, and finances were in the same mess as before” 數年以來，君治之不進也如故，民智之不 開也如故，財政之紊亂也如故.51 Judicial reforms were high on the list of the Reform of Governance, but in the novel they are lampooned because all that happens is that Tang and two of his reformer friends are persecuted as “revolutionaries.” The Qing court’s nervousness about “revolutionary” or “heterodox” political activities had resulted in judicial abuses and created an atmosphere of fear (pp. 409–15). In the same vein, educational reforms are shown to be no more than a pretext for local officials to raise more taxes, a charge 49. Xiaoran yusheng, [Yuyan xiaoshuo] Xin Jing hua yuan, p. 408. 50. See “Lun Zhongguo bi ge, zhengzhi shi neng weixin,” an article reprinted in the Dongfang zazhi from Zhong wai ribao. 51. “Lun lixian wei wanshi genben,” p. 170. This article was reprinted in the Dongfang zazhi from Nanfang bao.

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already heard in Huang Xiuqiu. Infuriated, some people have gone so far as to demolish one of the new schools (pp. 430–31). Military reforms have not led to a stronger national defense; the only battles the soldiers dare to fight are turf wars between local militias and new recruits for the national army. Once either group sees foreign soldiers coming, “the only thing they know to do is to put down their arms and run,” and “all the foreigners need to do is to march in, pick up the weapons, and sell them back to the Kingdom of Fake Reform” (pp. 452–54). Commerce does not fare better. At one point the travelers are forced to exaggerate their own importance in order to extricate themselves from police arrest and extortion. As a consequence, they are brought to the headquarters of the kingdom’s Chambers of Commerce. Here, they are confronted with an avalanche of offers and requests for business from men with the power to negotiate on behalf of the state but whose only goal is to enrich themselves at the expense of their country (pp. 432–36). Mr. Desolately Depressed, however, has not entirely given up hope. The energy with which he unveils the sham of the Kingdom of Fake Reform signals a commitment that requires a speck of hope. In one of the rare scenes explicitly reflecting the role of the political novel itself, including as a counterpoise to the “scholar and beauty” trope, the author has one of his travelers visit a bookstore looking for a book appropriately titled The Demise of the Kingdom of Fake Reform, which might be read as an alternative title for A New Flowers in the Mirror: There were a lot of books, but this novel seemed to be the most popular. I then looked into a few of the others and discovered that they were not at all about talented young men and beautiful maidens; about achieving wealth and fame; about immortals, ghosts, and monsters; or about pornography. In fact, they were rather interesting. From [these novels] one could deduce that there are clear-headed persons in this country, who realize that the country is on the brink of demise and that the people of this country [instead of being aware of this] are all asleep. As the[se clear-headed persons alone] do not have the power to save their country, they have devised a new way to reinvigorate and motivate [their countrymen]. In the hope of making a small contribution, they have chosen the form of the novel, which is enjoyed by both men-of-letters and the common people, and [has the power to] show what is praiseworthy and what should be shunned. Their spirit is indeed worthy of admiration! (p. 455)

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The few upright but powerless people who are aware of the crisis of their country and have enough conscience to feel some responsibility use the political novel as their modest contribution to awaken their countrymen. The link between the Kingdom of Fake Reform and China is made explicit by Tang Xiaofeng: “If this country continues to carry out its reforms in this manner, it will take barely a decade for it to be fully owned by some other country. He then thought about his own motherland. It was also plagued by internal strife and external threats, while its people were dreaming away without any sense of the impending danger and the pain of losing one’s country—somehow his own country was similar to this place; what was to become of it in the future?” (p. 442). A New Flowers in the Mirror contains biting satire and critiques of both court and society in the implementation of the Xinzheng policies without, however, rising to the literary and social challenge of the chapter “The Kingdom of Women” in the earlier Flowers in the Mirror. By giving the authorial voice to the old man and allowing him to pronounce his judgment, its tone is more one of disappointment and sadness than of full-blown satire or dystopia. The novel is more effective in lampooning reform jargon. The alienated perspective of travelers observing developments in another country and exposing them to the reader’s laughter is different from that in Huang Xiuqiu, which describes the travails of people involved in implementing the reforms and tries to give guidance to the reader who is making his or her own contribution to their success. Furthermore, New Flowers assigns the main responsibility for the reforms going awry to the empress dowager and her cronies, whereas Huang Xiuqiu targets opposition among middle-level officials and gentry. The author’s desolation comes from his disappointment with the reality of reforms for which he had great hopes. Xiaoran yusheng had also, in 1906, started serializing the novel [Lixiang xiaoshuo] Wutuobang youji [理想小説]烏托邦遊記 (A journey to Utopia. A utopian novel) in Yueyue xiaoshuo,52 but it did not get beyond four chapters. A comparison shows that he had indeed put much hope into the Reform of Governance. A Journey to Utopia describes the political 52. Xiaoran yusheng, [Lixiang xiaoshuo] Wutuobang youji. The journal Yueyue xiaoshuo opened with this piece. See also David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, pp. 270–71.

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situation in China as having three different historical periods, each represented by one volume of a book the author found, which, not surprisingly, has the title A Journey to Utopia. The first period is the “Period of Corruption,” the second the “Period of Transition,” and the last the “Period of Political Reform.” The last period takes place in Utopia, where the main protagonist had begun his journey: “when I was last in Utopia, they were just starting their Reform of Governance.” He journeys back there by spaceship. In Utopia all people are now equal, and the laws are perfect. As the novel stops here, it is hard to know how the plot would have developed, but it seems that the author originally envisioned, though not without irony, that China would in the utopian end be completely transformed as the Reform of Governance moved on to the next stages. At this point, however, the author wrote a political novel to help awaken his countrymen to the shocking truth that the reforms were going awry. Perhaps even the title of A New Flowers in the Mirror has to be reread in this light. The “flowers” in the mirror, jing hua 鏡花, refer in the original novel to a group of young women who have disappeared in the sequel. We are left with a pun, used earlier in Niehai hua 孽海花 (Flower in the sea of retribution), with the hua 花, flower, standing in for hua 華, China. This would give a plausible new reading of the title: A New Mirror for China.

The Inexorable March of History: A Short History of Civilization Most novels published between 1902 and 1906 reflected in some way on the notion of the state or nation, guojia 國家, and of these many dealt with the reforms. Although some of these novels were not, strictly speaking, political novels, addressing the reforms directly, they nonetheless helped keep readers’ attention focused on the reforms. Li Boyuan’s social critique Wenming xiaoshi 文明小史 (Short history of civilization) is a good example of this type of novel, as it begins and ends explicitly with the Reform of Governance. In his famously enigmatic wedge chapter at the beginning, Li Boyuan describes China’s political situation through two seemingly parallel metaphors. It is both just before sunrise and also before the coming of a storm.

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In my humble opinion, [China’s] situation at present is neither that of the “old” [empire] nor that of an “infant”; altogether it is not far away from the time when the sun is about to rise and a rainstorm is about to come. Why? You see, the Reform of Governance and the new learning have during the last few years put everything into an uproar. There are some changes that are well done, but others are not; some things we did manage to learn, but others not. Whether we determine that the reform has been managed well or not, the bottom line is that people have been willing to [throw themselves into it and] do the work; no matter what our judgment concerning the success of somebody’s study, the bottom line is that people have been willing to learn. Furthermore, as people are in enthusiastic spirits, and high and low are all invigorated, is that not like the sun is about to rise and a rainstorm is about to come? Whether success or failure, demise or renaissance, service to the public or to oneself, real or fake—in the future they all will be counted as people with merits in the advancement of the civilized world.53

Li rejects the two most common characterizations of China and the reformers at the time. China is neither the lao da diguo 老大帝國, the aged big empire represented by a sleeping old man in many cartoons at the time, nor are the reformers the “youth of young China” 少年中國之少 年, as envisaged by Liang Qichao. China evolves, and the people involved in the reforms come in all hues. Li’s metaphors for the situation of the country, that of sunrise and that of an impending rain storm, are natural processes that do not hinge on human agency. With the word “history” in the title of his novel, Li Boyuan projects in good evolutionist manner a development for which the time has come and one that will come whatever people do and regardless of their motives for doing it. In this process the Reform of Governance is a momentous event, but it follows from earlier developments and in its own logic will lead to further developments. Li Boyuan reserves his right to a critical attitude, especially when he deals with the adoption and rejection of Western ideals and concepts,54 but, having just lived through the failure of the Hundred Days Reform of 1898, the Boxer upheaval, and the 1900 invasion by the Allied forces, his judgment of the new reforms is more 53. Li Boyuan (pen name Nanting tingchang 南亭亭長), [Xinbian xiaoshuo] Wenming xiaoshi [新编小说]文明小史 (A short history of civilization. Newest fiction), p. 2. 54. Ouyang Jian, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, p. 90.

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forgiving than that of some others, and he concedes that even those who do not qualify for high marks in the end will have made their contribution to the inexorable march of civilization.

The Quality of the Citizenry and the Establishment of a Constitution Were the citizens ready for a constitution? Was the constitution the result of the population having matured to being “civilized,” or was the courtmandated constitution the condition for their becoming “citizens”? This was no trivial issue, and it was much discussed among reformers as well as politicians, diplomats, and scholars dealing with international law. As late as 1919 at the Versailles Peace Conference, there still was widespread agreement among the powers that sovereignty could be granted only to political entities with a citizenry and a state apparatus civilized enough to be sustainable. Colonial governments and protectorates were justified as the necessary steps to foster such a citizenry and state institutions. Information about Western parliamentary systems and constitutions had circulated in China since the first half of the nineteenth century. By the 1880s and 1890s it had been suggested that such new institutions might benefit China as well, but the idea had not yet become mainstream.55 Once the Reform of Governance began, however, the issue of a constitution quickly moved to center stage.56 It was seen as the institutionalization of public opinion, which had become so much more vocal with the development of the press.57 The issue was hotly debated in newspaper editorials, statecraft essays, and the new civic associations. Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905 was hailed as a victory for the constitutional reform 55. Luke Kwong has shown that at the time reformers such as Kang Youwei were stressing the need for a strong emperor with power concentrated in his hands rather than advocating legal or popular restraints on the throne; later, Kang Youwei would change his mind. See Kwong, Mosaic, pp. 197–98. For an analysis of the early thinking on constitutional reform, see Wang Shi, Weixin yundong, pp. 84–101. 56. On constitutional reform, see Reynolds, China, 1898–1912: Xinzheng Revolution; and Wang Xiaoqiu and Shang Xiaoming, Wuxu weixin. 57. Judge, “Public Opinion,” pp. 81–84.

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that had taken place in Japan since 1890.58 The court in its turn dispatched high-level delegations to report on different constitutional models abroad.59 Finally, in 1906, the empress dowager issued the “Announcement on the Necessary Arrangements for the Preparation for the Establishment of a Constitution” 宣布准備立憲事宜.60 The edict was initially greeted with public celebration, but the long delay of this announcement and then the lack of a timetable caused much frustration and finally resulted in organized protest. (Only after the death of the empress dowager in 1908, and under much social pressure, did the court eventually agree to a timetable.61) Although earlier novels such as Liang Qichao’s Future Record had touched on the subject, with the 1906 “Announcement,” the constitution became a prominent topic for political novels.62

Testing the Importance of Constitutional Reform: Lu Shi’e’s A New Three Kingdoms Lu Shi’e’s 陸士諤 (1877–1944) Xin Sanguo 新三國 (A new Three Kingdoms), published in 1909 with the horn-title “a social novel” (shehui xiaoshuo 社會小說), uses the earlier and widely familiar Three Kingdoms for a rich interplay with his new novel.63 By setting his comparison of different reform strategies in the Three Kingdoms period, Lu Shi’e uses 58. Newspapers such as Shibao, Dongfang zazhi, and Xinmin congbao actively promoted constitutional reform. For the role of the press in late Qing political reform and the creation of a new mode of representation of public opinion, see Judge, “Public Opinion.” For a specific study on constitutional reform and the periodical Dongfang zazhi, see Tang Fuman, “Dongfang zazhi.” 59. See Duanfang and Dai Hongci, Lieguo zhengyao. In 1907 another delegation was sent to Japan to study its constitution; see Zaize, Duanfang, et al., “Riben xianzheng shi,” p. 393. 60. Qing Court, “Xuanbu zhunbei lixian shiyi.” 61. Jing Zhiren, Zhongguo lixian shi; Xu Jianping, Qing mo Zhili xianzheng gaige; Liu Jiyao, “Yubei lixian shiqi”; Gao Wang, Wan Qing Zhongguo; Ma Xiaoquan, Guojia yu shehui; Thompson, China’s Local Councils. 62. See A Ying, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, pp. 75–88; Ouyang Jian, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, pp. 294–300. 63. Lu Shi’e, [Shehui xiaoshuo] Xin Sanguo. He was to use the Water Margin for another “new” version a year later; see Lu Shi’e, Xin Shuihu. For a detailed analysis of this novel, see Ouyang Jian, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, pp. 346–56.

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the rhetorical device of showing the “historical” outcome of an earlier application to prove a point about the best strategy for reform. Lu Shi’e was a prolific writer of novels focused on contemporary politics.64 He sets his New Three Kingdoms in the year 1906 and refers directly to Cixi’s “Announcement”: “Today the whole country is engaged in reform, preparing for the establishment of the constitution, and, according to the court’s edict, this will be realized in nine years’ time; that means in these nine years the task of creating the organs for political consultation and self-governance on the local level must be completed” (p. 164). The novel is thus written as part of this preparation and aims to overcome superstitions among the people and to flesh out how a constitutional state (lixian guo 立憲國) might look. It does so by depicting a reform competition between the kingdoms Shu, Wu, and Wei that links up with the military conflict in the original Three Kingdoms. While the author remained faithful to the basic makeup of the characters of the older novel, he also developed new features and plot elements with strong contemporary echoes. This involved retelling plot elements familiar from the older text with scientific explanations added.65 Refocusing the story on the new theme of political reform, Lu was able to transform a novel that was long on military strategizing and combat scenes and short on political science into a sophisticated political reform novel that replaced cunning and prowess with well-thought-out structural reforms of the polity while actively and critically engaging with the court’s policy. The three sections of the novel introduce the three very different reform programs that are implemented in the kingdoms. The Kingdom of Wu implements some of the failed reforms of the Qing. King Sun Quan follows the advice of his most loyal minister, Lu Su, that finding talent is crucial for success. Under the motto “successful governance hinges on talent” (zhiguo yi rencai wei ben 治國以人才為本), the state of Wu institutes a “special examination on political governance” (jingji teke 經濟 特科). Jiang Gan comes out on top and proposes (1) a new national 64. Ouyang Jian, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, pp. 334–35. For a comprehensive study of the author’s literary life, see Tian Ruohong, Lu Shi’e xiaoshuo. 65. Some critics have taken him to task for this rationalist shortchanging of the older story. Ouyang Jian, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, pp. 344–35.

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uniform and new colors to represent the nation in order to offer the citizens something new visually 易服色以新民目, (2) to reform the civil service in order to rectify the administration 改官制以整吏治, (3) to set up schools in order to expand education 立學堂以宏教育, and (4) to establish a navy in order to strengthen the foundations of the country 創海軍以固國基. The other items include reorganizing the army; establishing a police force; building railroads; promoting agriculture, handicrafts, and commerce; and sending students to study abroad. These suggestions mirror the Three Memorials by Liu Kunyi and Zhang Zhidong. Zhou Yu—the famous Wu general who died in the original novel but came back to life (in A New Three Kingdoms he never died)—is asked by Sun Quan in A New Three Kingdoms to help in the country’s reform effort. Zhou agrees with Lu Su’s final analysis that, “as the internal politics of Wu are extremely corrupt, reform is a very good thing; however, there must be an order of priorities. First, we must advocate [new] education, then comes refurbishing our military and developing railroads, steamers, mining, and electric communications” (p. 168). As a consequence, no mention is made of the need for civil service reform or other political or constitutional reforms in Wu. Government decisions in Wu are top-down. A set of reform laws is issued with the stipulation that “whoever disagrees with the new reform laws, whether official of commoner, will be executed” (p. 170). The program is thus decided at the top without any public discussion and enforced with extreme measures. The new ministries are run by men of talent, with Zhou Yu in charge of the military. Yuan Shikai is the most likely contemporary counterpart for Zhou Yu with his strong and well-equipped troops and his emphasis on educational reform. The new measures, however, need to be financed. A decision is made to mint more money and levy new taxes, disregarding Lu Su’s warning that, although these might benefit the government, the new money had no base in the economy and the new taxes to finance the reforms would mostly end up in the pockets of officials. Regardless of the weak economic basics, military reforms go ahead. These involve retiring one part of the old army and transferring the other to the Ministry of the Interior to be retrained as the new police force. With the military budget thus freed, Zhou Yu creates a new army equipped with the best weaponry bought from abroad. Now the Kingdom of Wu has

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the most advanced army, and Zhou Yu spends his time training it. The country’s law code also is dramatically changed to encourage international trade. However, the new laws imitate those of Western countries, here represented by the Kingdom of Da Qin 大秦 (probably a reference to the British Empire), without any consideration as to whether or not they fit the conditions of Wu. To finance the building of railroads, the government issues shares to an enthusiastic public response. When they turn out to be enormously profitable, the Transportation Ministry decides to force the merchants to resell their shares. The merchants, now increasingly aware of politics and international affairs, strongly protest, but to no avail. The new policy is harshly enforced. On the surface, Wu seems to be doing all the right things. The allusion to the reform of the examination system, military reform, development of a police force, and railway construction at the beginning of the Reform of Governance is clear. It now has new government structures, new ministries, a new and well-equipped military force, an improved infrastructure with railroads, as well as new schools and a new law code. Yet, after eight or nine years of these reforms, Wu is even weaker than before and on the verge of collapse. Why is this? the reader is asked. The author gives the answer: “If the reader is able to guess the reason, then you, dear reader, have already achieved the level of [being a citizen] under a constitution and far surpass the period for its preparation” 若 猜的著，看官早到了立憲時代的程度，超軼過準備時代的程度了 (p. 178). The author comes to the aid of those readers who still cannot guess the reason by commenting on the real problems of Wu. The reforms are all paid for with borrowed money; all of the equipment is imported; Wu has blindly copied everything that it deemed important for being a strong country without regard for the actual conditions of the country; and the imported equipment is operated by hired foreigners. “Indeed, all new policies implemented by Wu are instruments to achieve wealth and power,” but they are “only the means for a country to achieve wealth and power, not the fundamentals for it” 皆是富強之具，而非富強之本 (p. 179). Increasingly vulnerable owing to its financial distress, Wu decides to ally itself with faraway Persia (= Russia?) and ends up being financially and militarily dependent on that country, very much like a colony.

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In the Kingdom of Wei, Cao Pei decides to use a series of harsh measures to crush the opposition to abolishing the Han dynasty and the establishment of his new Wei dynasty. He finds support in Sima Yi, a powerful minister who calculates that such harsh measures will bring more rebellion, destabilize the kingdom, weaken Cao Pei, and create favorable conditions for his own seizure of power. The novel shows little sympathy for the opposition that is being hunted down by the Wei government. Although its members organize an uprising in the north and assassinate high officials in the capital, they only bring about panic. Public opinion does not support their cause. These revolutionaries are, in the words of one commentator, just “men on the run. They have no discipline; their leader is but a student: how could he control the situation?” (p. 197). Although Wei looks as if it has a new type of government, it is in fact more repressive than ever. In his discussion of Wei, Lu Shi’e also takes on the contemporary issue of corrupt officials who levy heavy taxes on the local population in the name of the Reform of Governance as well as some of the other contentious issues of the day, such as foreign loans and foreign interests in China.66 The Sima faction in the novel has greatly enhanced its power and has enriched itself by fleecing the local population and leaving the local government and gentry without the wherewithal to carry out meaningful reform. Wei echoes the particular legitimacy problems of the Manchu court. Having deposed a “truly Chinese” dynasty, the rulers are nervous about challenges to their power. Anarchist groups are the contemporary echo for the rebels. Zhang Zhidong looks like a possible counterpart to Sima Yi. As Ouyang Jian has pointed out, the policies of Wu and Wei represent two sides of the Reform of Governance.67 The novel thus challenges the Qing court’s priorities. The methods of political organization employed by Wu and Wei are a failure. Military reform, finance, legislature, infrastructure, and education are important, but their success 66. For examples of the enduring discussion of ways to overcome the Qing court’s dependency on foreign loans, which tended to come with painful conditions, see “Zhongguo jiyi daxing kuangwu shuo”; Zhang Jian, “Bianfa pingyi”; and “Lun Zhongguo lu kuang jin gui wairen.” 67. For a study of the novel, see Ouyang Jian, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, p. 337.

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depends on constitutional reform and in particular on public participation in the country’s political life. Lu Shi’e develops this argument in his depiction of the reforms in Shu. The Kingdom of Shu in Sichuan is the last to engage in political reform. As Shu is far away from the central plain, nothing is known there about political reform, but its military fortunes have suddenly declined. Reacting to rumors about reforms elsewhere, Shu sends an emissary to Wu and Wei to investigate. The emissary concludes that the recent military failures of Shu did not occur “because our army is not as strong as theirs; rather, the fundamental reason why we cannot win is that they have engaged in political reform, and we are still maintaining the old ways” 然而每次出兵，終不能有所勝，何也? 彼維新而吾守舊 (p. 243). The developments in Shu represent the utopian dream of the author about what should happen in the late Qing. The reader now learns that, like Zhou Yu, Kong Ming 孔明 (that is, Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮) from Shu, the major hero of The Three Kingdoms, has also not died as in the original novel but lives on. He notices that the reforms in Wu and Wei only “look good on the outside but lack real substance. Our reform, however, must try to avoid this flaw; it has to start from the fundamentals” 吾國變法，力須矯此弊，一從根本上著 手 (p. 243). Shu is ruled by Liu Bei’s 劉備 son Hou zhu 後主. No match for his father intellectually, as a ruler he is still convinced that Shu needs reform to survive and calls upon the services of Kong Ming. When Kong Ming opens up debate among Shu top officials about needed political reforms, most of them predictably propose costly military and financial reforms. Kong Ming, however, sides with those who prioritize political reform and insists on a democratic decision that would involve the whole nation. Here the novel enters into a contentious debate with the Reform of Governance court: The priority of our country’s political reform first and foremost must be that people are informed about politics; [to achieve this], we must first establish an upper and a lower house [parliament]; the members of the upper house are selected with the emperor appointing one-third, court officials recommending one-third, and the citizens selecting one-third. As to the members of the lower house, the entire people of the land will elect them. All policies regarding finance, military, and all national affairs, promotions as well as dismissals, have to be approved by parliament before implementation.

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In this way, the emperor and the people are in unity, which makes it easy to implement the various policies; furthermore, the program being clear, all officials know what is expected from them. Organizing a navy, training the army, establishing banks, building railroads, and so forth—these are the means to achieve the wealth and power of the country 富強之具; however, if we do not start with the fundamentals (genben 根本) but hastily enter into this enterprise, this will in the short run tie up our finances and in the long run risk [weakening us and thus] assisting our enemies. (p. 244)

Kong Ming’s blueprint with constitutional reform at the center draws its lessons from the mistakes of Wu and Wei. Only if the people of the country are informed about the challenges facing the country can they make sensible judgments and will help in the implementation of the reforms. The author takes issue with the omission of democratic political reform in the early Reform of Governance memorials. True to the didactic purpose of the genre, the novel goes into great detail about the steps needed for this constitutional reform to take shape. These include a constitution; a two-tier parliament and its replicas in the provinces; a timetable for their introduction; a government organization based on the principles of the Zhouli with clear responsibilities and without waste; supervision of government by parliament; and law courts with an appeal option. We also find a plan to relieve population pressure in the kingdom after the population had grown by one-third in ten years: citizens are encouraged to emigrate to do business; the government promises to offer start-up capital and consular protection for them. It will also develop mining and railroads, which in turn will allow new factories to create employment opportunities. All measures are to be publicly discussed. There are many controversial issues in such a system, and the novel tries to meet the reader halfway. One such issue was the ownership of the country’s natural resources. Should society or the emperor and the state have the rights 國有民有? A discussion on the constitutional powers of the emperor ensues. Even if society should own the mines, some argued, the constitution gives the emperor the power to disband parliament and to nationalize private property for the “well-being of the people.” Others counter that such a misuse of the constitution would damage the people’s

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enthusiasm for the new system (p. 263). Still others argue that there is a fundamental difference between a constitutional state and an autocracy, and that the emperor in a constitutional state was bound by law and could not misuse the constitution. These discussions are clearly designed to give the reader deeper understanding of different political systems through a concrete controversy. In a critical take on the huge internal and foreign loans taken out by the Qing court, Lu Shi’e has Shu adopt an austerity program of selfreliance that—after extensive debate—finds the support of the public. It allows the government gradually to raise the necessary funds internally and thus lays the economic foundations for the new constitutional monarchy. All the stories of magic and sorcery used by Zhuge Liang in the original novel are explained away with the aid of modern science. In the end the modernization model adopted by Shu is victorious against those used in Wei and Wu. The author is forthright about his motives in writing the novel. Dear reader, please consider: the Kingdom of Wu carried out its reforms much earlier than Shu, and they were handled with moral integrity by its lord and ministers rather than just following a routine or going through the moves. Why is it, then, as soon as Zhou Yu and Lu Su passed away, that the kingdom’s political system seems to have stopped functioning? Whatever specific mistakes there were, the fundamental problem was that it did not implement constitutional reform. It did not establish an upper and a lower house, did not establish a parliament. Thus all wisdom and intelligence notwithstanding, it was limited to the one lord, his ministers, and a small group of close associates. How would Wu be able to defend itself against a constitutional state with a large community united with one heart and one mind? The intelligence of King Sun Liang of Wu [Sun Quan’s son and successor] was a far cry from the stupidity of Hou Zhu of Shu [Liu Bei’s son and successor]. And yet, because one country went ahead with constitutional reform and the other did not; and because the one that did could rely on a vast pool of intelligence fed by the collective intelligence of all citizens in the kingdom while the other that did not could only rely on the limited intelligence of a few, even if there had been a Duke of Zhou or Confucius himself instead of Sun Liang, Wu still had no way to compete. Therefore, if a kingdom goes through the process of constitutional reforms, it can survive even the stupidity of a Hou Zhu; but, if not, even with Sun Liang’s intelligence there is no way for a lasting success. This is what I, Shi’e, mainly wanted to express by writing A New Three Kingdoms. (p. 308)

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The novel is set up like a scientific test of successful and sustainable governance with three competing approaches. However, the third is not taken from lived experience but from the normative and thus “utopian” textbook promising potential benefits if it is followed correctly. There is no real-life late Qing counterpart to Kong Ming or the institutions he helps to set up. The confrontation between the three states allows for a double reading. On the one hand, they are all in China and represent three Chinese approaches. On the other, they allow for a second reading that sees Shu’s reform delay and military defeats as a metaphor for China’s relations with England, France, Japan, and Russia. This detailed discussion of the Xinzheng policies joins debates in the press and among government officials.68 The court was not the sole addressee of the novel, as is the case for the memorials to the throne. Yet, 68. Discussions about the constitution comprised a wide range of opinion. “Supporting the Manchu will not be sufficient to save us from demise. All affairs of our state and society today, whether in administration, the military, education, or industry and commerce, can only make real progress once they have gone through a radical reform. A reform that just patches up some holes and is half new and half old will absolutely not be able to stem this demise, which is just a breath away,” writes the anarchist Wu Yue 吳樾 in “Yijian shu,” his fierce objection to the Manchus and a reformist constitution. Yan Fu, the official in charge of the new terminology, wrote in an essay in 1906 on the need to promote technical education to strengthen China’s own industrial base rather than go overboard with abstract discussions on reform: “Nowadays everybody is feverishly and on a daily basis debating about reform, but at any change in policy the borrowing from abroad inevitably increases” (Yan Fu, “Shiye jiaoyu,” quoted from Yan Fu ji; this text had already been reprinted in 1906 in Dongfang zazhi). Writing in a journal devoted to mobilizing the Chinese intellectual tradition for conservative policy, Lu Shaoming selected quotations on political systems from the classics, including the Zhouyi and the Hanfeizi: “As the sage moves by accommodating [the views of the people], the penal laws are clear and the people submit to them”; “If when managing a big state one often changes the laws, the people will resent it. That is why a ruler endowed with the Way will emphasize disinterested calmness and be wary of changing the laws” (Lu Shaoming, “Zhuzi yan,” p. 7). Ambassador Dai Hongci, who had been sent in 1905 on a tour to collect information relevant for the planned Chinese constitution, quotes in his published diary for February 30, 1906, advice from a discussion with the German Kaiser, which is an indirect critique of what Dai saw as the wholesale copying of foreign models: “For reforms one should not emulate foreign countries to the last detail, but generally should select what is fitting for one’s own country, and, if something does not fit, it is better to leave things as they were before” (Chushi jiu guo, juan 6, p. 148).

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through the novel form, Lu Shi’e was able to respond to the court’s reform edicts, offer support for constitutional reform, and present an alternative way for it to be implemented. Lu Shi’e is also explicit about the role novels should play in the reform process. The secretary of the minister of education in Shu muses that, “as the ability of the textbooks to spread [new ideas and knowledge] is limited to the few students, their scope is small”; to reach the majority of young people and educate them into new citizens, it is necessary to publish not only schoolbooks, but also novels of enlightenment 開智小說.69 The novel is thus key to building a new citizenry. Lu installs himself as educator as well as critical mediator between the state and the people, as he brings the new state policies within reach of ordinary citizens and communicates the needs of the people to policy makers.

Citizens and Institutions in the West: A New Record of the Eastern Zhou The mandate in the original Reform of Governance edict to seek the strong points of the West to supplement Chinese weaknesses is explored in the novel Xin Lieguo zhi 新列國志 (A new History of Nations; 1908) by an unknown author.70 It follows Japanese precedents in grafting itself onto a Western work of a different—historical—genre.71 Announced as a “historical novel,” it is based on Feng Menglong’s (1574–1645) novel Dong 69. Xin Sanguo is one of the few texts with a self-referential statement on the purpose and potential benefits of novels, although the “political novel” is here divided up among different genres such as novels of ethics 倫理小說, adventure novels 冒險 小說, novels on citizenry 國民小說, detective novels 偵探小說, morality novels 道德 小說, novels of chivalry 俠義小說, novels on military affairs 軍事小說, science fiction 科學小說, utopian novels 理想小說, sentimental novels 寫情小說, social novels 社會小說, and historical novels 歷史小說. “The reason the novel is preferred to other kinds of books is that its written language matches that of speech. The problem with our literary specialists is that they believe written language and speech are independent from each other and cannot be merged. This is why the process of evolution stagnated. Today, when we write novels, the most important principle is to unite the written word with speech.” Lu Shi’e, Xin sanguo, p. 259. 70. Xin Lieguo zhi was printed by the Society for Reform Novels (Gailiang xiaoshuo she 改良小说社) in 1908 and 1909. This publisher printed many of the political novels. 71. See the discussion of borrowing from Japan in chapter 7 in this work.

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Zhou lieguo zhi 東周列國志, grafted onto Robert Mackenzie’s The Nineteenth Century: A History (1880). The latter work was available in an 1894 Chinese translation by Timothy Richard72; it had been recommended to the Guangxu emperor by Kang Youwei in 1898, upon which it was made mandatory reading for higher officials and was widely reprinted and read.73 In Liang Qichao’s words, it was “the best work in the West tracing the trajectory of the states of Europe and America in achieving selfstrengthening during the last one hundred years”《泰西新史攬要》述 百年以來歐美各國自強之跡，西史中最佳之書也.74 A New History of Nations covers the century during which England, France, Italy, Germany, and Austria came to establish democratic parliamentary systems, with Russia as a negative example and a section on the United States focused on the abolition of slavery. Using foreign examples to define China’s problems and argue for political reform was a strategy used often during the Reform of Governance period in memorials and newspaper articles as well as indirectly through the translation of foreign histories such as the success story of the Meiji reform,75 the demise of nations such as Poland and Korea,76 and the reform conducted under Peter the Great. A novel that translates foreign history into fiction, as is the case with A New History of Nations, however, is an exception. The novel is framed by the two Reform of Governance edicts of 1901 and 1906, which it quotes in length. The author sets out to demonstrate that political reform, in particular parliamentary reform, brought prosperity and power in Europe, and he misses no occasion to assert that, because autocratic rule is not in accordance with the will of the people, it will in the end undermine a nation’s wealth and power. In the background of the novel, the contemporary Chinese situation looms large. 72. Mackenzie, Taixi xin shi lanyao. 73. Wang Shi, Weixin yundong, p. 304. 74. Liang Qichao, “Du xixue shu fa.” 75. Wu Shijian referred routinely to the Japanese model in a 1906 memorial to the court: “The Japanese reforms managed to enrich the state and strengthen the army as a consequence of [setting up a] police [force].” “Nanshufang Hanlin Wu Shijian qing shixingdifang fenzhi zhe,” p. 713. In a revolutionary journal in Tokyo, reference is as naturally made to the Japanese government’s “reforms as a means of self-strengthening” that should be emulated. Gong Ming, “Sui she xuebu yi heyi ye?” 76. Liang Qichao, “Bolan miewang ji” and “Chaoxian miewang zhi yuanyin.”

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The novel takes the form of a dialogue between two friends, Bao Zhong 包忠 (with a pun on bao zhong 保種, “preserve the race”) and Tong Bao 童保 (with a pun on tongbao 同胞, “countrymen”). The didactic dialogue form had been pioneered in Chinese-language novels by Western missionaries from 1819.77 After reading Cixi’s 1901 edict, both are elated, as they agree that political reform is urgently needed. Their attention is caught by the phrase in the edict about taking what is superior in foreign countries to supplement what China is lacking and examining the failings of the past so that they can provide lessons for the future. The blueprint for China’s path toward reform is laid out through examples from recent European history. To Tong Bao’s question “What are the superior points of foreign nations? Please instruct me item by item,”78 Bao Zhong answers following Mackenzie that the history of Europe of the last one hundred years is a history of political reform, a history of Europe’s transformation from a backward political system (bi zheng 敝政) to its renovation (gailiang 改良). “It is like one’s own person: if one does not know one’s own weakness, naturally one cannot know the particular strengths of others; if one does not know the shortcomings of the past, naturally there is no way of knowing the strengths of today” (p. 153). For the same reason, China needs to understand the trajectory of the West. European history is a story of change: “I am going to tell you how bad the political system was and how people changed this situation. Once you understand this, you will know that what you perceive as the strength of Europe has been gained through much suffering and hard work, and was not obtained easily by simply sitting around” (p. 153). Hard work, in other words, lies ahead for China, but recent European history is also an encouragement—quick success is possible if only the correct path is followed energetically. England and France represent two different models of change. Mackenzie had argued for the advantages of English gradualism—a nation that is now the richest and most powerful country in the world “a hundred years ago was in fact small and weak.” France is the revolutionary alternative. Whereas a constitutional monarchy with a parliament secured communication between high and low as well as institutional flexibility to 77. William Milne, Zhang Yuan liangyou. Guetzlaff ‘s novels make ample use of dialogue. 78. Xin Lieguo zhi, p. 151.

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implement change, the French political system was entirely based on the power of the monarch, and there was no channel of communication between high and low. As French social tensions mounted after the restoration of the monarchy, the country ended up with the 1830 Revolution. Only after the French established a parliamentary system, which helped to reflect public opinion, was the country able once again to become wealthy and strong. To ward off developments similar to those of France, England put into place its first stage of political reform. This included (1) changing election laws to give ordinary tax-paying citizens the right to vote without the interference of local officials; (2) judicial reform, especially with regard to laws concerning foreign trade, which opened the country to international trade and labor, which enabled skilled laborers to move around with more freedom; (3) religious reform, abolishing all political and civil discrimination against Catholics; (4) social reform, namely, a ban on slavery; (5) welfare reform to protect children and women, and change the harsh Poor Laws; (6) promoting the public voice and the benefits of the newspaper by reducing the stamp tax; (7) reform of the postal system to reduce postal fees by allowing private competition for government postal services; and (8) reform of education to improve quality and access. On this last point, an Englishman is quoted as saying: “As the taxpaying citizens now have the right to vote, they are now the masters of our society; if, as masters, they are utterly ignorant, how can they participate in governing the country?” The government invested heavily in education and encouraged the wealthy to set up new schools. “Within a few years, the spirit in the country was renewed; and, as a broad range of knowledge was now disseminated among the British citizens, their abilities were naturally superior to those of other people” (p. 198). With his eyes firmly on China, the narrator sums up: “If we now talk about the British upholding public virtue (shang gongde 尚公德), appreciating charity (gui cishan 貴慈善), loving others like themselves (airen ru ji 愛人如己), and not being afraid of hard work (bu chan qinlao 不憚勤勞), the stories are endless. [These changes are] truly startling, and all began with the year of the reforms” (p. 198). To drive his point home, we learn that if France had not eventually engaged in political reform, it would have faced certain demise. Reminiscent of the Chinese Hundred Days reform, the French king had met

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popular demands with harsh repression. He had those who had drafted the petition arrested and sentenced to death. In the subsequent upheaval, King Charles X was forced to abdicate. His successor, Louis Philippe, agreed to some of the reforms demanded by the people. Universal education was established, supported by the state; the state invested heavily in railroads, which stimulated the economy and brought stability and wealth to the country. “Although these are the only two changes brought [by the court], they constitute the foundation for a ‘reform of governance’ (Xinzheng). Confucius’s saying ‘making them [the people] rich [first] and [then] educating them’ (fu jiao 富教) describes the two most important factors in governing a nation” (p. 208). However, since these reforms again brought no structural change, the French court was confronted with another round of social unrest and revolution in 1848. The continuous juxtaposition of England and France offers, much like Lu Shi’e’s New Three Kingdoms, a test of alternative approaches to the modern transition. The example of England was to encourage the Qing court to stay on the path of reform rather than risk a revolutionary upheaval that would not only derail the country’s path to wealth and power, but put the very existence of the monarchy at risk. “You see, brother Tong Bao,” says Bao Zhong referring to England’s economic power, “this was the result of the English government’s deep concern for the desires of the people and the fact that both monarch and people were of one mind. As a consequence, England has been able to reach such heights of wealth and power, and that is why the throne itself is secure. From this we can see that political reform benefits the monarch as well as the people” (p. 215). In a story that is strong on ideas and weak on fictionalization, the author thinly coats his political vision and his advocacy of constitutional reform in a didactic dialogue about the lessons of history. Nonetheless, as historical characters such as Napoleon, Washington, and the Russian czar in and of themselves are larger than life and carry a fictional flair, their activities easily generate interest.

Looking Back at Constitutional Reform: Chun Fan’s World of the Future Ever since Liang Qichao’s Future Record of New China, Chinese political novel writers enjoyed the use of the literary device of the “future

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retrospective.” Chun Fan’s 春颿 [Lixian xiaoshuo] Weilai shijie [立憲小 説]未來世界 (The world of the future. A constitutional novel) offers such a retrospective. The novel was serialized in Yueyue xiaoshuo during the height of the constitutional reform agitation from 1907 to 1909. Again, nothing is known about the author behind the pen name. Weilai shijie was, however, one of the rare instances in which a political novel was actually completed in all of its twenty chapters. From the first line of the novel, the reader has no doubt about its purpose: “Establish the constitution! Establish the constitution! Speedily establish the constitution!—This is the most urgent issue facing the four hundred million people of our yellow race and a crucial juncture for our survival or demise.”79 Although technically the first chapter is not written as a wedge, the author uses it to outline his agenda. His ideas about a constitution closely follow the court’s 1906 edict on the issue; and he agrees with most other authors of political novels that the main obstacle to the establishment of a constitution is not a conservative clique at the court, but a Chinese citizenry that is utterly ignorant of ideas of liberty and citizen rights. They know only that the emperor is the absolute authority and that he is to be obeyed. The aim of constitutional reform, as one press commentator argues, “can be realized only through the citizens demanding their rights and not by the monarch deciding to bestow them on the populace.” “That the people demand a constitution, however, presupposes a great improvement of their understanding and a great development of their power but is not something people with a shallow understanding are even be able to dream about” 而人民之要求立憲，亦必在民智大啟民力大進以後，而非淺 化之民所能夢見者也.80 The World of the Future was written to help overcome this ignorance. Rejecting the clamor for a violent revolution against the Qing, the author emphasizes the need for unity between Manchus and Han Chinese. They are all members of the Yellow Race and face the same dire prospects. The fate of the whole race hangs on constitutional reform. The novel encourages the reader to behave—now—like true citizens will behave after the constitution has been put into place and to break with the 79. Chun Fan, Weilai shijie, p. 438. 80. Jue Min, “Lun lixian yu jiaoyu.”

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behavioral patterns of the fictional “past,” which is the reader’s present. As a literary man with neither political power nor the responsibility to establish a new theory, the best the writer is able to contribute is to imagine an ideal future and describe the way to get there.81 The novel is set at an unspecified number of years after the constitutional reform. China has now developed into an empire (diguo 帝國), one of a small number of powerful modern states. However, the uneducated still account for more than half of the people because the country is so vast and the population so numerous. The officials of the constitutional government are themselves transitional personalities “who lack the spirit of liberty and independence, and are more backward than the model new citizens.” These officials see that their privileges are threatened and have had no motivation to push for change. Although the open-minded new citizens, who have everything to gain from the reform, may be but a minority, things, in fact, have greatly changed (p. 488). The novel starts by telling the love stories of three couples, another example of evaluating different strategies by playing them out in different scenarios. According to the author, there is a close connection between the notion of free love and that of liberty. However, as sensational as the stories may be, the aim of telling these stories becomes clear only at the end of the novel. In the first episode, a young woman from Suzhou studies at the local “Strengthening the Race Girls’ School” (Qiangzhong nüxuetang 強种女 學堂). Beautiful as well as talented, she is admired by many young men. Two of her cousins are among them, but she is unaware of their feelings. Returning home from school one day, she meets a handsome young man. The two instantaneously fall in love, and the author offers a detailed account of the scientific reasons for the attraction between the sexes (p. 516). This story ends in tragedy, with the young man being murdered by one of the jealous cousins. If the first love story supported free love but warned of the pitfalls, the second brings up the qualities a citizen needs for such future freedoms. A thoroughly modern girl with a U.S. education travels through Europe and Japan unchaperoned, then marries a young man without a modern education, and their marriage ends badly. The young woman goes off on 81.

Chun Fan, Weilai shijie, p. 487.

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her own, and, when her husband finds her in a public setting with another man and challenges her to come home, she humiliates him in public. He returns home, falls sick, and almost dies. The sympathy of the author goes out to both parties. The headstrong girl who does not heed any advice and the foolish young man who cannot see that times have changed are both in need of further education. The third story offers a counterpoint to the first two. Future freedoms may have their own contradictions, but maintaining the old ways is not the solution either. Han Jingzhao 韓京兆 is a proud and highly talented young man who decides that he will take his time in choosing a wife. As he sees it, the problem with modern women is that, once they enter modern schools, they directly pick up ideas such as equality between men and women. But if women want true equality, they first have to obtain the qualifications to sustain it; without moral education or knowledge, these ideas are not a reflection of civilization but rather of barbarism. He thus sets out to find a “truly modern schoolgirl” (pp. 554–55). One day he meets his aunt, who is accompanied by his cousin Fu Bifu 符碧芙, whom he had never met. He knew that she had chosen a traditional education, and her name, a pun on “husband invariably to be obeyed” (fu bifu 夫必服), was promising. Han visits the cousin daily at his aunt’s house and makes up his mind that she is the right wife for him. However, as Bifu is too oldfashioned to make such a decision on her own, Han asks his aunt for Bifu’s hand, and consent is given. The story, however, again ends tragically. Bifu’s mother changes her mind and has her marry a richer man. She dies of a broken heart. The author goes on to criticize the “modern girls” for being too free and the more traditional girls for being too submissive. Both end up losing. These are extremes, which Chinese society cannot support. The stories thus highlight the close connection between institutional reform and the goal of a love-based marriage based on mutual consent. Far from simply juxtaposing a dark present and a bright future, it probes the contradictions and problems inherent in the transition to modernity in a manner that anticipates some of Lu Xun’s later essays and stories.82 The relationship between constitutional reform and these unhappy love stories is spelled out in the novel when a friend asks the author why 82. Examples are Lu Xun’s essays “Toufa de gushi” and “Nala quhou zenyang.”

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he veered off from the theme of political reform to tell these seemingly unrelated stories. His answer: “On the surface your observation that I have abandoned my main subject seems correct. However, once you think about it carefully, you will see that these stories deal with preparing the foundation for establishing a constitution and laying the groundwork for constitutional law” 你這些話，看着表面上雖是不差。好像抛荒了題 目，但是仔仔細細的想起來，在下做書的說這些故事，正是那預備 立憲的基礎，敷設憲法的經綸.83 He goes on to link the failed love relationships with the concrete problems of establishing a constitution, namely, the still-deficient education of the citizens and the general lack of a social consensus. These obstacles can be overcome through family education and changes in social customs, with marriage customs being the most crucial of all. “Once the citizens of our country have achieved high educational levels, the mismatches between men and women will automatically disappear. By that time, family education will have evolved to perfection, everyone will have the spirit of self-discipline, and every family will have internalized the consciousness of being citizens. In this way, how could China not become a full constitutional state?” (p. 572). Women’s education is crucial here. “The only reason for writing this book,” the author writes, “is to make the reader understand that the education of women must be seen as being of equal importance as that of men” (p. 600). To enhance literacy among the lower classes without overburdening the state coffers by having to provide stipends as well as reimburse parents for lost income from their children’s work, the novel has a judge rule on the conflict between a father who needs the income and a son who wants education. He proposes that a dictionary should be published by the government with enough vocabulary to cut down on the time needed to reach basic literacy and that vernacular newspapers should be published to provide reading matter for new readers. The proposal is directly approved by the “future” emperor and parliament. The World of the Future engages the reader to think in concrete terms about the steps necessary to prepare the people for constitutional reform. As the novel does exactly what the 1906 court edict had called for, it can 83.

Chun Fan, Weilai shijie, p. 571.

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be meaningfully read as carrying out a dialogue with this edict. Although the novel presents only ideas, since the author was unable to imagine a future where they had become reality, he still found a way to undertake a fictional exploration of real problems to be faced in implementing these ideas in a society with a largely underdeveloped citizenry. Much like Huang Xiuqiu, the novel is far from idealistic, but takes stock of the Chinese realities with which the reforms will have to come to grips and offers sophisticated arguments and solutions. Hovering in the public sphere between state and society, it reaches out to policy makers while at the same time using the charm of the fictional genre to mobilize the public. The device of the future retrospective is used here for three purposes: to track the progress of the reforms into the future and offer strategic suggestions for solving problems that will be encountered along the way; to offer a critical look at the present as the utterly deficient compared to the bright future; and, finally, to encourage the push for reform by sketching its imagined result in the form of a strong China. This last point dominates the end of the novel. After two or three years of hard work by the reformers, China has become “the strongest nation in the world.” This was achieved by “high [the court] and low [the citizens] being of one mind and the people being united; thus they were able to rapidly transform vast, old, and feeble China into a great power” (p. 609). This wonderful result is shown through the eyes of Mr. Race Self-Strengthening, who travels around the new China to see for himself. His first station is Shanghai, “the first city to become civilized” (p. 611). In a conflict with a Russian, he finds himself suddenly treated with great respect when standing up for a Korean woman against the Russian’s bullying, and when he visits the Korean couple in Korea, he is treated with the utmost deference by the colonial authorities there. His standing now is akin to that formerly accorded to Westerners in China. The visit to Korea provides the alternative scenario for China if it does not push through the reforms. “The situation of Korea is like that of China ten years ago [that is, in about 1908 or 1909, when the novel actually was published]. If China had not engaged in political reform and established the constitution, would we not have ended up being a second Korea?” (p. 622).

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Creating a New Citizenry through Science: Lu Shi’e’s New China If Chun Fan sought the solution to China’s problems primarily in civic education, Lu Shi’e’s Xin Zhongguo 新中國 (New China; 1910) targeted the technical and economic transformation of China into a great civilized power and thus chose a science fiction narrative for his “future retrospective.” The novel alerts the reader to its utopian character with its horn-title Lixiang xiaoshuo 理想小說 (Utopian novel).84 The novel explicitly situates itself within the context of constitutional reform. It is a first-person narrative, with the narrator having the author’s name. Following the precedents of Bellamy and Liang Qichao, and perhaps in answer to Cai Yuanpei’s 蔡元培 (1868–1940) 1904 novel Xinnian meng 新年夢 (A New Year’s dream), which had presented an anarchist vision of China in the future, the narrator wakes up from a long sleep to an utterly new world forty years after China has established a constitution. In agreement with what was stated in the 1908 edict, the novel assumes that it took nine years to put the constitution in place. Through its future retrospective, the novel offers a sketch of a reformed China and a “history” of this reform, which translates into suggestions for the path China should take in order to become a leading nation. The narrator wakes up in the new Shanghai, which stands for the new China as a whole. Helped by Li Youqin 李友琴—in real life the author’s wife—he acquaints himself with the new city. Extraterritorial privileges of foreign nationals have been abolished. The place is run by Chinese, foreigners are to obey Chinese laws, and foreigners even give way to Chinese when walking on the street. Utterly amazed, the narrator asks his lady friend to tell him how all this came about, which opens a long narrative (that did not gain by having been employed by many others with as little imagination). It establishes the future retrospective as the narrative stance and begins its “historical” account in 1910. 84. Lu Shi’e, Xin Zhongguo. The novel is also known as Lixian sishi nian hou zhi Zhongguo 立憲四十年後之中國 (China, forty years after the establishment of the constitution); see editor’s notes on page vi. Lixiang xiaoshuo first appeared as a horntitle in Japan, where risō 理想 (Chinese lixiang) was introduced as a translation for “ideal.” The etymology of “utopia” (a place called “no-place”) is not reproduced in this new word.

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The first step taken by the government was to achieve self-reliance by repaying the country’s enormous foreign debt. This was done by issuing bonds. Although these were willingly bought by the people as their contribution to the national cause, foreign banks refused to accept them. The resulting shortage of foreign currency in the country led to a drop in imports. This had the unforeseen consequence of strengthening native industries, which moved in to fill the gap. The second major event was the establishment of the constitution itself and the opening of the National Assembly. The nine years’ preparation time had given the country time to build up the economic and industrial base needed to support democracy. The significance of the constitution is that “among all the people in the country, from the emperor to the ordinary folk, irrespective of the difference between men and women, between the old and the young, between the eminent and the humble, not one person is outside of the constitution.” The constitution enjoys general support because there are “so many benefits that come with having a constitutional form of government that it is no wonder that the citizens in the past were so passionate and single-minded in wanting it” (p. 463). The constitution frames and limits the emperor’s powers. The first task of the new parliament had been to abolish the extraterritoriality of foreigners. Next on the list of achievements were the establishment of the navy and the enlargement of the army. Navy cadets were now all trained by Chinese officers, their ships were all built by China’s own ship-building industry, and the wondrous new weapons used by the navy—they have an entire chapter to themselves—were all designed and manufactured by Chinese. This had propelled the Chinese navy to be the strongest in the world. We then learn about great advances in industrial production, technology, and science, which have brought about a life of ease and comfort for the people. Among the futuristic electrical appliances and transport vehicles described, we find the “air-bus” and the “air-bicycle”; “flying ships” in three different sizes for public transportation; electric boats and submarines shuttling between Shanghai and Pudong; “water-travel shoes” allowing one to travel on the surface of the water; “X-ray eyeglasses” that, among other uses, enable pearl gatherers to spot pearls through the shells of clams; and the “rain-street” with a moving roof that lets in sunlight but

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closes when it rains so that no umbrellas are needed. The city has a subway system and is connected with Peking by a high-speed train line. Baths are now taken with steam rather than water. Needless to say, all these devices were invented, developed, and produced by Chinese without imports or help from foreign experts. The capital and the raw materials needed came from the exploitation of domestic natural resources, among them gold, coal, and iron ore. As the narrator navigates his way through this unfamiliar environment, the reader is introduced to a creative, wealthy, and independent new China that leads internationally not just in its material aspects, but also in medicine, education, and its judicial system. The dialogue with the Reform of Governance measures provides the all-present subtext of the novel, with each aspect in the description of the new China pointing directly to the government’s reform blueprint. While the narrative on the surface rejoices in the advances that “have been” brought about by the reform policies, there is also a dark countertext warning of the fate of a China humiliated by the Western powers if the reforms are not carried out. A theater play, “Please, Open the National Assembly!” (Qing kai guohui 請開國會), which the narrator sees at the beginning of the novel, contains in a nutshell both the novel’s narrative of future successes and its warnings regarding failure. The influence of Liang Qichao’s Future Record of New China is visible here. The ten-act piece dramatizes the history of modern China from the humiliation in the Sino-Japanese War to the imagined successful opening of parliament and the abolishment of the unequal treaties. The credit for having pulled China out of the crisis goes to the Qing court’s reforms and its introduction of a constitution. It is a history of national humiliation and salvation through political reform very much in the trajectory of Liang Qichao’s own political views. The political reforms “have helped” China to become “civilized.” Only after China “had reached” a certain standard of civilization could it demand and achieve equal status with the world’s leading powers. Being civilized not only meant having a constitution, but having reached a high level of development in the quality of people’s material and moral lives. At one point, the narrator is asked to go on stage and tell the audience what life was like forty years ago. The China he describes sounds so bizarre that no one in the audience believes him (p. 508). What the novel here terms

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“China’s grotesqueness” (Zhongguo guaixiang 中國怪象) of the “past” is for readers the China before their eyes. This scene evokes a similar sense of alienated incredulity to the lampooning of the all-too-familiar reform jargon in the Kingdom of Fake Reform of A New Flowers in the Mirror. However, Lu’s novel has China overcome this grotesqueness through reform, whereas the grotesqueness seen through the eyes of Mr. Desolately Depressed was the result of poor implementation of reforms. There is no indication that foreign powers are the cause of the sorry state of Chinese affairs or that they are interested in maintaining it. The responsibility is with the Chinese, as is the agency for finding a way out. The international community willingly goes along as China progresses. Lu Shi’e’s belief in the effectiveness of the political system to transform the people appears to falter, however, once he sets out to describe the concrete process of reform. For a description of the material and institutional solutions to China’s problems, models had existed since Bellamy, but the author’s imagination seems to fail him once he has to deal with the much-discussed issue of fostering the new citizenry needed for a new society. Instead of confronting this complex problem head-on, he resorts to a type of scientism fashionable at the time in China and elsewhere. In the chapter headed “The ‘Prompt Awakening Technique’ shatters the thick dreams of the sleeping lion; and the ‘Heart’s Remedy’ saves the country from its serious disease,” he suggests magical solutions rather than political ones. The two most common diseases among the citizens had been the sleeping disease and the black heart disease. A medical student, Mr. WakeUp-the-Han-People (Su Hanmin 蘇漢民), has come up with two great medical inventions: the “Heart Cure” (Yixinyao 醫心藥) and the “Prompt Awakening Technique” (Cuixingshu 催醒術). The Heart Cure brings people with evil thoughts back to virtuous ways; revives hearts that have died; transforms black hearts into red hearts; gives people conscience who had none; and changes evil conscience to its opposite, foot-dragging into determination, fear into courage, a wicked heart into a kind heart, and a jealous heart into a compassionate heart (p. 479). This treatment had cured the Chinese of their “sick man of Asia” behavior. Prompt Awakening—a term modeled on its opposite, “hypnosis” (cui mian shu 催眠術)—is a treatment for people who are unable to wake up. “Those people might have very good hearts,” the schoolmaster explains,

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“but they are forever in a sleepy mood, not knowing when the sun is rising or the moon is sinking. After treatment, however, they are fully awakened (juewu 覺悟), and no other treatment will be necessary” (p. 480). With these inventions, the school has attracted many students from Europe, America, and Japan. “Heart Cure” sells especially well. At one time domestic sales were as high as ten thousand packs (of twelve pills each) a day, but, since most Chinese are now cured, domestic sales have dropped while sales in countries such as colonized Korea and Vietnam are up (ibid.). This dream of a medical solution to the difficult problem of changing people’s attitudes and values might appear to be a sign of the author’s doubts about the power of new institutions such as schools to achieve this fast enough. However, Lu Shi’e is joining a discussion that started in China only shortly after the Sino-Japanese War and was in fact following an American trajectory. Joyce Liu has offered a series of fine studies of the way New Thought, a late-nineteenth-century scientist fashion from the United States that eventually was instrumental in creating new organizations such as Scientology, was translated and instrumentalized by Chinese political reformers.85 None of the Qing edicts calling for reform proposals included the issue of “renovating the people” or creating a new kind of “citizen of the nation,” on the assumption that, as in Japan, top-down reforms would bring about the required behavioral changes; this was an assessment people associated with Liang Qichao shared with the court. The other achievements mentioned in the novel, such as the constitution, military advances, and scientific progress, all are said to strengthen the state. This includes the fostering of new talent for state administration. While the author maintains the need for a fundamental change in public attitudes, 85. In 1896 John Fryer had translated one of the key works of the New Thought Movement, Henry Wood’s (1834–1909) Ideal Suggestion through Mental Photography, which had come out in 1893. The books extolled what Fryer translated as xin li 心力, “psychic power,” for its ability to correct wrong thinking and even sickness through a kind of self-hypnosis. Chinese reformers from Tan Sitong 譚嗣同 to Liang Qichao and the editor of the Dongfang zazhi, Du Yaquan 杜亞泉, were amply quoting this translation and saw in it a “scientific” way to cure what they saw as the flaws and weaknesses of the Chinese psyche. They changed, however, the agent bringing this change about from the self to the state, which manages the reeducation of the citizens with “scientific” means of thought improvement. Joyce Chi-hui Liu, “Count of Psyche”; Liu Jihui, “Xin de zhili.”

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he seems reluctant to go beyond the framework of the court’s edicts by calling for a societal push for attitude change that would not be managed by the state. The science-fiction “medical” solution demonstrates the urgency of the issue while avoiding the minefield of societal agency or despairing of its viability.

Constitutional Ways out of the Hell of the Past The popularity of science fantasy during the late Qing, David Wang has argued, “indicates, more than any other genre, the desire of late Qing writers and readers to review and rehearse the fate of their nation, or to learn about the logos that lay behind the historical surface.”86 At the same time, the often overdrawn fantasies of the future glories of China reflect the depths of the despair and desperation with which these authors looked at present-day China and its citizens. Already in Liang Qichao’s Future Record these fantasies are quite developed. None of the later authors promises less, and many promise much more. The link between China of the future and constitutional reform was directly reflected in the title of some novels, such as Lixian jing 立憲鏡 (A mirror held up to constitutional reform; 1906) and Xian zhi hun 憲之 魂 (The soul of the constitution; 1907).87 The author of the first of these novels, Mr. Wu from Hangzhou (Hangzhou Wugong 杭州戊 公) explains the title: “Now that the government has issued the order to prepare for the establishment of the constitution, the purpose of this novel is to [answer this call] and wake up ordinary citizens so that every person will be ready [for it with the right] spirit.”88 The novel depicts deception and corruption as well as heroic efforts and dedication by reformers on the road to create the social conditions for the momentous social transformation. Unfortunately, just after the novel announces that a hero will appear in this hour of need who will change the direction of the country and help to create a new world, it breaks off and no more installments are published. 86. David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, p. 255. 87. Hangzhou Wugong, Lixian jing, which is identified as a shehui xiaoshuo (social novel) on the front page; Xinshijie xiaoshuo she, Xian zhi hun, identified as a huaji xiaoshuo (comic novel) in the table of contents. 88. Hangzhou Wugong, Lixian jing, p. 1.

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The avowed purpose of The Soul of the Constitution is also to “wake up the citizens” to prepare for the coming of a constitutional political system. Fortunately, this work was completed, and we have the full panorama of the promised future. In an innovative turn, the story offers a spatial allegory for time by depicting tradition as a dark hell run by ghouls and demons. This was a potent image for contemporary readers, as a scenario in gory colors of the eighteen courts of hell (often mechanized) was a regular feature in the temple of the City God that could be found in every town and that was used to remind onlookers of the suffering awaiting those who sinned. Even in this dark hell of the past, however, things are stirring. The king of hell himself (= the court) had tried some reforms—following the basic strategy used by the Kingdom of Wu outlined in Lu Shi’e’s New Three Kingdoms and with the same dire results: his place is broke and under the control of foreign powers. This was in the years between 1895 and 1905, and now things are taking a positive turn. The spirits of reformers associated with Kang Youwei who had been executed during the 1898 persecution start to agitate for a reform of hell. This represents the steeply rising impact of reform ideas since 1900 spread through the media as well as social organizations and networks. As the court eventually realizes that continuing to reject constitutional reform is no longer an option, a ray of light—the court’s announcement on preparing for constitutional reform— sends shock waves through hell as it signals that the old corrupt ways will be eradicated. The new policies go well beyond a constitution, but also include redistributing land, reforming the tax code, issuing government bonds, allowing private investment in mining, promoting modern education, and establishing a modern navy. Within three years, hell is transformed into a mighty power that is able to defeat the foreign invaders and reclaim its territorial sovereignty. To top off the “darkness of tradition versus light of modernity” allegory with a grand finale, the red sun rises in the east, and its rays ultimately obliterate all the ghouls and demons together with the dark hell of tradition itself. In a departure from the often stale literary devices used in other novels, the allegories used here for tradition are creative, and the parodies of contemporary developments are deft and original. They evince a new urban sensibility that is no longer overawed by the authority of the court, but approaches it with ironic distance. As the rousing ending of reform

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achieved returns to the stock routine of the political novel to offer the reader a concrete vision of the benefits of reform, it also makes the argument that political reform that is not accompanied by institutional reform is bound to fail. Two other works sought ways to deal with the politics of the present while avoiding the trite didacticism of political lectures. They used a satirical format to treat the shift from impending demise to final triumph due to the successful implementation of the constitutional reform, drawing on material familiar to the educated reader from the Zhuangzi to help him or her decipher the allegory. These are Wo Chu Man sanguo zhengdi ji 蝸觸蠻三國爭地記 (Territorial war between Snail, Speck, and Mite Country; 1908),89 by a writer signing his name with another pun on the Zhuangzi as “Mr. Recluse for Whom Wriggling Comes Naturally” (Chong tian yishi shi 蟲天逸史氏),90 and [Yuyan xiaoshuo] Xin shu shi [寓言小説] 新鼠史 (The history of the rats’ reform. An allegorical novel; 1908),91 by Bao Youfu 包柚斧, a writer who owes his fame to his sentimental novels. Alluding to the Zhuangzi story about the pettiness of the snail and the two tiny “states” at each of its horns going to war, Wo Chu Man sanguo zhengdi ji, which is set during the Russo-Japanese War, relates how Snail Country (China), oppressed by Speck Country (Japan) and Mite Country (Russia), is forced to undertake difficult reforms but is helped by dedication and talent. The reader is now treated to the usual features of railroads being built, steel mills going up, and mines being opened by male experts while women scholars modernize the textile industry and capable military men use modern weapons manufactured in China. Surprisingly, these developments are not in the bright future but in the very recent past, and the emperor is now confident that the conditions for a constitution are ripe. This last step in the reform greatly strengthens the country, and, although no red sun is rising here, Snail Country ends up defeating the Specks and the Mites. Xin shu shi announces itself as an “allegorical novel” and obliges by having the author insert the decoding of the allegories directly into the 89. Serialized in Zhuzuo lin 著作林; also in 1908, a book edition came out from the Yingxu guan 蠅鬚館 in Shanghai. 90. See Chong tian yishi, “Bianwen.” 91. You Fu (Bao Youfu), Xin shu shi.

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Figure 4.2. “A Look at China Now and in the Past” (“Zhongguo zhi jinxi guan” 中國之今昔觀). Upper right side: “China under the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors” (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), showing a roaring Chinese tiger rushing at the foreigners as they run. Lower right side: “China during the reigns of Xianfeng and Tongzhi” (first half of the nineteenth century), in which the tiger sits immobile as the unarmed foreigners approach it like children, taunting it. Upper left side: “China of today,” where the tiger still looks big, but the foreigners notice that its internal mechanism is dead. Lower left side: “China in the future,” showing each gleeful foreigner marching off with a part of the dead tiger. (Shenzhou ribao 神州日報, 1911.)

text. It describes how Rat Country, close to collapse, undertakes the necessary reforms for self-strengthening. Not only does the country’s status improve; it also regains its glorious past as Tiger Country, a metaphor used for China at the time (figure 4.2). The analysis of China’s past, present crisis, and future glory is captured in the new-style chapter headings: Chapter 1:

Chapter 2:

Chapter 3:

“Rat Kingdom,” in which the author relates how the ancestors of the rats were in fact tigers; however, as time went by, they lost their original proud, brave, and independent tiger nature and began to reproduce as rats. “Rat Thieves,” in which the rats, increasingly poor since they have lost the ability to hunt, become desperate for food and resort to stealing from others without compunction. “Rat Peril” (a pun on “Yellow Peril” 黃禍 based on the similarity between the characters for “rat” 蝸 and for “peril” 禍), in which the rat thieves become brazen and shameless.

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Chapter 4:

“Rat Enemy,” in which the rats are routed by those from whom they have been stealing. Chapter 5: “Rat Escape,” in which the rats begin to retreat when they see other rats being eaten by an unfamiliar animal that somehow resembles their tiger ancestor. Chapter 6: “Rat Worries,” in which this enemy turns out to be the cat, which the rats had mistakenly assumed to be their ancestor and therefore were not on their guard against (the Opium Wars). Chapter 7: “Rat Decay,” in which Rat Country is in total denial of the impending crisis to the race of rats with only a few (enlightened reformers) trying to think of ways to save the nation. Chapter 8: “Rat Slave,” in which, suing for peace with the invading cat, the rat agrees to became the cat’s slave. Chapter 9: “Rat Reform,” in which Rat Country follows the guideline “When faced with threats from the outside, one must first reform one’s own political system” (referring to constitutional reform). Chapter 10: “Rat Finds Allies,” in which the rats, ready to fight back, realize that alone they would be too weak and therefore ally with other animals—Japan and the United States—harassed by the tiger/cat (Russia). Chapter 11: “Rat Revenge,” the result of the country’s being reinvigorated through its political reforms. And finally, Chapter 12: “Rat Independence,” which is achieved first by imitating the cat, but once Rat Country has become strong and selfconfident, it again becomes the real tiger.

There is a commentary to spell out the fable’s not too hidden meaning. The form of the narrative is lively and imaginative as well as economical, and the fable is enlivened by cutting satire. The message could not be missed: establish a constitution or perish.

A Double Farce: Wu Jianren on the Citizens and the Constitution The literary magazine All-Story Monthly (Yueyue xiaoshuo), edited by Wu Jianren,92 highlights its direct tie with—but also its critical stance to—the 92. On Wu Jianren, see Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe, pp. 243–46; Doleželová, “Biographies,” pp. 207–8; for research materials, see Wei Shaochang, Wu Jianren yanjiu ziliao.

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Xinzheng reforms in the first words of its opening statement in November 1906: “Today, the edict on constitutional reform has been promulgated. However, the basis for constitutional reform is self-government. This cannot be achieved by only a few enlightened members of the gentry class, but will depend on the majority of the citizens in this country.” The writer proposes to use the novel as a means to educate the common reader and create a line of communication between the court and society.93 Between 1906 and 1908 Wu Jianren published five short stories on the topic of constitutional reform.94 Ouyang Jian has pointed out that in writing these stories Wu Jianren experimented with most of the different literary styles used by writers at the time for this topic.95 He used his sharp social and political observations and his mastery of the satirical style to be the first to come out with a “farce” (huaji 滑稽), emblazoned with the triumphant title “Celebration on the Occasion of the Establishment of the Constitution!” 慶祝立憲, immediately followed by the subtitle “Alas, So Much for the Reform of Governance” 籲嗟乎新政策. In the story, three characters discuss the implications of the 1906 “Announcement.” They do not focus on the slow pace of progress, the reluctance of the court to proceed, or the content of the edict itself but on their doubts about whether people in China have the qualities needed to make a constitution work. One of the men opines that there is only one way to prepare the Chinese for reform, namely, “to open the stomach of the four hundred million Chinese, take out their guts, and send them to the Pacific Ocean to be thoroughly scrubbed clean” because there is no other way to get rid of their “selfishness and opportunism” 自私自 利，因循觀望.96 The story “Zhunbei lixian” 準備立憲 (Preparing for the establishment of the constitution) of the same year expresses similar 93. Lujiang Yanling gongzi, “Yueyue xiaoshuo chuban.” 94. These are “Qingzhu lixian” 慶祝立憲 (Celebration on the occasion of the establishment of the constitution; 1906); “Zhunbei lixian” 準備立憲 (Preparation for the establishment of the constitution; 1906); “Da gaige” 大改革 (The great reform; 1906); “Lixian wansui” 立憲萬歲 (Long live the constitution; 1907); and “Guangxu wannian” 光緒萬年 (May the Guangxu emperor reign for ten thousand years; 1908). For a bibliography of studies on Wu Jianren’s short stories on establishing the constitution, see Nakashima, “Wu Jianren.” 95. Ouyang Jian, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, p. 294. 96. Wu Jianren, “Lixian wansui,” pp. 538–39.

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doubts. Here an opium addict is trying to figure out what the strange expression “establishment of the constitution” might mean. No one seems to have the slightest idea. When he happens to find the address of a “reformer” who certainly would know, the man has just left for the seaside to “breathe some fresh air.”97 Finally, as he collapses in an opium den, he is enlightened by a fellow addict: actually the whole things boils down to “buying lottery tickets.” As only the rich will have the right to vote (for the upper house, as discussed at the time), the only way for an average person to qualify is to get rich by buying a lottery ticket. Once this is done, one can vote for a relative. In that way one’s interest will always be taken care of and there will be nothing to fear (pp. 545–46). “Long Live the Constitution!” also lampoons the numerous official delegations going abroad to investigate political systems. Upon hearing that the court on earth has issued an edict on constitutional reform, the Jade Emperor decides that heaven must not fall behind. He directly dispatches a five-member team that includes Monkey and Pigsy from the novel Journey to the West to Europe and America to investigate their political systems. A group of heavenly officials sets out to sabotage this effort since they reckon that constitutional reform will reduce their power and financial benefits. They fail in their attempt to kill the team with a roadside bomb, and the delegation gets on its way. However, the only member able to speak a foreign language is Pigsy, who had studied in Japan, but, given his strongly carnal bent, the delegation learns little of use about constitutions. When political reform is finally implemented in heaven, critics discover that every political institution now has a new name, but in fact there are more useless bureaucrats than ever and all the useless people now have jobs in the new government. Under these conditions, no one in heaven is opposed to the constitutional reforms any longer. In this way, the story also pokes fun at the revolutionaries. They sound radical but in fact change position readily if this suits their self-interest. The addressees of this deeply ambivalent take on the readiness of the Chinese people for a parliamentary system were like-minded reformers and policy makers. The issue had already found its way into fiction in the wedge of Liu E’s 劉鶚 (1857–1909) Laocan youji 老殘遊記 (The travels of 97. Wu Jianren, “Zhunbei lixian,” p. 543.

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Laocan) and was widely discussed in the press.98 Wu Jianren supports the ideal behind the reform, his critiques notwithstanding. Following these stories, the Yueyue xiaoshuo published a whole group of novels dealing with the establishment of a constitution. Besides the already discussed A New Flowers in the Mirror and The World of the Future, these included [Shehui xiaoshuo] Zhongguo jinhua xiaoshi [社會 小説]中國進化小史 (A short history of China’s progress. A social novel; 1906), by Yanshi goutu 燕市狗屠; [Huaji xiaoshuo] Xin Fengshen zhuan [滑稽小説]新封神傳 (A new Enfeoffment of the Gods. A satirical novel; 1906–7), by Dalu 大陸; [Shehui xiaoshuo] Xin wutai hongxue ji [社會小 説]新舞臺鴻雪記 (Events on the new stage revealed. A social novel; 1907), by Tao Baopi 陶報癖; and [Huixie xiaoshuo] Tianguo weixin [詼諧 小説]天國維新 (Political reform in heaven. A satirical novel; 1908), by Xiang feizi 想飛子. Like Li Boyuan’s Short History of Civilization, Wu Jianren’s stories about the constitution take on a political issue of the time but follow in the track of his other novels of social criticism by offering sharply drawn satirical observations on the failure of both court and society to live up to the high ideals associated with constitutional government without, however, suggesting a way out of this conundrum, as political novels were wont to do.

Conclusions The political novel is an articulation of society that reflects a shared assessment of the areas where society rather than the state can unfold its 98. A Shenbao editorial from this time started: “The time for the reform of our polity and the implementation of our constitutional reform is at hand. However, among the foundations for a constitution nothing is more important than local self-government 自治, and for self-government nothing is more important than that the gentry take charge to set up the machinery. But how many of them . . . are ready to assume the responsibility of being a leader in parliament? . . . If above [at the level of the state] there is a political system with a constitution but below there is no citizenry with the caliber for a constitution 下無立憲之民質, no matter how beautiful the idea, it will produce no result. Therefore, today’s great responsibility lies with the members of the gentry . . . to train people qualified for self-government to prepare themselves for effective use at a later date.” “Lun shendong duiyu difang zizhi.”

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agency. Political novels therefore only take up a selection of the issues addressed by the Reform of Governance. Reform of the diplomatic service, police, military, or law did not become topics of political novels, whereas the reform of education, the establishment of a constitution, and the emancipation of women did, together with the question of where the agency for these reforms could and would be found under the specific Chinese circumstances. Political novels engaged with the Reform of Governance but insisted on setting their own agendas independently of the court. This independence might show up in a novel’s key protagonist bluntly going beyond the narrow confines of government-mandated reforms, as is the case in Huang Xiuqiu, but also in insisting on a role for intellectual reformers as guides for the court’s policies, as in a novel that emphasized the need for enlightened state action such as Zou Yan’s Talk. Although all the novels agreed on the need for reforms, there is a wide range in their depictions of the problems the reforms were to solve, the steps necessary to solve them, and the respective roles of state and society in this process. As a literary genre that is, nearly without exception, linked to a strategy of gradual reform that avoids the turbulence and destruction of a “revolutionary” turn, the political novel comes with a strong role for the institutions of the state. Although this never involved a blind trust in the steps these institutions might take, in the Chinese case the wariness is exacerbated by the 1898 experience as well as the hesitant pace with which the Reform of Governance was seen to proceed in many areas. At the same time, the social forces that could take on an active role in pushing for reforms were just forming, and distrust in the civilizational caliber of the Chinese common folk as well as the elites was widely shared. The assumption that sustainable institutionalization of the reforms could ultimately be provided only by the state is reflected in the refusal of these novels to advocate a revolution, while the need, under the Chinese conditions, for constant and even radical pressure to get the state moving is reflected in the refusal of these novels to denounce radical actions. The key protagonists themselves do not engage in them, but they are seen as benefiting from the threat that such radicalism might find support if their reasonable and modest demands are not met. Political novels are just one among a variety of platforms of articulation for reform ideas and opinions about the content and execution of

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the Reform of Governance. Although I have shown that they closely interact with other such articulations, their literary form provides them with a medium that does not simply express abstract thoughts through concrete plots and protagonists but enables them independently to explore questions for which the available conceptual apparatus is not or not yet suited. This chapter has focused on three areas that show this independent potential of articulation most clearly: the agency of state and society in the reform process, the sequence of civilizing the citizens and instituting a constitution, and the opening of new channels of communication between court and society by men of letters acting as critical advisors. The novels take it upon themselves not simply to reflect on an ongoing social process but to contribute to the reform process. They do so through a concrete and often utopian description of the hoped-for outcome of the reform process but most importantly by showing in symbolic or allegorical form the key protagonists of the advancement and obstruction of the reform process, and by offering guidance to reformers by depicting the specific political and social environment with which reformers have to cope and then offering model actions performed by the protagonists. In contrast, authors of novels of social criticism such as Li Boyuan and Wu Jianren, who also took up some of the Reform of Governance issues discussed in political novels at the time, remained within their original genre convention by not offering a utopian perspective or specific guidance.

Chapter 5

Women and New China

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n the international as well as reformers’ assessment of the viability and prospects of the Qing state, the treatment, education, and role of Han women were key markers of China’s place in the progress of “civilization.”1 Many political novels addressed these issues, which brought a new dimension to the discussion about the polity: the family and social reform. Female protagonists play a major role in these novels, representing China’s problem as well as being part of its solution. Thus many of these novels specifically addressed women as their targeted readers and created revolutionary heroines as models for emulation. Their agenda is not restricted to women being liberated for the greater benefit of the country as a whole. The national agenda spills over into the private realm, which the novels reflect through tensions in gender relationships. The women’s contribution to the nation’s well-being hinges on a resetting of their relationships to men. Since the eighteenth century, the court had taken steps to discourage female infanticide and foot-binding; voices critical of the increasingly restrictive treatment of women were heard among the Han Chinese; and some men took steps to promote women’s education and women

1. This notion of being “civilized” was introduced by Western missionaries to China; see Chin, “Translating the New Women,” pp. 492–93. Since the Scottish enlightenment, the social position of women had become a yardstick for a country’s degree of civilization. See Alexander, History of Women, vol. 1, p. 151. On Western criticism of Chinese foot-binding, see Xia Xiaohong, Wan Qing wenren, p. 57.

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poets.2 The discussion took on a transnational dimension after the 1860s when foreign missionaries began denouncing female infanticide and footbinding in China as utterly uncivilized.3 Eventually, southern Chinese elite families joined in this debate.4 This was soon accompanied by discussions on the question of equal rights for women and women’s education.5 As early as 1872, many of these ideas figured prominently on the editorial pages of the Shenbao and Wanguo gongbao newspapers in Shanghai,6 and from the late 1880s they gradually entered the broader reform discourse.7 In 1897 Liang Qichao bluntly declared that “every day’s delay in changing foot-binding is a day’s delay in setting up women’s education” 纏足一 日不變，則女學一日不立.8 Quoting Mengzi—“to live a life of idleness yet not to seek education is paramount to living the life of a beast”—he linked the practice to the backwardness of Chinese civilization. Claiming that China’s feebleness was rooted in denying women an education, he emphasized the consequences for China’s standing in the world.9 In his essay Lun nüxue 論女學 (On education for women), Liang argued bluntly that “China’s accumulated weakness has arisen, fundamentally, from the lack of education for women.”10 Drawing on Timothy Richard’s (1845–1919) essay “Methods of Producing and of Sharing Profits—a Single Argument 2. Idema and Grant, Red Brush, pp. 618–20. On differences of opinion on women’s learning among the Chinese male elites before the late-nineteenth-century political reform movement, see Ho, “Cultivation of Female Talent”; Liu Yongcong, “Qingchu sichao.” On the eighteenth century, see Mann, Precious Records, esp. pp. 76–120; for the debate between the Qing dynasty historian, writer, and philosopher Zhang Xuecheng (1738–1801) and the poet and scholar Yuan Mei (1716–97) on women’s education, see p. 93. 3. Interesting documentation of the Qing government’s efforts at abolishing female infanticide can be found in L’infanticide et l’oeuvre de la sainte-enfance en Chine (1878). 4. Xia Xiaohong, Wan Qing wenren, pp. 4–5. 5. On the various positions regarding women’s rights and education during the late Qing period as articulated in the press, see Sudō, “Concepts of Women’s Rights,” pp. 473–89; Nanxiu Qian, “Mother Nü xuebao.” On the impact of Japan on formulating the different positions, see Judge, “Talent, Virtue, and the Nation.” 6. See Wagner, “Women in Shenbaoguan Publications.” 7. Xia Xiaohong, Wan Qing wenren, pp. 4–5. 8. Ibid., p. 43. 9. See Ying Hu, Tales, pp. 162–67; Nanxiu Qian, “Mother Nü xuebao,” pp. 267–28. 10. Liang Qichao, “Lun nüxue,” quoted from Nanxiu Qian, “Mother Nü xuebao,” p. 267.

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to Smash a Thousand Superstitions,”11 which argued that national wealth should grow apace with national population, Liang added a twist by reading this as a criticism of the “parasite” status of Chinese women. In order to change the idle and useless status of Chinese women and enable them to become part of the productive labor force, women must receive education in practical knowledge and skills.12 The discussion did not stop here. The public versus private role of women in their contribution to the progress of the country once they joined the ranks of new citizens was further debated among reformers. They would have to learn to assume public responsibilities while not neglecting their domestic duties. In the words of the late Qing reformer Jin Yi 金一, “Women will be the mothers of the citizens of our nation (guomin zhi mu 國民之母),” but how could they shoulder this monumental task without being educated? The thinking behind this view was related to the “good wives and wise mothers” model advocated by the Meiji government that situates women’s role as modern citizens primarily in the home.13 Through different publications, including journals founded by women, women’s voices became very much part of this debate, and these voices were far from unified. Reacting to the primacy given by male reformers to the national agenda for women’s education, some women called for joining this nation building by becoming independent of men through education and further demanded the right of direct participation in national affairs.14 Others saw men and women as having different roles to play in a time of national crisis. “[Women] need to go to school to acquire the capability of fulfilling their duties, not for becoming female scholars (nü boshi 女博士) or women of talent (nü caizi 女才子).” All of this came under the banner of loving one’s country (aiguo 愛國).15 More radically nationalist women were highly critical of the “good wives and wise mothers” doctrine, envisaged a strong public role for Chinese women, 11. Li Timotai (Timothy Richard), “Shengli fenli zhi fa yiyan po wan mi shuo.” 12. Nanxiu Qian, “Mother Nü xuebao,” p. 267. 13. Jin Yi, Ziyou xue, pp. 1–2. For an analysis of this work, see Yeh, “Life-Style of Four Wenren,” pp. 419–70. See also Sudō, “Concepts of Women’s Rights,” pp. 475–77; Ying Hu, Tales, pp. 165–67; Judge, “Talent, Virtue, and the Nation,” pp. 771–72. 14. Nanxiu Qian, “Mother Nü xuebao,” pp. 265–73. 15. Chen Xiefen, “Nü xuetang,” quoted from ibid., p. 277.

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and saw the future of China hinging on equal rights and responsibilities for women along with their participation in national affairs.16 Since women had been a party in giving up their own rights, they had to shoulder at least half of the responsibility for their backwardness. Thus some called for women to unite and struggle for self-determination against their own “dependent nature.”17 The most extreme among the women voices called for a war between the sexes. Espousing an anarchist-feminist perspective, these women encouraged women to retaliate against men: “Everything in society depends on human beings to come to fruition, and [even] the conception of human beings in fact comes from men and women. Therefore if today we wish to create a revolution in society, we must begin with a revolution [in the relations] between men and women.”18 This current identified three main targets: Confucianism, which legitimized and sustained the system of women’s subordination; the hypocrisy of Euro-American ideas about equality between men and women; and Chinese ideas about women’s liberation that arose from a male-centered point of view.19 Other issues raised in this context were the role of traditional learning (which had produced the so-called talented woman, or cainü 才女) in nation building; the ideal of the talented woman versus that of the new female heroine (nüjie 女傑); “natural rights” (tian fu renquan 天賦人權) versus the responsibility of being the “mother of citizens”; and citizenship duties versus the rights of the individual.20 Despite the diversity of opinion, there was general agreement about the urgency of a modern education for girls that included science, practical knowledge, and physical education, and private girls’ schools began to pop up in cities and towns across the country. 16. Qiu Jin, for example, represented this point of view; see Judge, “Talent, Virtue, and the Nation,” pp. 771–72 and 785–87. 17. Zhang Zhujun 張竹君 (1876–1964), the famous late Qing woman doctor, represents this point of view; see Sudō, “Concepts of Women’s Rights,” pp. 481–83. 18. Han Yi, “Hui jia lun,” cited from ibid., p. 483. 19. The anarchist He Zhen 何震 (late nineteenth century), for example, represents this point of view. See Zarrow, “He Zhen”; Sudō, “Concepts of Women’s Rights,” pp. 483–86. 20. See Yu-ning Li, Chinese Feminist Thought; Sudō, “Concepts of Women’s Rights”; Judge, Precious Raft.

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Whereas the court had responded positively to the call to prohibit foot-binding—after all Manchu women did not bind their feet—it strongly opposed the push for women’s education in public schools. In 1904 it issued regulations for school and home education, often invoked to close down girls’ schools, because “young girls must not be encouraged to join together and enter schools or to go out into the streets.”21 Female education should only take place within the family and under the tutelage of the mother or a female attendant. In other words, the responsibility for women’s education was not with the state but the family.22 In 1907 the new Ministry of Education reacted to social agitation and the groundswell of new private women’s schools23—by this time ministry statistics counted 428 private girls’ schools—by issuing guidelines for girls’ schools and teacher training colleges for women.24 Still, the ministry’s regulations were highly restrictive and did not address the main principles driving the agenda of social reformers with regard to women’s education: equality between men and women, and the political importance of women’s education for educating the new citizens of the nation. Some individual school guidelines had already stipulated that “to lay the groundwork for a grand unfolding of the people’s knowledge, care must be taken to ensure that women enjoy their natural rights” 為大開民智張本，必使 婦人自有之權 (1897) and others had gone so far as to claim that “to advance the knowledge, ethics, and physical strength of women has the overall purpose of getting them to unfold their patriotic attitude” 以增進 女子智，德，體力，使有以副其愛國心為宗旨 (1902).25 21. Xuebu, “Zou ding mengyangyuan zhangcheng.” 22. On developments in education for girls during the Reform of Governance period, see Liao Xiuzhen, “Qingmo nüxue,” pp. 224–27. On the importance of the regulations of 1907, see Taga, comp. Kindai Chūgoku kyōikushi, p. 73. 23. Xia Xiaohong, Wan Qing wenren, p. 24. 24. See “Xuebu zou ding nüzi xiaoxuetang zhangcheng” and “Xuebu zou ding nüzi shifan xuetang zhangcheng zhe.” 25. “Shanghai xin she Zhongguo nüxuetang zhangcheng” 上海新設中國女學堂章 程 (Rules and regulations for Shanghai’s newly established China Girl’s School) and “Aiguo nü xuexiao jiachen qiuji buding zhangcheng” 愛國女學校甲辰秋季補訂章程 (Supplementary school regulations for the Patriotic Girls’ School, Fall 1904), quoted from Xia Xiaohong, Wan Qing wenren, p. 25. Both guidelines are from private female schools established in Shanghai. The first founded in 1896 with the help of Liang Qichao, Chen Jitong, and his French wife; the second founded in 1903 with the help of Cai Yuanpei and Jin Yi. For a detailed study on Chen Jitong, see Yeh, “Life-Style of Four Wenren,” pp. 445–47.

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Against these claims the 1907 ministry documents stress “Chinese female virtue” as something “revered throughout the ages” 中國女德，曆 代崇重. It comprised “striving for the fine virtues of chaste restraint, obedience, kindness and parsimony, in fine, never to go against traditional Chinese proper decorum and the custom of female modesty.” Accordingly, its school regulations emphasized that “women should make it the principal guideline of their behavior to obey father, mother, husband, and oldest son.”26 The ministry explicitly rejected what it called “the objectionable doctrines of uncontrolled liberty” that would “disregard the separation between men and women,” promote “selecting one’s own marriage partner,” or even “speaking at political meetings.”27 Curriculum and the creation of textbooks were another major battleground.28 In short, the Qing court’s policies were far behind the social movement that was pushing for women’s emancipation and education, and was increasingly expressing frustration with those policies. Pushing back against the court’s stance, some political novels went for radical solutions. The treatment of women’s issues in political novels at this time thus has a 26. “Xuebu zouding nüzi shifan xuetang,” p. 812. 27. “Xuebu zouding nüzi xiaoxuetang,” p. 801; “Xuebu zouding nüzi shifan xuetang,” p. 812. 28. The schools founded by reformers stressed foreign languages, mathematics, medicine, law, and pedagogy besides the study of Chinese language and writing (wenfa 文法, guowen 國文), Chinese history, and home economics (fu gong 婦功). The 1907 ministry regulations stressed traditionally accepted subjects for girls’ education such as moral cultivation 修身 and Chinese writing 國文, but also mathematics, Chinese history, geography, science, painting, needlework 女紅, and physical exercise; music was not mandatory. For the course on moral cultivation, Ban Zhao’s Lienü zhuan 列女傳 (Biographies of virtuous women) or the Nü xiao jing 女孝經 (Classic of female filial piety) were regarded as appropriate. Two points are fundamentally at variance with the reformers’ views on female education. First, although the regulations pay lip service to Western learning in the form of mathematics, geography, and science (no foreign language is included), they gave no real substance to it because these fields only appeared in the context of personal hygiene and family planning. Second, the ministry’s focus was on upholding traditional Chinese female virtues. Even the regulations for teacher training colleges for women defined the purpose of women’s education as teaching students obedience to parents and husband. The whole purpose of women’s education was to create a modernized version of the virtuous wife and good mother.

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double countertext, exploring the court’s policies and social attitudes. Quite a few authors were themselves involved in setting up schools for girls, and their frustration and antagonism toward the court shows up in their novels. The handling of the new female protagonists was a learning process for authors of fictional works. David Wang has pointed to some precedents writers could and did draw on, especially the image of the “chivalric woman” (xianü 俠女) in earlier fiction that could help flesh out the image of “new chivalric woman” (xin nüxia 新女俠), the woman revolutionary.29 To depict a woman as the central character in a political struggle or even as a militant heroine was not only a stimulus to the literary imagination, but also sensational enough to create a page-turner. As a consequence, political novels of the time show women in a wide range of contexts. Yi Suo’s Huang Xiuqiu, discussed earlier, becomes the leader in a private initiative to set up a girls’ school; at the other extreme, Heroines of Eastern Europe (1902) shows women anarchists in action against an autocratic system. Qingtian zhai 情天債 (Debts in the realm of love; 1903), a work labeled by its horn-title as a Novel of Women’s Patriotism (Nüzi aiguo xiaoshuo 女子愛國小説), has women realize the crisis of the country and become politically active.30 Nüyu hua 女獄花 (Flowers from the women’s hell; 1904) and Nüwa shi 女媧石 (The stones of Goddess Nüwa; 1904) with its horn-title A Novel about Maidens Saving the Country (Guixiu jiuguo xiaoshuo 閨秀救國小說) have women pushing for female supremacy—for which a new term, nüquan 女權, was created. Xiayi jiaren 俠義佳人 (The chivalrous beauties; 1909), by Jixi wen yu nüshi 績溪問漁 女士, again takes up the theme of female education and the social problems confronting modern girls’ schools. Zhan Kai’s 詹塏 (1873?–?) Zhongguo xin nühao 中國新女豪 (A new heroine for China; 1907) and [Guomin xiaoshuo] Nüzi quan [國民小說]女子權 (Women’s rights. A novel about citizenship; 1907) describe women fighting for suffrage and the freedom to choose their own partner in marriage as part of China’s salvation. Two different works sharing the same title, Xianü hun 俠女魂 (The spirit of chivalric women), one published in 1906 and the other 29. Wang, Fin-de-Siècle splendor, p. 170. 30. Donghai jue wo (Xu Nianci), Qingtian zhai.

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in 1909, show Chinese heroines in righteous revolutionary struggle.31 Foot-binding is at the center of Zhongguo zhi nü tongxiang 中國之女銅像 (The bronze statue of the daughter of China; 1909),32 and an alternative view of traditional women’s education and social standing provides another sequel to Flowers in the Mirror, also called A New Flowers in the Mirror (Xin Jing hua yuan 新鏡花緣; 1908), which will be discussed below. One of the authors summed up what was at stake in these novels: “As the novel was in part responsible for the creation of these sentimental and overly refined men and women of China as well as a weak state, it must also be the engine of the cure.”33

The Face of the Woman Heroine: Flowers from the Women’s Hell and The Stones of Goddess Nüwa When we look at history from a broad and expansive perspective, and at the world as a whole, there were talents in every generation and in every region of the globe. However, how is it that the boundless condensations of all the essence of heaven and earth, and of all the beauty of rivers and planes should have favored only [the talent] of men and not of women? Or favors [the talent] of Western women while again leaving Chinese women out? Evidently because girls’ education and women’s rights are so underdeveloped. Alas! Women are citizens, too—what damage do they do to the state, and why should they be made to be so ignorant and feeble?34

Thus cries “Ms. Ye” in her preface to Flowers from the Women’s Hell with palpable anger and frustration. Although Heroines of Eastern Europe and 31. Liu, Xianü hun (with only one chapter completed); Jiang Jingjian, Xianü hun (with the horn-title “a novel of the fantastic”), a series of one-act dramas based the stories of women, including Qiu Jin. Apparently the latter was written by two authors, Jiang Xiaolian 王小蓮 (Jingjian) and Wang Yisan 王益三; see Li Zhaozhi, “Ti Jiang Xiaolian,” p. 63. 32. By Nanwu jingguan zide zhai zhuren; for a study of this novel, see A Ying, Wanqing xiaoshuo shi, pp. 112–15. 33. Haitian du xiaozi, “Kong zhong feiting bianyan,” p. 90. 34. “Ye nüshi xu.”

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Huang Xiuqiu both had women key protagonists, these novels primarily deal with national politics and not with women’s issues in particular. One example for the latter is Flowers from the Women’s Hell, by Wang Miaoru 王妙如 (1877–1903) with commentaries by her husband, Luo Jingren 羅景仁.35 It reflects the prevailing controversies over the right way for women to advance their cause through the controversy between its female protagonists. The first part of this novel glorifies the anarchist woman assassin— with a gruesome pun in her name that translates as Killing-Blood Beauty (Sha Xuemei 沙雪梅 [= 殺血美])—as a model for the revolutionary spirit required for women, but then an alternative turns up. Her name puns on “Demanding Equal Rights” (Xu Pingquan 許平權 [= 須平權]) to signal that she is pushing for tangible results. The two women confront each other in a debate that is reminiscent of the debate between the two female protagonists at the end of the novel A Tale of Heroes and Lovers (Ernü yingxiong zhuan 兒女英雄傳; 1872)36 but is also in a format that belongs to the core feature of the political novel worldwide. Killing-Blood bluntly claims that there is no way for women to gain their freedom except to kill all the men; Equal Rights claims that education offers women the only realistic chance to earn the right to equality and eventually to achieve it. The latter argument was later taken up by Zhan Kai. The attitude of Killing-Blood is closest to that of He Zhen, the anarchist and cofounder of the journal Tianyi 天義 (Heavenly justice) in Japan, although He Zhen only encouraged women to retaliate against men, not to kill them.37 The viewpoint of Equal Rights dominated in articles published, for example, in Xin nüxue (New women’s education).38 35. Wang Miaoru explained the meaning of her title to her husband: “The situation of women nowadays has already become black to the extreme. I just loathe that I am weak and often sick so that I cannot like our Buddha personally go into hell to save all living beings. So all that is left to me is to make my feeble literary talents [‘hairless brush and broken ink stone’] into an instrument to rouse [society from its evil ways].” Luo Jingren, “Nüyu hua ba.” Wang died shortly after the completion of this novel. For more details on the author and a short analysis, see Ouyang Jian, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, pp. 253–56; Jing Tsui, “Female Assassins,” pp. 190–94. 36. David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, p. 167. 37. Nong Shu (He Zhen), “Nüzi jiefang wenti.” See Sudō, “Concepts of Women’s Rights,” p. 483. 38. Nanxiu Qian, “Mother Nü xuebao,” pp. 286–87.

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The outcome of this debate is unceremoniously decided when the author has Killing-Blood commit suicide after the failure of an uprising she has organized, while allowing Equal Rights to successfully pursue her goal of universal education for women as a way to achieve self-reliance.39 The temporal frame of the narrative eventually changes from “present crisis” to what David Wang has called the “future perfect.”40 After ten years of hard, down-to-earth, and patient work, Chinese women have earned the respect of men and are granted equal rights. This ending notwithstanding, the novel never denounces Killing-Blood and does not distance itself from her glorification in the first part. The revolutionary and violent action of Killing-Blood seems to have done its purpose by mobilizing some women into becoming early activists, but in a second stage only the pragmatic personality and approach of Equal Rights can actually produce the desired results. There is no evolution from one stage to the next. Killing-Blood therefore cannot become convinced, but kills herself because her proposed path of armed uprisings has failed. While describing anarchist activism as a necessary stage that, however, has passed and then focusing on specific and pragmatic steps ahead for women, the novel also serves as a warning to the Reform of Governance leaders. The path proposed by Equal Rights will be viable and convincing to other women only if the government does its share with regard to women’s education. The failure to do so might lead to a revival of Killing-Blood-style action. This was foretold in chapter 1, when the narrator comments on the “hellish conditions of the life of two hundred million women”: “Do you not know the laws of this world? The greater the repression, the fiercer will be the reaction. If you choose to go along with the demands of the times, the future might be less violent and destructive than it [otherwise] would be. Continued repression [in contrast] sharpens people’s fighting spirit and will inevitably bring down the entire order [of society] and reenact the catastrophe of an all-engulfing flood.” In this context, the hua (flower) in the novel’s title contains a pun on Hua (China) to mean China, Women’s Hell. This is where the two husbands of the heroines come in. Their gender signals a position of power. As the two women play out alternative political assessments and strategies, their husbands reflect the extremes of 39. See Luo Jingren, “Nüyu hua ba,” p. 760. 40. David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, p. 310.

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attitudes present in the court as well as the potential fate of their representatives. The husband of Killing-Blood—his name, He Cigui 賀賜貴, may be a pun on 何賜貴, “bestowed superiority based on what?”—refuses to change and to treat women as human beings with naturally endowed rights. The only possible relationship the heroine can have with him is deadly confrontation and violence, and she kills him unintentionally in a fit of anger. In contrast, the husband of “Equal Rights,” Huang Zongxiang 黃宗祥—his name may be a pun on huangzhong xiang 黃種祥, “a blessing for the Yellow Race”—wins the love and trust of the female reformist by becoming a partner in the struggle for women’s education. Their final union highlights the blessings of cooperation between the forces of rational political reform in the court and in society. Making full use of the structural leeway offered by scenes of travel, study abroad, and chance meetings, the novel advances its story with visible parallels to Water Margin, which the commentary helpfully points out, but also some ideas taken from Liang Qichao’s Future Record. Like Huang Keqiang in Future Record, Killing-Blood reads a revolutionary poem on the wall of the inn where she is staying, wondering who might be the heroine who wrote so passionately about national crisis, injustice against women, and the need for renovation. Whereas Killing-Blood’s approach is treated with respectful distance in Flowers from the Women’s Hell, it is fully supported and fleshed out in The Stones of Goddess Nüwa, by the unidentified Haitian du xiaozi 海天獨 嘯子 (Lone Howler at the Horizon). This novel was serialized between 1904 and 1905.41 In the preface to this work, a friend of the author who hides behind the pen name Wo hu lang shi 臥虎浪士 (Dissolute Crouching Tiger) bluntly contradicts the general opinion about the lowly station of Chinese women in family and society that was bandied about at the time abroad and in the country. Chinese women are not weak and lowly at all, he argues; they hold enormous political and economic power, they educate the young, and they make sure that their husbands don’t take risks by opting for reform. In short, Chinese culture as well as its national character are shaped by women and not by men. Worse, “the natural terrain of 41.

Haitian du xiaozi, Nüwa shi.

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our country is handsome and elegant; it yields to a perspective of gentle beauty. [Under the influence of these natural surroundings] the thinking of our people tends toward the feminine.” This deadly combination makes it all the more important to overcome China’s effeminization through a thorough recasting of its women’s attitudes. A similar theory of the combination of geographic and social factors in the formation of national character and of the potential role of the novel in changing this mix had been voiced earlier in the Lone Howler’s preface to his translation of [Nichi Ō kyōsō] Kūchū dai hikōtei [日歐競爭]空中大飛行艇 (The magna airship. Japanese-European competition) by Oshikawa Shunrō (1876–1914):42 The novel is created by the natural outpourings of feelings that reflect geographic location, on the one hand, and social customs, on the other. [In China,] the mountains and rivers are of the elegant and divine kind, and this has inspired and brought forth a response in corresponding feelings. Naturally these feelings find expression in Chinese poetry, fiction, and painting, all of which are of the most refined and beautiful kind. [Beauty and refinement] have become the dominant feature of the [Chinese] literary scene and have here reached their highest point. In the past thousand years, literati and scholars have all sunk ever deeper into this without a point of return, and, as a consequence, the bases of politics have become fragile and weak. Those who recognize this call [China] “a state focused on cultural refinement” 右文之國.43

The dominant and deleterious role of the feminine element is echoed in and reinforced by fiction. It comes as no surprise, Dissolute Crouching Tiger argues, that women are avid readers of the Dream of the Red Chamber, which makes the reader either world-weary or reckless with its romanticized love entanglements, and that they don’t touch Water Margin with its heroic spirit, although it has a great deal to do with “the spirit of our people” and “is superior [to Dream] through its martial heroes (p. 441).” The purpose of The Stones of Goddess Nüwa thus is to counter the pernicious influence the Dream of the Red Chamber has on women. As women are the real power that is holding the country back, new martial 42. Oshikawa Shunrō, Kong zhong feiting. 43. Haitian du xiaozi, Nüwa shi, p. 90.

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novels have to be written to transform them. If women are not changed, nothing can change.44 The critique of the cultural conservatism of women together with their power to influence men within the family was not an isolated occurrence. In public discussions, and even in women’s journals, women were often held responsible for Chinese men’s weakness and in particular for their lack of patriotism.45 Attacks on Dream of the Red Chamber for ruining the sensibility of women and their understanding of the world were also not infrequent at the time.46 The argument of the preface to The Stones of Goddess Nüwa draws its strength from the notion that “women will be the mothers of the citizens of our nation” that was popular with political reformers such as Jin Yi in his Blood of Freedom but discounts 44. The preface goes on to discuss the Dream of the Red Chamber, national character, and the role of women: “As far as my novel is concerned, it is significant in two respects for our Chinese women and in two more for the world. First, the women of our country are rich in imagination and rich in the power of persuasion; second, the authority of upper-class women in our country is most pronounced. These two aspects have everything to do with the citizens of our country. Today, there is no education for women here; the family is totally corrupt; all the men without exception are under the control of women and suppressed by them. To take the clearest example: today there is an obstinate opposition to the abolition of the imperial examination system, and there are urgent demands for reinstating the eight-legged essay—this is altogether owing to the influence of the majority of women. There are also countless examples of this kind in the field of politics. Foreign countries can easily implement changes in the national dress code. In our country this is impossible. The reason is again that women hold power in this realm. Furthermore, the backwardness of our family education, which produces the rotten citizens of tomorrow, is again a product of women. Things being as they are, we have to completely clear the obstacles from the path [of progress]; otherwise, can we imagine what is to happen to our country’s progress into the future?” Ibid., pp. 441–42. 45. Chen Xiefen argued at the time, “You should know, though, men do not love our nation because we women do not love it.” “Yaoyou aiguo de xin,” quoted from Nianxiu Qian, “Mother Nü xuebao,” p. 275. 46. In another article Chen Xiefen accused Honglou meng of causing a young girl’s death, for she was “bewitched” (rumo 入魔) and “poisoned” (shoudu 受毒) by its description of cainü. The title “Don’t Read Novels” refers, however, only to Chinese novels; reading translated Western novels was hailed as beneficial: “reading [Chinese xiaoshuo] leads one to inertia, whereas reading [Western novels] leads one to action.” See Chen Xiefen, “Mokan xiaoshuo” (Don’t read novels), Xuchu nübao 3 (July 5, 1902), “Nübao yanshuo” column, 3b–4a, quoted from Nanxiu Qian, “Mother Nü xuebao,” p. 276.

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the importance of the Confucian social order that left most women without a chance for education, as argued by Wang Miaoru in her Flowers from the Women’s Hell. This preface pioneers an approach that links the power structure in the private realm to the grand questions of the nation. Although it might be said that it obscured the strong role of the state in framing women’s fate, this is a preface to a novel and at stake is the impact of works of fiction on personal attitudes. On the impact of novels on the attitudes of men and women, the Lone Howler had this to say in the preface to The Airship: As the novel was in part responsible for the creation of these sentimental and overly refined men and women of China as well as a weak state, it must also be the engine of the cure. There are two kinds of novels that benefit the country and its society, namely, political novels 政治小説 and novels about technology and industry 工藝實業; everyone reads such novels and likes them. The novel possesses great powers to stimulate; it can also move readers deeply, develop intelligence and knowledge, and enlarge the scope of one’s mind.47

This time of political reform, the Lone Howler continues, is the very moment to fill the novel with new content and to revitalize it by injecting it with new knowledge. The reform of the novel is thus one of the most urgent tasks of the day.48 The Stones of Goddess Nüwa was the result of the author’s putting his own theory into practice. It sets out to transform the national character by primarily addressing women. The Stones of Goddess Nüwa does not only emulate the martial spirit of Water Margin; it also follows its link structure by introducing the central characters—different types of heroines in this case—sequentially. At the beginning, the empress dowager, who is here identified as Hu (barbarian, a reference to her Manchu identity), prays at a site set up to glorify herself as the “mother of the world.” A slab falls from the sky, a stele inscribed with a heavenly script, and all that can be read is “The Stones of Goddess Nüwa,” that is, the title of the novel. Nüwa is a goddess who smelted colored stones to mend the sky that had broken. The author here combines a trope from Dream of the Red Chamber with one from Water 47. Haitian du xiaozi, “Kong zhong feiting bianyan,” p. 90. 48. Ibid.

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Margin. In Dream, the main character, Jia Baoyu, is the reincarnation of a superfluous stone that has been thrown aside by the goddess and has become depressed as a consequence. The novel itself is Baoyu’s story as it appears on this rejected stone. Water Margin starts with a pompous minor official removing a stele under which a great number of unruly spirits have been caught. Once set free, they become the members of the outlaw gang described in the novel. On the stele fallen from the sky, the novel is written (and hidden in a strange script) that is now in the reader’s hand; the “stones” are the women heroines of this novel. They share the heroic valor of the outlaws of Water Margin, but they are in their particular way constructive revolutionaries, bent on mending the sky of the world that has cracked. The engrossing and playful dialogue with both Dream and Water Margin greatly enriches the texture of the novel, and the mythical link to Nüwa’s construction prepares the ground for the modern “stones”: the anarchist female assassins with their knight-errant bravado and technical savvy. The main character of the novel, Jin Yaose 金瑤瑟, is an “intelligent, worldly, and hot-blooded woman patriot.”49 Once the leader of a “Women’s Reform Society,” she spent three years studying in the United States. Seeing the political situation in China rapidly deteriorate and without hope that the people might rise up, she returns and decides to become a political assassin in order to force a change. When she gets the chance to assassinate the empress dowager, however, she cannot bring herself to do it. In anguish she cries out: “Why did the Russian Nihilists always manage to carry out their assassination plans, and yet I fail again and again!” (p. 466). She believes that she has failed the test of being a true revolutionary by being unable to commit this “symbolic matricide.”50 She flees, and her ensuing journey through the country’s underground secret societies of women allows the author to use the form of a Bildungsroman to describe a woman’s progress from reformer to frustrated would-be political assassin to—sometime in the future—a hardened warrior with strong and clear convictions who also has mastered the most advanced weapons and methods of warfare. This trajectory talks back to the treatment of female knights-errant in earlier novels. He Yufeng 何玉鳳, for example, in Ernü yingxiong zhuan, 49. Haitian du xiaozi, Nüwa shi, p. 452. 50. Tsui, “Female Assassins,” p. 184.

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returns in the end to the “three obediences” and “four virtues” assigned to women in the Confucian order of things.51 There is more to the shocking trajectory of Jin, however, and the author makes sure this is not lost on the reader. Through the medium of Jin, the author is addressing the fate of the Chinese nation. The most poignant moment in Jin’s transformation, and the clearest link between Jin’s attitude and that of the nation, comes in her meeting with the leader of a group with the gory name the Flowers’ (= women’s) Party of Blood, (Hua xue dang 花血黨). With its more than a million women members, this group is organizing the assassination of high government officials. Party members marry high officials as concubines and then kill them off. The head of this party calmly explains that about 3,400 members are engaged in this activity. The party has neatly classified women’s/China’s problems as “Four Thieves” (si zei 四賊), namely, the inner, outer, upper, and lower, and it has developed an equally neat set of methods to exorcise them. The “inner” or domestic thief (nei zei 内賊) deprives women of their freedom by locking them up within the family. It is vanquished by cutting all ties to husbands and children. The “outer” or foreign is the racial oppression of Chinese by foreigners that steals their pride. It is exorcised by doing away with all slavish obsequiousness toward these foreigners. The “upper” or leadership disaster is the autocratic ruler who deprives the common people of their rights. He is to be assassinated. The “lower” thief lurks in women’s private parts and is sexual desire, which deprives women of the freedom not to interact with men. It is addressed by cutting off emotional attachment (jue qing 絕情) and suppressing sexual desire (e yu 遏慾). The problem of reproduction is solved by artificial insemination (p. 477). The exorcism of the Four Thieves is matched by the “Three Protections” (san shou 三守), which are no less radical. “All matters in the world, whether dark powers or bright prospects, are in the hands of us women, and protecting this natural right is exclusively our own affair” 世界之 暗權明勢都歸我婦女掌中；守着天然權利，是我女子份內的事. The other principles to be protected are “males in this world are only hangers on; women are the boss” 世界上男子是附屬品，女子是主人翁 and 51. David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, pp. 157–60. For a study of the transformation from hero without sentimentality (qing 情) and sexuality (xing 性) to one who has both, see Chen Pingyuan, Qiangu wenren, pp. 90–93.

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“women are the avant-garde of civilization; all civilization has been started by them” 女子是文明先覺，一切文化都從女子開創 (p. 478). The root cause of the Four Thieves as well as the keys to exorcise them are both defined in terms of the female body—the sexual desire of women for men and the use of the female body as a weapon to destroy men. The intentionally shocking and grotesque descriptions are meant not as guidelines for women to follow but to infuse them with the vigor and fighting spirit needed to free themselves of the depriving political, psychological, social, and sexual framework of the Confucian order. As the antithesis to the tradition-bound nation of the present, these women present a utopian future in which the nation overcomes its female meekness and achieves self-empowerment. The fates of Chinese womanhood and of the nation are inseparably intertwined, and only the thunderclap of anarchist radicalism and the shock of novels such as this can break this vicious cycle. But, as the preface has already claimed, women are not only at the heart of the problem, they are also the key to a solution. Only a fundamental remake of the women through their own agency can lead to a more self-assertive (the novel would reject the term “masculine”) nation. All the language about blood and assassination notwithstanding, the author makes sure to demonstrate that this revolution does not come with atavistic feelings and methods; to the contrary, its weapons are as radically futuristic as its radical analysis of the four thieves, and the novel delights in their description. Electric elevators and walkways as well as processed food to be sucked out of a tube are only minor amenities to allow the women to focus on their grand work. This is where the electric flying horse comes into play and the electromagnetic handgun that can hit targets as far as twelve miles away with bullets carrying explosives releasing poison gas. Science and ideology go hand in hand in laying the ground for a strong China joining a future global modernity. In The Stones of Goddess Nüwa the implied and hoped for woman reader finds a world of women with views on the big questions that lead to actions requiring daring, cunning, utter disregard for taboos, and technical savvy. These women are introduced without family or place of birth. They live in an outcast secret world outside of any political or social structure. Their allegiance is to their convictions and to each other, nothing else. The extreme and even grotesque manner of their fantastic depiction comes as an inverted and provocative replica of the extreme and even

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grotesque perceived real-life situation of Chinese women who are locked with their bound feet into chastity, modesty, ignorance, and obedience to male authorities. Even this secret world of anarchist women warriors, however, reacts to the contemporary Reform of Governance debate, if mostly through disparaging remarks. When a male student asks a member of another secret society of women for her opinion on his petition to the court to implement the usual political reforms (constitution, parliament, schools, local self-administration), she answers: “This petition has more than one hundred thousand words! Who, except the privileged class, has the time to read all this? . . . Although you educated people think very highly of yourselves, no government official takes you seriously; your petitions simply produce more wastepaper” (p. 500). The hopes of feeble-minded male intellectuals to push the court to institutional reforms through reams of words are lampooned here in contrast with the daring actions of the “stones” that will send tremors of panic through the ruling class and force them to concede what a full wastepaper basket of petitions will never wrestle from them. What makes Jin new and modern is the absence of a self with personal desires to either fulfill or abandon. She is a loner without social definition, a spiritual scout for modern China. The composition of this spirit includes the capacity for violence and destruction backed up by a complete openness toward a new religion, namely, the worship of science and technology. The novel’s embodiment of this spirit in the body of a female is allegorical. That is, it has much to do with the metaphorical potential of the vocabulary associated with women (such as meek and weak) for the treatment of the state of China and little with exploring the actual attitudes of Chinese women toward the challenges of the late Qing transition.

Chaste Women to Save the Nation: Chen Xiaolu’s A New Flowers in the Mirror If The Stones of Goddess Nüwa described a martial and masculinized future through the spirit of the new woman warrior, other works

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countered that the revolutionists ignored the modern potential of China’s traditions, including traditional education for women. One such novel is Chen Xiaolu’s 陳嘯盧 (incomplete) sequel to Flowers in the Mirror of 1908, also called A New Flowers in the Mirror.52 After the court had given in to public pressure and issued its guidelines for public women’s schools in 1907, the focus of discussion was no longer on whether or not women should receive public education but on what this education should consist of. The Stones of Goddess Nüwa and Chen Xiaolu’s A New Flowers in the Mirror represent the two extremes of this discussion. The author’s preface praises the original Flowers in the Mirror as the only flawless work among so-called novels about women (nüjie xiaoshuo 女界小説). Still, he finds the novel fanciful and outlandish, ineffectual in offering women any tangible solution to their problems. In this he echoes some of the criticism that was voiced in women’s journals at the time.53 His take on the Flowers in the Mirror seems not to be informed by the satire in the chapter “The Kingdom of Women,” but by the dignified, cultured, and open-minded ways of the women in the story and the very respectful treatment they receive from their male chaperons during their travels. The description of the “flowers” in this A New Flowers is certainly at odds with the image of women as obstacle and solution to progress conveyed by the preface of The Stones of Goddess Nüwa. As for recent “translations of Western novels,” they might “constitute a great sight with their wealth of genres and the fantastic nature of their stories,” but they have terribly misled the women in our country and have done extreme damage! They either present a weak female who throws herself into the throes of revolution and commits acts that go against the whole world or show that when a female protagonist’s understanding improves, the first things she goes for are liberty and equality. Without any consideration for principles or for conscience, she will perversely use whatever device and insidious means she deems necessary to achieve her aims, not caring how shocked and frightened the reader will be. Although there is no end to the variety of plots [in these Western novels], they are nothing but mirages in the desert, which is why they seem so extraordinary. When young 52. Chen Xiaolu, Xin Jing hua yuan. 53. For example, Chen Xiefen, “Mokan xiaoshuo,” quoted in Nanxiu Qian, “Mother Nü xuebao,” p. 276.

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women read such novels, they mistakenly believe that this is being “civilized” (wenming 文明). They are led onto the wrong path and commit grievous mistakes. (p. 215)

The New Flowers will continue what was best in its predecessor, add to it by offering tangible solutions for women, and counter the fashion of going after the latest Western fancy as the height of civilization. The crisis of China, contends the author, was brought about not by women, but by the weakness of Chinese men. In other words, the author can only conceive of China’s modernization and renewal if, in the figure of the Chinese woman, the regime’s conservative ideology can be maintained.54 Moving from the preface to the novel proper, the author goes straight for the kill: “Ha! ha! Women’s rights—women’s rights—women’s world— women’s world, people say that women’s rights in China are not developed. I say they are extremely developed. People say that the world of women and that of men are extremely unequal; I say the world of women is far above equality with the world of men.” Examples are then given to show how, in the family, women are treated with special care and doted upon by parents, husbands, and in-laws. “Therefore,” claims the author, “I am writing this work for the purpose of [helping] those who really want to develop the rights of women, who want them to truly become equal to men. But what I mean by ‘develop’ and ‘equal’ is the opposite of what is now fashionable” (p. 219). The author promises to introduce a few women who are “heroines within the world of women” (nüjie dangzhong de haojie 女界當中的豪傑) yet different from female knights-errant (nüxia 女俠). These new types of heroines are able to advance from the family to society, from studying at school to serving the country and even the world. They will highlight the difference between old (Chinese) and new (Western-inspired) moral principles. Their model will “awaken the fools who are so besotted with Western ways that they abandon the essence of our unique national culture” (p. 220). The crisis at hand is endangering the very existence of the Chinese nation. It has been brought about by the court’s lack of sincere commitment in implementing political reforms, the destabilization brought 54. Prasenjit Duara has perceptively pointed to nationalist patriarchy as the ideology that made it possible for elites to modernize China while conserving the truth of their regime in the bodies of women. Rescuing History, pp. 298–99.

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about by militant revolutionaries, and outside threats from foreigners. “Therefore I pray to the heavens,” exclaims the author, “that during this fierce twentieth-century’s struggle for survival, more women heroes are born to wash away the shame of China’s two hundred million men having become slaves to others” (p. 220). As men have shamed the country with their slavish behavior, the task of restoring the nation’s dignity now falls to women: a tall order. The finished parts of the novel indicate a plan to emulate the travelogue plot line of Flowers in the Mirror, but the travels are only announced and not actually described as the novel breaks off. The yellow race is symbolized by the well-to-do Huang 黃 (“yellow”) family in Jiangsu province. The head of the household is characterized by a courtesy name showing that he is “knowledgeable,” Zhi 智, and a given name that shows him to “hold on to the [Chinese] essence,” Cuicun 粹存. Two of his boys had been sent to study in the United States, while the remaining boy and two girls were taught at home in Chinese culture as well as Western languages and science. The teacher of Chinese culture is Kong Zhengchang 孔正昌, who shares the family name of Confucius—whose “correctness he advocates,” zheng chang 正昌, and whom he sets out to “emulate” with his sobriquet Qi Ni 企尼 (emulate Confucius). The teacher of Western things has the family name Zong 宗, indicating the “Chinese mainstream,” and he takes the Duke of Zhou as his model. This Zong Daozhou 宗道周 adopts a programmatic name, “Contribute to the Betterment [of China],” Canyi 參益. The education these teachers provide also includes the very modern physical exercise in the family garden. After finishing their education at public schools, all three youngsters are to be sent on a voyage to learn about the world. The focus of the part of the novel that has been written is on the education that the two girls need to become “heroines in the world of women.” Although Mr. Yellow does not send the girls abroad for schooling, they receive a public education like their remaining brother. The author does not want to be accused of disparaging useful knowledge and sends the girls through a gruesome routine of learning a few foreign languages; science subjects such as astronomy, geology, mathematics, and geometry; practical knowledge in engineering, agriculture, animal husbandry, and life sciences—without, of course, neglecting politics and law.

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As to the Chinese essence, the girls are able to discuss the teachings contained in Zhu Xi’s primer Xiaoxue 小學, Ban Zhao’s Lienü zhuan 烈女 傳 (Biographies of chaste women), as well as the Gu jin jin jian 古今金鋻 (Golden mirror of olden times and new),55 with its examples of model behavior. Father “Yellow Holding on to the [Chinese] Essence” confirms that these works are the bedrock of teaching the cardinal virtues of loyalty, filial piety, propriety, and chastity: zhong, xiao, jie, lie 忠孝節烈 (pp. 255, 288). True to this double agenda, the female reception room in the house combines books and cultural treasures of Chinese antiquity with Western scientific instruments, drawings, and even an organ, which the young women know how to play (p. 268). The Chinese “essence,” as represented by the sagely government of the Three Dynasties (Sandai 三代) of antiquity, is upheld as one of the girls bemoans the one-sided praise for all things Western. At that time, she claims, the whole nation—including men and women, merchants and farmers—was educated, women were capable of becoming rulers, merchants capable of defending the country, and artisans had knowledge enough to discuss politics. “Was it not true that everyone had the interest of the state at heart, everyone was patriotic? In what way was our past inferior to foreign countries?” (p. 274). Evidently, the Chinese “essence” has been recalibrated to become compatible with modernity. The option to have these women model themselves on heroines from the Chinese past who were patriotic, courageous, and selflessly devoted to nation and family is not taken. While going for Madame Roland, Joan of Arc, and Harriet Beecher Stowe—Western women who had become popular at the time through translated biographies and fictionalized accounts56—the novel keeps the one very “Chinese” female virtue that was nervously watched by all sides at the time, chastity. Even works depicting strong and modern women leaders such as Zhan Kai’s A New Heroine for China went out of their way to show the chaste commitment of such women to their first choice of “free love.” A New Flowers in the Mirror engages with two opposite concerns that epitomized, in Joan Judge’s words, “the tensions between past and present, 55. Whereas the other titles are well known, I have not located the Golden Mirror of Olden Times and New. 56. Xia Xiaohong, Wan Qing nüxing, pp. 172–219.

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Chinese principles and Western practices, Confucian ritual teachings and new ideas.”57 One was the push to qualify and activate women for the reforms by having Chinese women conform to the increasingly global standard of “civilization” concerning the station of women. The other was avoiding the alienation of potential supporters of the reforms that might result from a depiction of heroines who abandoned the core female virtue of chastity. The polemical stance expressed in New Flowers is not directed against Western science, political institutions, or sports. Rather, it reacts to tendencies in such transitional times when big questions of conceptual, institutional, and practical change are dealt with by a public with widely varying levels of knowledge, toward fashionable and often hilariously grotesque and empty-headed adaptations. By supporting modern women’s education yet emphasizing the need to maintain Chinese core values, the author enters into a polemic with forces pushing for a more radical and total Westernization. Many Chinese novels at the time offered caricatures of the destructive effects of what they considered fake revolutionary slogans.58 Inadvertently these critiques might have pointed at the cause for the reluctance among some of the reformers in the court during the Reform of Governance period, such as Zhang Taiyan, to promote education for girls in public schools. These reformers saw such a change in women’s roles as a threat to a system of values that was seen as preventing society from falling apart under the stress of reforming its major institutions.

Women as Civilized Citizens: Zhan Kai’s A New Heroine for China and Women’s Rights Whereas the previously discussed novels of women’s emancipation deal only marginally with their station in the envisaged new institutional order, two 1907 novels by Zhan Kai, A New Heroine for China and Women’s 57. 58.

Judge, Precious Raft, p. 7. Vandermeersch, “Satire du mouvement novateur.”

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Rights, address this issue head on. Engaging in a more constructive dialogue with the court, they also address the responsibility of women themselves in the process of their emancipation. Written under the assumed female pen name “Studio of Pondering Silken Patterns, Si Qi zhai” 思綺齋, Zhan Kai’s two novels have women’s emancipation as their main theme. Zhan Kai was a prolific writer on women’s themes; nearly simultaneously with these two novels, he came out with a set of biographical sketches of Shanghai courtesans and a novel on one of the most famous among them.59 Both of the political novels are set in the future, after the successful establishment of a constitution. However, they do not use the future retrospective exemplified by Liang Qichao’s Future Record. Women’s rights, they seem to say, can only be secured after the establishment of a constitution. Zhan Kai uses his preface for A New Heroine for China to discuss his motivation for writing the novel and the purpose it is to serve. Although argumentative in form and non-narrative, such prefaces serve a similar function to the wedge chapters to be discussed in chapter 7. The preface takes its cue from a sympathetic “foreigner’s” (= John Fryer)60 exasperated question “how could the country hope to become strong and wealthy given that [women] make up half of the population”61 but are not offered the opportunity to study, understand the principles of modern government, and be economically productive?

59. We know very little about Zhan Kai. A native of Zhejiang province, he moved to Shanghai sometime after he reached the age of twenty. Much of his writing was focused on Shanghai courtesans. His works include Rouxiang yunshi 柔鄉韻史 (Poetical history of the soft homestead; 1900–2), Huitu haishang baihua zhuan 繪圖海上百花傳 (Illustrated sketches of Shanghai courtesans, 1903), Hua shi 花史 (History of courtesans; 1906), and Hua shi xubian 花史續編 (Sequel to History of courtesans; 1907). See Widmer, “Inflecting Gender,” and “Patriotism versus Love.” See also Yeh, Shanghai Love, p. 95, and Patrick Hanan on Zhan Kai’s brother Zhan Xi 詹熙 (1850–1927), who also wrote a novel, Hualiu shenqing zhuan 花柳深情傳 (Love among the courtesans; 1897). According to Hanan, this novel was written for a fiction contest held by the Western translator and entrepreneur John Fryer in 1895; see [Hanan], “New Novel,” p. 323. 60. Dagenais, John Fryer’s Calendar. 61. Si Qi zhai (Zhan Kai), Zhongguo xin nühao, p. 1.

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It will not do to simply change women’s rights, Zhan claims; women’s attitudes will have to be changed first because women have been an active part in perpetuating and justifying their situation. “If we want to regain women’s rights (nüquan 女權), we have to first reform women’s customs (nüsu 女俗), and this takes time; it cannot be achieved in one day.” This reform, the preface suggests, should become a key priority for the state once constitutional reform has been completed (p. 1). Against the easy assumption in other novels that gender equality is an organic part of the reform drive, Zhan Kai sees the constitution creating the framework in which women themselves might take the lead in reforming backward customs. There is no trust in the spontaneous willingness of women to change their station; women heroines are needed to provide leadership: At present, if China wants to strive for progress and does not want to be bullied and looked down upon by foreigners, there is no other way but to establish gender equality. However, as it has been thousands of years since women in our country have lost their rights, this seems indeed to have gone on beyond redemption so that the desire to revive these rights looks like a futile dream. But, be that as it may, as one saying goes, “when a thing has reached its extreme point it necessarily will move into the opposite direction,” and, as another saying has it, “where there is a will there is a way.” As we are at a point in time when patriarchal despotic rule has reached its extreme, if only one or two female heroines (nü haojie 女豪傑) would pledge their life to the cause and make up their minds to go forward and never turn back, first to establish education for all women in China and then to open the discussion on women’s rights, then it will be possible to turn things around. (p. 4)

The novel thus maps the imaginary journey of its lone heroine as she finds allies among Chinese women students in Japan to form a movement for the emancipation of Chinese women. It begins about a decade after China has established a constitutional monarchy, and, while relatively strong and prosperous, the country still lags behind and is unable to compete with powerful states such as the United States and Great Britain. They are different from China in one respect: gender equality prevails. Through the voice of a U.S. representative attending the ceremony to celebrate China’s successful and peaceful transition to a constitutional monarchy, the author states his own case:

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In a constitutional state, the people’s right to freedom is guaranteed by the constitution. Although the constitution issued by the Chinese government is perfect in many ways, only men have this freedom; as for women, there is not one word about their rights. Chinese women are still under layer upon layer of oppression without any freedom. [In contrast,] the power of our European [and American] constitutional states and their ability to dominate the world rests entirely on the condition of equality between men and women. Although China has now established a constitution, the corrupt custom of regarding men as more important than women has not changed. As this is the case, one must say that China has only become half a constitutional state. (pp. 5–6)

Although not pushing for an immediate solution of the problem of women’s rights, the novel makes them a key issue in the next stage of China’s march to civilization. The full benefits of “civilization,” that is, national wealth and international power, will only materialize once this issue has been solved. What are the qualifications of the future female leader? The heroine comes with the telling name “Good Omen for the Yellow Race” (Huang Renrui 黃人瑞) and is also simply known as “Heroine” (Yingniang 英娘). An outstanding student from a private girl’s school, she shows up at the beginning of the novel winning first place in a national sports competition. There she meets “Dedicated to Self-Reliance” (Ren Zili 任自立), the top student at a government-sponsored military school. Both soon feel that the other is the right marriage partner. Dedicated supports Heroine’s determination to mobilize the country’s women to regain their rights; the novel is unique in pointing to the potential of the new military to be an active factor in the reforms. Both receive government stipends to study abroad. Their ways part for the time being, with Heroine being sent to Japan and Dedicated to Germany. The qualities of the future woman leader are outlined in this initial sketch. She should be well educated, morally upright, physically fit, selfless, level-headed, and have vision, judgment, and commitment. To move and organize others, and handle difficulties on the way, still more will be needed. Heroine displays the needed qualities once she arrives in Japan. Inspired by how educated and free the Japanese women are, she calls on Chinese women students to form the Society for Regaining the Rights of Women (Huifu nüquan hui 恢復女權會). More than one

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thousand students show up, and, with the help of two other women, “China Self-Rising” (Hua Zixing 華自興) and “New Epoch” (Xin Jiyuan 辛紀元 [= 新紀元]), she sets out to organize the students. However, while Heroine is absent, the students’ collective decides on a four-point referendum to be held in China. It calls on all women students to express their opinions on whether they should regain their rights by peaceful means or by directly confronting men in society and government. The four points to be voted on are (1) should women in China use love to move their men into giving them their rights? (2) should they force the issue by declaring their own set of laws, and should they mobilize women in China to reject male domination? (3) should they unite the entire female population to petition the central government regarding the harm done by not taking the rights of women seriously and demand that the government follow the example set by the civilized nations in the West? or (4) should they send these options to the women’s schools in the entire country and ask for collective action? (p. 54). This referendum turns into a disaster, with violence and death on both the government’s and the students’ sides. Violent acts by the new women’s organizations against men as well as retaliations by men are reported. The government overreacts by clamping down ruthlessly, yet social unrest continues. Meanwhile, male students petition the government for a more conciliatory attitude toward the struggle for women’s rights. Although women have legitimate grievances, the author warns, hasty and radical action will not produce the desired results. Heroine holds that, on the personal level, women should focus on gaining economic independence from men by acquiring knowledge and learning skills to support their own livelihoods; on the level of local society, they should focus on resisting oppressive rules set by men; and, on the state level, they should form alliances with noble and upper-class women in order to influence government leaders to abolish unequal gender-based laws. Disagreeing with the violent measures that had resulted in the death of two of the women student leaders, Heroine now steps forward and assumes leadership. If women want men to respect them, she claims in her inaugural speech as leader of the society, they must first obtain an education and then a skill to become a contributing member of society. Their society should petition the Chinese government to learn from Japan’s success in

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bringing about universal education for women. If they can convince the government that this is the way to wealth and power, half of the battle for women’s rights will have been won. Their society should furthermore establish strict rules against licentious behavior and should encourage women to behave in matters of dress and conduct like citizens of a civilized nation. If these steps of self-improvement are successful, the government will quite naturally be willing to grant women their rights. These efforts at women’s self-betterment through education and moral self-restraint are in her words “the two correct measures (zheng fa 正法) to regain the rights of women” (p. 83). Acting as an advisor rather than an agitator, the novel thus presents different options with a critical distance, hypothetically testing their outcomes and suggesting more effective ways by having the novel successfully “enact” the steps that are necessary for the women’s rights movement and its leader to achieve their objective. Three ingredients are seen by the author as vital to this success: a self-conscious women’s movement with the main objectives of self-reliance and self-betterment, a visionary female leader, and the establishment of trust and understanding between the movement and the court. Operating within the genre conventions of the political novel, which sees itself as acting in the real world, the author guides the reader’s assessment of Heroine’s views and actions by rating them as “extremely civilized” (p. 67). The vision of Heroine is thus, on the one hand, to convince the government to invest in women’s education so as to expand the knowledge of women and, on the other hand, to encourage self-improvement by women through study and acquisition of practical skills that will allow them to gain economic independence and contribute to the national economy. In this vision the responsibility for the fate of Chinese women is divided between women and the court. The test case for the new leader is her ability to interact with the court. A broadly based self-betterment of women through education would be greatly facilitated if the government were willing to invest in women’s education. With great savvy Heroine sets out to improve relations with the court, which hitherto regarded her society with deep distrust. In the name of the Chinese women students studying in Japan, she sends a letter of congratulation to the emperor and the empress on their nuptials. The letter helps to establish her credentials in the court as a well-educated and

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trustworthy young woman. She follows up with a memorial to the court— and to the empress in particular—asking them to support women’s education—not without pointing out the benefits for the country as a whole. Heroine also decides to use money donated to the society to open up a factory for women to learn to make high-quality handicraft goods for export. Further funds are raised by setting the plant up as a Western-type shareholding company (pp. 95–98). The path proposed by Heroine is a peaceful one, but the earlier description of the more radical path chosen by other women as well as the helpless overreaction of the government serves as a threatening reminder that, if the court does not accept the demands proferred peacefully, other and less pleasant options are in the wings, some of which have been elaborated in even greater detail in Flowers from the Woman’s Hell. The author shows how a nonviolent social demand in the form of a petition together with the social clamor it reflects can create a dialogue with the state and lead to a compromise acceptable for all sides. The petition on women’s education is read by the emperor, and he passes it on approvingly to the parliament (p. 94). Some parliamentarians suggest that China should follow the American model. Eventually it is decided to use a simplified style of writing for female education so that women can learn more quickly. Heroine’s petition passes, and some money is set aside for the purpose (p. 94). Furthermore, following entreaties from women in the diplomatic corps, the empress prods her husband to issue an edict abolishing concubinage, the eunuch system, and the buying and selling of female domestic slaves. (p. 98). Within one year, the whole of China is transformed. With women organizing themselves into public welfare organizations to help each other, studying at government-run schools for women, and working in many different types of workshops under the general name of “training institutes for female workers” (nü gong chuan xi suo 女工傳習所), the atmosphere of the country in general is one of unity and prosperity. Crucial for this positive development was the support and protection from the emperor and parliament. At the happy end of China’s women’s march to civilization, a law is passed that permits freedom of marriage, and the emperor issues a decree that abolishes all unequal laws regarding women and establishes equal rights for men and women in China.

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Freedom of marriage is often discussed in the story, and it is “enacted” with the union between Heroine and Dedicated. Heroine tells the empress that Dedicated is her chosen partner for life. Although her father had already arranged a different match for her, she is granted the right to marry Dedicated. Coming at the end of the novel with the involvement of the empress, this union uses the already familiar description of the alliance of political forces through a marriage between their representatives to symbolize the political union of three—envisaged—forces to bring about a change in the fate of Chinese women: strong individual women leaders, enlightened military men, and the court. The two women who have sacrificed their lives for the cause of the rights of China’s women are not forgotten. Bronze statues are erected in their honor. Although the author portrays radical action by women as counterproductive, he does not deny the validity of the sacrifice of the two women as well as the impact of their death and the society’s appeal in China. Rather than introducing a stock “mature man” to advise the society, he insists on the crucial importance of individual women leaders to call forth and guide a broader women’s movement. Such a leader, however, must have a fine-tuned understanding of the options for improvement on the different levels of the family, society, and the nation, as well as of a sequence of interlocking feasible steps to reach this distant goal. She must at the same time be irreproachable in her own behavior, as shown in Heroine’s support for the constitutional monarchy and her faithfulness to Dedicated throughout the many years when they have no contact. She is not a sexual threat, and she is reassuringly adamant in her criticism of the “loose” behavior of women who take their love life into their own hands. This is not a novel about a sexual revolution but about a constitutional and social issue. Although an option to join the “civilized nations” through an enlightened policy toward China’s women was attractive to many members of the male elite, including the central government, Heroine is depicted as seeing women’s self-managed betterment as the crucial factor in enhancing their independence, credibility, and standing—and with it the case for women’s rights. Situating the novel in the future, the author is not claiming to offer a group portrait of women leaders at his time but to show the kind of woman leader that will be needed together with the pragmatic steps she would plausibly take—in the hope that the novel might serve as a guide

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for such women once they emerge. As Ellen Widmer has suggested, the novel most probably was targeting women readers.62 At the same time, it makes great efforts to find highly specific forms of action that are not utopian but possible and realistic under China’s present conditions. It details the paths the movement could take; outlines the policies that need to be implemented and the social issues that need to be addressed at different stages of the movement; offers arguments for peaceful reform with subtle threats through emotionally driven scenes that suggest that other possibilities are also conceivable; depicts the process of decision making in parliament as well as between the monarch, the government, and parliament; and for the first time, I believe, shows a post-reform royal couple in action. The novel is both a policy piece for all involved and a practical guide for women’s reform in China. Zhan Kai’s other 1907 novel, Women’s Rights, is also devoted to the themes of gender equality, women’s rights, and suffrage.63 The plots of the two novels are similar as are the role and character of the singular woman leader, but their fields of action differ. In contrast to the emphasis on organization and lobbying in A New Heroine for China, Women’s Rights offers a different perspective by focusing on the importance of the press with its international connections, as well as of direct international connections for the women’s movement.64 As a journalist himself, Zhan Kai had inside knowledge about the press. The story is set in 1940. China has become a constitutional state with an upper and a lower house and some self-administration for the regions. The country is respected by all and is a member of the “League of All Nations.” Sadly, however, the situation of China’s women is still out of tune with these glorious achievements. True, foot-binding and the buying and selling of female bondservants have been banned, but women students are just a bare 6 or 7 percent of the student population, and women do not have the freedoms of speech, publication, and religion granted to men. Coming of age in this future China is a young woman with the telling—and predictable—name Chaste (Zhenniang 貞娘). Her path to 62. Widmer, “Inflecting Gender,” p. 151. 63. Si Qi zhai (Zhan Kai), Nüzi quan. 64. The importance of the press was a recurrent topic in public discussion during the Reform of Governance period; see, for example, “Lun baoguan youyi yu guoshi.”

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the women’s movement closely follows that of Heroine. There is the sports meet, the boy, instant love, and the government stipend, but then the parents intervene with a stern ban on both, licentious falling in love and Peking study. Chaste throws herself into the river, only to be saved by the boy, who (again) happens to be a naval cadet. Their commitment is sealed. On the ship back, she meets a woman journalist, who introduces her to the notion of freedom of marriage and has her write up her own experience and thoughts. Her articles hit home and earn her the fame of being “the women’s [Herbert] Spencer” (Nüjie de Sibinsai 女界的斯賓塞) because of her keen and progressive sociological insights. Her parents are happy to have her back alive and change their minds on both her study and her love. A student now in Peking, she sets up The Woman Citizen’s Gazette (Nüzi guomin bao 女子國民報) to push for the two things Heroine also advocated: women’s education and their economic independence. The novel explores the potential of the newspaper to focus public attention on the cause of women, to formulate policy, to provide intellectual leadership, to forge alliances, and to form public opinion as well as generate support. If A New Heroine for China went into great detail about setting up an organization, founding a factory, passing a law, and networking, Women’s Rights goes with similar aplomb and love of detail into the business of running a daily newspaper. Capital is raised through a shareholding company; leadership is elected by the activists working for the paper, all of whom are women; regulations as well as guiding principles for the newspaper (which, needless to say, include the promotion of female education and professional training) are developed; a language and media mix is determined—half the articles will be in classical idiom, the other half in the vernacular, with illustrations to facilitate understanding; the format, layout, and columns are fixed—it will include editorials, novels, and news; readers are activated through publication—free of charge—of letters, articles, and literary writings—if they help the cause; only advertisements directed to women are accepted; registration with the ministries of education, commerce, and civil administration is secured; and profits earned from the paper go in part to the shareholders and in part to open branch offices in other cities (pp. 34–35). Drawing on his experience, Zhan Kai provides a fictionalized guidebook for adding the formidable new tool of the advocacy newspaper to

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the arsenal of the women’s movement. Since the late 1890s women’s papers had made their appearance in China, and with them there grew a first and small contingent of women journalists. The professionalism, order of magnitude, and impact of Chaste’s paper are a far cry from these earlier attempts, but readers could spot the seeds of the future in their presentday experience. In view of her positive experience with the impact of her paper, Chaste advises women to publish their own papers. Authors dealing with the struggle to establish a constitution always stressed the international context, be it by linking it to a global struggle for freedom and progress, or by highlighting the importance of the constitution for China’s standing in the world. Zhan Kai goes to great lengths to acquire detailed information about the history of the women’s suffrage movement in Europe and the United States, and he treats the reader to it. Although technically this history is mostly in the past, it can be depicted as the future of China, with the knowledge that it actually happened— elsewhere. To explore the interaction between the Chinese women’s movement and that in other countries, the author sends Chaste to Russia, France, Germany, England, and the United States to see firsthand the development of women’s rights in these countries, to study in detail the working conditions of their women and the kind of professional training available to them, and to win over Chinese women students studying abroad to support the cause. Although the interaction with women’s organizations in other countries is pivotal, Chaste, like Heroine, has no qualms about also courting the support of influential foreigners to influence the Chinese court, in this case the U.S. ambassador to China, who happens to be a woman (p. 106). In what was to be read as advice to future leaders of the Chinese struggle for women’s rights, the author suggests a line of action and argumentation that stresses cooperation with women’s organizations in the West; and, like Heroine, Chaste develops a close relationship with the empress. Rather than poisoning her in anarchist manner, she becomes her translator and her window to an amazing international world, where women’s rights are intensely discussed. It helps that, wherever Chaste shows up in China or abroad, most women (and men) have read her articles. While fully recognizing the importance of political institutions, social demands, and media, the novel also highlights the political, social, and

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moral savvy needed by a woman leader if she is to be successful. Chaste is a modern professional woman, but to be able to fully play her role as leader, she is never said to deviate from the program written into her name. Needless to say, she marries the boy from the sports. Her moral stance is crucial for the acceptance of her public voice in the newspaper, her interaction with the empress, and even her interaction with foreign women. At the end of the novel, we return to familiar ground. As the women in China now mostly meet the two criteria of education and financial independence, they are granted equal rights with men without much ado. The young men chosen by Heroine and Chaste both are in military schools and pursue military careers. This is not a coincidence. The military schools developed above all by Yuan Shikai in the north were schools of modernity in terms of technical knowledge, organization, and disciplined commitment. Both young men support their loved one’s actions as well as their agency in going after their cause. However, the novels depart from even a revised traditional “talented scholar and beautiful lady” trope. The two women are heroines in their own right, and the young men play no important roles. On a symbolic level the union of the couples shows professional women and graduates from the new military academies to be potential candidates for future national leadership. None of them, however, have careers in parliament or government administration. The women in particular become important social leaders with national impact, a marker of the growing self-assertiveness of society at the time and of the persisting distrust in the willingness and the ability of the state to push things ahead. Zhan Kai’s depiction of an orderly and well-managed social transformation led by selfless and pure leaders and condoned by a benevolent government that is convinced by facts tries with its often painful exaggerations to banish the dark shadows of its countertext: the eruption of unproductive and self-destructive violence out of women’s legitimate anger, frustration, and disappointment, and the state’s helpless overreaction. At the time the Society for Regaining the Rights of Women is established early in New Heroine for China, neither side has a realistic image of the other or any method of engaging. When the Chinese ambassador in Japan cuts the government stipends of the students and ships them home, the student leaders see assassination of the ambassador and

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suicide as the only ways out. There is no institutional structure or political process through which such conflicts can be negotiated. For Zhan Kai, the constitution is to provide such a structure, and, once this is in place, an orderly and gradual transition will become possible with the right leadership. Situating his novel scenarios of women’s emancipation in the time after the constitution has been passed implies the view that only under a condition of cooled-down tempers can the self-managed self-betterment of women succeed and the government let reason prevail. At the same time, the novels take issue with the 1906 court edict. The edict asked for loyalty and obedience to the court’s directives, but the novels show that it is bottom-up activity that provides the crucial drive for government reform plans and their realization.

Conclusions Although the Reform of Governance edicts were effective in framing much of the reform debate, quite a few novels felt free to move beyond this framing on issues skirted by the court that their authors felt to be of crucial importance for the fate of the nation. Novels on women’s education and emancipation show this strong and independent agency of society and the new media. Moving beyond the allegorical use of women characters to signal the weakness of China in the world, they took up substantive women issues. Prominent among them were women’s education, their political role, their economic contribution and independence, and marriage. These issues were treated as national rather than simply gender issues. To make this case convincing, the authors positively engaged with the international discussion on the standing of women being a key marker of the degree to which a country lived up to the “standard of civilization.” This international perspective translated within the novels into the awareness of the protagonists of changes taking place abroad in the standing of women and, quite often, in the direct interaction with women activists elsewhere. About the way to achieve the needed reforms, however, the novels showed the same controversies between “revolutionary” and “reformist”

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paths that had fueled the debates in Chinese novels since Liang Qichao’s pioneering work, ranging from the anarchist fantasy of Killing-Blood Beauty to Chen Xiaolu’s woman protagonist with her Chinese moral essence, modern education, and peaceful ways. The alternatives were real enough in the public discussion that most novels chose to present both sides, and, although they tended to end up supporting the reformist course, they showed respect for the motives of those advocating radical ways and conceded that the threat of their finding public support was helpful to the push for reformist solutions. Even the reformist women protagonists in these novels who disagreed with radical solutions such as anarchist death squads were keenly aware of the need to exert public pressure on the court and officialdom because there was little willingness to include key demands concerning women’s standing into the official agenda. The novels thus explore various avenues that were in fact also explored in society at the time—civic associations of women, women entering professions, newspapers run by and for women, women’s cooperatives, but also direct appeals to the wives of men in power. These civic associations, commercial enterprises, and new media reflect the growing self-assertiveness of society at the time as well as a growing willingness of men in powerful positions to tolerate and even support such new avenues of organization and articulation. Their independent stance on the women’s issue notwithstanding, the novels stayed within the wider framework of the Reform of Governance by maintaining a “reformist” support for constitutional monarchy. But the rigid adherence of even the most radical women protagonists in these novels to a code of chastity shows the degree to which the male authors of these novels shared cultural anxieties with conservative officials whom on other issues they attacked or satirized.

Chapter 6

In Search of New Heroes

T

he transcultural travels of heroic figures follow the same dynamics as the travels of literary genres. They start off in a highly defined local context; are pulled out of it by agents who live in other environments but see enough commonality to find them stimulating and who will reset the features of these figures according to their own sensibilities; and proceed through their globalization to a new locales that in turn might become a key stimulus for the local literary environment but also a step in another globalizing move, as these localized features are again adapted to new environments. The agency driving this transcultural flow is not the imposition by a foreign power but the pull of local readers, translators, writers, and, sometimes, institutions. Such new heroic figures are called upon to personify new ideas and ideals advocated by local reformers—ideas and ideals that are themselves part of the same transcultural interaction. During the late Qing, historical figures such as George Washington and Napoleon stand out as the most prominently discussed political heroes. They gained Chinese significance by standing for a political reform that secured independence, democracy, prosperity, and power (Washington); or overthrow of the old order, mobilization of military strength, and strong leadership in establishing a new order in large parts of Europe.1 The political novel did its own part by introducing and sketching the character of heroic protagonists who would be able to lead China out of its 1. Pan Guangzhe, Huashengdun zai Zhongguo; Zou Zhenhuan, “ ‘Geming biaomu’ ”; Chen Jianhua, “Napolun.”

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crisis. Such heroes are an essential component of the genre. To benefit from the advantages offered by a work of literature over a political tract, a political novel will advocate reform and show the forces supporting and obstructing it not in the abstract terms of classes and institutions, but through the concrete medium of the interactions and conflicts of fictional human beings. In this context the figure of the leader and hero does not embody some abstract group or institution, but the assumption that indeed great historical changes hinge on the presence of such a domineering and widely accepted figure. As the reforms the Chinese novels advocated were to bring about a political structure without precedent, the persons needed in order reach this goal were also of an utterly new type. The drafting of the contours of this new person was therefore one of the main challenges for the political novel in the narrower sense, but also for the new Chinese novel more generally. The failure of the Hundred Days Reform in 1898 had meant that the real-life Guangxu emperor would not live up to the models of Peter the Great, the Meiji emperor, or even Bismarck to engineer a top-down reform, and that the younger members of the elite were not strong and resolute enough to overcome the resistance of the powers that be. Reacting to this reality, reformers were prompted to look for alternative—as yet virtual or fictional—venues to retain and possibly even expand their political agency in their push for reform. The experience of reform in the West and Japan suggested two tightly linked venues—reeducating the “people” and casting a new type of heroic leader to guide them. Liang Qichao was a key figure in developing both of these venues. To overcome the root cause of China’s problems in what the reformers denounced as the “slave” mentality of the people as well as most of the elite, a massive effort at reeducating them into true “citizens” was required. Only such true citizens could provide grassroots support for reform. The rapidly expanding Chinese-language media were the obvious choice to bridge the gap between the small number of reformers and the vast masses they wanted to reach—a choice that also echoes the motives of Protestant missionaries for moving into large-scale publishing. The idea of the new citizen was articulated by Liang Qichao in his seminal 1902 call for the “reform of the people,” “Xin min shuo” 新民說. The idea of reforming the people that pervades Liang’s writings in the first years of the twentieth

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century signals a shift in focus from gaining the allegiance of the younger members of the gentry to gaining that of a new candidate, the “people.”2 It was important to the late Qing agenda of both “reformers” and “revolutionaries” to invent Chinese heroes to match the foreign George Washingtons and Napoleons whose contributions had been discussed in China since the 1830s. Their casting, discussed in a study by Shen Songqiao,3 reflected the different ideological agendas of reformers and revolutionaries to the point that, even when choosing the same hero, their emphasis and interpretation could be vastly different. To highlight their heroic contribution, the selected heroes were inserted into the new history with new titles such as “creator of the grand empire,” “great hero that expanded the empire,” “courageous explorer,” “great philosopher who advocated universal love, the rights of the people, and Great Harmony,” “valiant military hero,” and “self-sacrificing patriot.”4 The individuals singled out under these categories, as Hu Shi later recalled, were the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi 黃帝), the mythical founder of China; Ming Taizu 明太祖, the founder of the Ming dynasty; Confucius, the philosopher; Yue Fei 岳飛, the patriotic general who repelled the Jin invasion during the Song period; Ban Zhao 班超, the great woman scholar who helped write the dynastic history of the Han; the monk Xuanzang 玄奘, who traveled to India and brought Buddhist sutras back to Tang China; the poets Li Bo 李白and Du Fu 杜甫; and the woman warriors Qin Liangyu 秦良玉 and Hua Mulan 花木蘭.5 Heroes high on the list of the revolutionaries were Zheng Chenggong 鄭成功, who resisted the Qing and remained loyal to the Ming, and Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全, the leader of the Taiping rebellion against the Qing dynasty of the Manchus.6 If new heroes were recruited from the past for emulation in order for China to have a future, Chinese history itself had to be recast to serve as a foundation for the emerging new nation. In conceptualizing and writing such a new history with heroic figures that showed an “understanding 2. In Hazama, “ ‘Xinmin shuo’ lüelun.” 3. Shen Songqiao, “Zhen da Han,” p. 253. Shen’s study focuses on Chinese heroes but leaves out the much more widely discussed foreign heroes. 4. Tao Chengzhang, Zhongguo minzu quanli, pp. 213–14. 5. Tie Er 鉄兒 (Hu Shi 胡适), “Aiguo” 愛國 (To love one’s country), Jingye xunbao 競業旬報, 34 (1908): 34; cited from Shen Songqiao, “Zhen da Han,” p. 266. 6. Tao Chengzhang, Zhongguo minzu quanli, p. 214.

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of the principle behind [social] evolution”7 and followed the model of the “fine history of the West” 泰西之良史,8 Liang Qichao again played a pivotal role. Conceived along the lines of modern Western historiography with its periodization as well as categories, the new Chinese history was to be driven by newly cast national heroes and the new values they were said to represent.9 Both the new Chinese heroes and a hero-driven evolutionist history were stimulated by a paradigm shift that reflected, as Xiaobing Tang has shown, a new global perspective. Liang’s concept of history was set within a global space, and the purpose of constructing a new national history was to revitalize China to enable it to join the ranks of modern nations.10 In a critique of the prevailing character of the Chinese, Liang defines his new citizen in the terms of a combination of the best Chinese tradition had to offer and the success models from the West. “Talking about reforming the people does not mean that we want them to entirely abandon the old and follow others but to reform them by, first, critically considering our own [heritage]; and, second, absorbing [from others] what we originally did not have. If one of these is left out, there will be no quick success.”11 Why then the dominance of the George Washingtons and Napoleons in the Chinese discussion? His efforts to invent and reshape heroes from the “yellow race” notwithstanding, Liang Qichao seems to be more personal and passionate about foreign heroes and heroines. The first piece of “hero worship” he wrote was dedicated to the Hungarian national hero Kossuth. Other foreign heroes and heroines followed suit, famously including Madame Roland. Xiaobing Tang suggests a reason for the disjuncture between Liang’s nationalist sentiment and his global perspective: “This new national history already implied a post-nationalist stage in which the nation had to be engaged as more than a homogeneous political 7. “Riben Futian hemin zhu Shixue yuan lun guanggao” 日本浮田和民著《史學 原論》廣告 (An advertisement for Discourse on the Source of History authored by the Japanese Ukita Kazutami), You xue yi bian 游學譯編, no. 4 (Feb. 12, 1904); cited from Shen Songqiao, “Zhen da Han,” p. 260. 8. Liang Qichao, “Xin shixue.” 9. Shen Songqiao, “Zhen da Han,” p. 253; Xiaobing Tang, Global Space, p. 43. 10. Xiaobing Tang, Global Space, pp. 41–43. 11. Liang Qichao, “Xin min shuo,” p. 5.

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collectivity.”12 Liang Qichao envisioned his reformed citizens as global in orientation and nature, whereas the Chinese heroes, in spite of new interpretations, remained bound to tradition and a specific place. The characteristics of these citizens-to-be are highlighted in the chapter headings of Liang’s “Xin min shuo.” They include “public spirit” (gong de 公德), “concern for [the needs] of the state” (guojia sixiang 國家 思想), “progressiveness and daring” (qujin maoxian 取進冒險), “engagement for the rights [of the nation]” (quanli sixiang 權利思想), the “ability to cooperate,” “determination and perseverance in reaching one’s ideals,” “martial spirit,” “personal ethics,” and “political ability.”13 Liang Qichao made it clear that the model for the new citizen with these qualities was to come mostly from the West: their validity had been demonstrated in the recent success of the West in a social Darwinist competition between the races that for reformers from Yan Fu to Liang Qichao was driving human evolution.14 For Yan Fu, the ascent of the white race over other races was attributable to its valuing freedom and equality, and its respect for new knowledge and talent.15 Great emphasis was placed in the West on the quality of the people rather than on political systems, on the importance of people over that of the ruler, and on the public good over private gains.16 For Liang Qichao, this all was a question of the spirit of a people. He admired in particular the Anglo-Saxons, whom he regarded as having a flourishing spirit of independence and self-help. He thus declared that, “in the world of nation-states, if the people are weak, the country is weak, but if the people are strong, the country is strong.” This is why the Chinese people must reform their “national character” and become a “renewed people.”17 For this, he believed Western heroes could provide the more direct and immediately relevant models. Someone asked the New Citizen [= Liang Qichao]: “Why is it, Sir, that the first biography you published in your new paper should be on [the Hungarian patriot] Kossuth?” 12. Xiaobing Tang, Global Space, p. 42. 13. These terms are taken from the chapter subtitles of Liang Qichao’s “Xin min shuo.” 14. Sakamoto, “Formation of National Identity,” pp. 277–78. 15. Yan Fu, “Lun shibian zhi ji.” 16. Zhang Yufa, “Cong gaige dao dongyuan,” p. 2. 17. Liang Qichao, “Xin min shuo,” p. 7.

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I answered that if I had wanted to write biographies of people from ancient times, there are plenty of heroes from our own past. But they belong to the past. Their beliefs and actions cannot move and touch us as powerfully as those of heroes from our own time. If I am to write the biography of heroes from our own time, then heroes from Europe and the United States, whom I greatly admire, are numerous. Being members of the yellow race, of course we love the heroes from our race more than those from the white race. As we are citizens in an autocracy, it is more proper for us to learn from heroes living under an autocracy than from those living in countries honoring liberty. At a time when we are suffering, we naturally worship the hero who has been frustrated in his ambition (shiyi 失意) rather than the one who has achieved his goals (de yi 得意).18

With this statement, Liang Qichao introduces the notion of the oppressed people and argues against a narrow view of race. It is all-important to establish a success model, a hero able to fulfill his destiny and lead the people to national salvation. As David Pollard perceptively points out, political reformers projected their own understanding of what was missing and needed for China’s renewal onto these “foreigners to be admired.”19 Setting up models of behavior for people as different as emperors, women, officials, and craftsmen has a long Chinese tradition. Therefore, it is not surprising that a reformer like Liang Qichao would feel that life-size models who displayed the new ways of thinking and behaving were needed to foster new citizens. The difference is that in Chinese tradition models of past orthodoxy were emulated, whereas in Liang Qichao’s dispensation many expressly new behavioral features were promoted whose emulation would eventually produce leaders for new China. Liang Qichao’s search for such heroic models was also intensely personal. As a politician in exile dedicated to bringing about political reform in his country, Liang needed to define publicly and for himself the character and role he was to play.20 One major focus of his writing after 18. Liang Qichao, “Xiongjiali aiguozhe,” p. 1. 19. Pollard, “Foreigners to Admire.” 20. Throughout his writings during his period of exile, Liang Qichao seeks to define the role of Chinese reformers—including himself—through models taken from Western countries and Japan. See, for example, Ren Gong (Liang Qichao), “Shaonian Zhongguo shuo.”

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Figures 6.1a–c. (a) Photograph of Tolstoy in the first issue of New Fiction magazine (1902). The caption reads: “Russia’s great novelist Tolstoy.” (Xin xiaoshuo 1 [1902]. No pagination.) (b) Photograph of Lord Byron in the second issue of New Fiction magazine (1902). (Xin xiaoshuo 2 [1902]. No pagination.) (c) Photograph of Victor Hugo in the second issue of New Fiction magazine (1902). (Xin xiaoshuo 2 [1902]. No pagination.)

1898 was to flesh out the image of such new heroes through biography and fiction. This search for new heroes also reflects the spirit of the time as exemplified by Thomas Carlyle’s (1795–1881) seminal On Heroes and Hero Worship (1841), which was extremely influential in Meiji Japan. Among the new kinds of heroes Carlyle created were poets, composers, and men of letters. This selection was reflected Liang Qichao’s choice of images for his New Fiction magazine (Xin xiaoshuo) (figure 6.1a–c). In the ultimate critique of the Chinese character, these heroes were all Europeans. In defense of his choice, Liang Qichao argued that China was in need of a new kind of hero that at the time it was not able to produce. These European heroes should be regarded as Chinese models since their sufferings were like those of the Chinese, although their reactions had been utterly different. I have searched through the history of our time for a hero who, while living among the white race, is in fact the reincarnation of the yellow race, and, while being a leader in events occurring among the white race, nonetheless gives glory to the yellow race. There is such a hero, and his name is Kossuth. As to a man who rose out of totalitarian rule yet struggled for the liberty for his countrymen, who, even though in the end was not able to bring about

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liberty for those he struggled for, nonetheless saved them from totalitarian rule, there is one such hero, and his name is Kossuth.21

The selection of Lajos Kossuth (1802–94) was not accidental. He had tirelessly fought for the independence of Hungary from the Habsburg monarchy; used the newspaper (in a hand-copied form sent by mail) to link the different provincial assemblies and create a united force for reform among liberal gentry; served as a minister and president of Hungary during the short time of its freedom; and became a proud exile after the failure of his revolutionary push.22 And, as the Hungarian population was considered to have descended from the Mongol occupation, he could be said to have a link to the “yellow” race. Much of Kossuth’s life echoed Liang Qichao’s own life and self-image, although Liang was modest enough not to refer to himself as a Chinese Kossuth. Compared to particular historical figures like Tolstoy or Kossuth, with their necessary limitations, fictional characters offered the potential of presenting in character and plot a composite and idealized image for emulation—as long as the realism of its depiction signaled the claim that these were not just fantasy products. With their own political agenda in mind, Liang Qichao’s journals such as Xinmin congbao and Xin xiaoshuo widely perused Western literature to extract from it a variety of heroes for emulation. The occasional efforts to offer bona fide Chinese heroes, including the historical and cultural figures mentioned above, did not find much resonance.23 Among the new literary figures appearing in East Asia around the turn of the twentieth century, we thus find the scientist in science fiction, the detective in the detective novel, the political leader and reformer in the political novel, and the revolutionary in stories about the Russian Nihilists. These are the new literary heroes. Strictly speaking,

21. Liang Qichao, “Xiongjiali aiguozhe.” 22. An outline of Kossuth’s life and labors by James W. Headlam, which reflects late-nineteenth-century views on him, can be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica, eleventh edition. 23. Efforts to reestablish Chinese traditional hero figures by bringing certain opera characters back onto stage did not seem to have had much effect. For example, see San Ai (Chen Duxiu), “Lun xiqu”; A Ying, Wan Qing wenxue congchao: Xiaoshuo xiqu, pp. 52–55.

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many of these new novels were not among the core political novels, as they did not share their primary concern with institutional change and specific political reforms. However, they were part of the common effort to present models of modernity to the readers—be it in institutional set-up, in knowledge, or in personal behavior. They, together with the biographies of foreigners just mentioned, can be seen as the genre’s supporting outer layer. Further links among these genres are found in their authors and translators, the journals in which they were serialized, as well as their publishers.24 The new heroes—historical and literary—were all introduced through and shaped by translation. The agency in these translations is with the Chinese translators, and it is their agenda that informs both their selection and their translation strategy, including the changes they introduced to the original works. These translations are thus both the end of a long transmission process that often went through more than one language and an intrinsic part of late Qing literature and debate. For example, most Chinese translations go back to Japanese translations, which had been adapted to a Japanese agenda and which in turn might echo a Western text that already was a translation from a different Western language.25 The end of the process is reached with the new readers becoming enthralled by the fantastic nature of the foreign tale and its hero. Unwittingly, the readers, who are the ultimate arbiters of a successful adaptation, would become increasingly aware of the larger world outside of their own immediate experience. These foreign heroes were meant to elicit the reader’s sympathy and support for a just cause, and as literary characters they were uniquely positioned to cross the cultural divide and reach the reader. The ultimate goal was to have the reader link these new heroes with the solution of China’s problems of the day.26 The introduction and construction of these new foreign literary protagonists engage in a silent dialogue with a countertext: the traditional

24. For the points of commonality among these genres as well as their difference with earlier translations of technical and scientific information into Chinese, see Hung, “Giving Texts a Context,” pp. 151–52. 25. This has been pointed out by many scholars who deal with late Qing translation. See, for example, Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power, pp. 97–98, 134–35, 139–41. 26. Pollard, “Foreigners to Admire,” pp. 30–38.

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and familiar Chinese hero and the values of loyalty, filial piety, moral integrity, and righteousness 忠孝節義 regularly attributed to them. To be loyal to the emperor, for example, was replaced by the new notion of being loyal to one’s country or having love for one’s country; righteousness among sworn brothers was redefined as political solidarity among reformers and revolutionaries. My analysis below will treat these new heroes as carriers of new values and as a challenge to the standard heroic code from traditional literature. Yet, as David Wang points out, the literary imagination and the past practices familiar to late Qing translators, writers, and readers often fell back on traditional tropes to secure accessibility of the new.27 The ensuing tension must also be explored.

The Political Leader One of the first contemporary characters to emerge in the new fiction was the political leader. This literary figure first came together in Liang Qichao and Luo Xiaogao’s 羅孝高 (Luo Pu 羅普, 1876–1949) 1902 translation of Jules Verne’s Deux ans de vacances (1888) as Shiwu xiao haojie 十五小豪傑 (Fifteen little heroes).28 Verne’s story is an adventure of fifteen youths, ranging in age from nine to fifteen, who are lost at sea and have to learn to live and survive for two years on a deserted island until they finally make it home. The story highlights the importance of the collective in time of crisis, the necessity of unity, and the process by which young men become leaders able to set up an institutional framework for their community.

27. David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, p. 302. 28. Verne, Shiwu xiao haojie. This translation of Deux ans de vacances is based on the 1896 Japanese translation by Morita Shiken as Gojū shōnen; for an overview of Japanese translations of Jules Verne’s work into Japanese as political novels, see Yanagida, Meiji shoki honyaku bungaku, pp. 182–84. As Nakamura Tadayuki has shown, Liang’s motive for translating this children’s novel is closely linked to his idea of “reforming the people” (Shinmatsu no buntan, p. 48); for a study of Liang Qichao’s translations, see Hu Congjing, Wan Qing ertong wenxue, pp. 9–11.

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In his study on The Political and Social Ideas of Jules Verne,29 Jean Chesneaux has shown that in Verne’s works science or the forecasting of scientific developments is an integral part of a specifically political agenda. Verne’s main concerns were the legacy of the 1848 revolutionary events in Europe, utopian socialism, and libertarian individualism. For Jules Verne, there is only one type of noble heroism, and it is to be found in the struggle against colonialism.30 For writers from China and Japan, an adventure story such as Deux ans de vacances offered a new narrative strategy to further explore the tensions embedded in the original work and through them articulate new types of social and political concerns.31 Japanese political reformers translated the novels of Jules Verne as political novels in this spirit and with the aim to introduce Western science and civilization. Morita Shiken’s 森田思軒 1896 translation of Deux ans de vacances made a point of emphasizing the power of science and self-help, in tune with Self-Help by Samuel Smiles (1812–1904), the 1877 translation of which was enormously popular in Japan.32 Liang’s own commentary to his translation, in contrast, stressed that this novel was about personalities and about the courage of youth in defying all odds.33 This applied not just to the leader but also to the collective efforts of the youths, who stand as an allegory for the citizens of a nation-state overcoming a crisis. To highlight the political significance of the work and the motive behind its translation, Liang Qichao adopted a traditional literary form belonging to the Chinese novel by opening the novel with a poem that 29. Grafting the new model of a new kind of leader based on foreign heroes often included heroes with great martial spirit. (Hu) Shi’an’s 胡石庵 (1879–1926) [Aiguo xiaoshuo] Luoma qi xiashi [愛國小說]羅馬七俠士 (The Seven Knights-errant of Rome. A patriotic novel; 1909), for example, depicts a sixth century B.C.E. Roman band who fought for the establishment of the Roman Republic. The main aim of such novels was to highlight the political importance of martial spirit and patriotism. The author’s biography shares features with his heroes. 30. Chesneaux, Political and Social Ideas, p. 21. 31. Dun Wang has argued that Chinese science fiction in late Qing China inherited from the modern West the tensions between the industrial and the social but not without Chinese discursive renovations. “Late Qing’s Other Utopias,” p. 38. 32. Yanagida, Meiji shoki honyaku bungaku, pp. 113–17; Sumairusu (Samuel Smiles), Saikoku risshi hen. 33. Verne (as Jiaoshi Weiernu), Shiwu xiao haojie, 3:96.

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summarized the central concern of the work. This “wedge,” or xiezi 楔子, at the beginning of a novel may be an entire chapter or even a short poem. It is used to outline the purpose of the work and the moral stance the reader should adopt in reading it.34 As for the literary form, Liang explicitly adopted the traditional linked chapter, or zhanghui 章回, format;35 at the same time he praised the original Western literary plot and language as being “abundant with boldness and vision” and claimed that his translation did not shortchange this quality.36 Liang’s wedge poem was neither in the French original nor in the Japanese translation. It read: On the endless ocean with crushing waves and wind-swept rain, A boat with broken sails floats like a leaf. Fifteen youths go through a battle of life and death, all of tender age. A singular chance to survive is offered —an island at the end of the world without a chance of return. Paralyzed by agony and exhaustion, they yet muster their courage and rally their spirits, Clearing the brambles and building a home for a two-year sojourn. A heroic cause! Even the Lord of Heaven could not but be jealous. Colonizers with discipline, they open up new land, proudly raising the national flag at this southern end of the world. What splendid Republican system of governance [they created]! Even the heavens were moved [by their efforts]. Look! After achieving the impossible, they returned home in glory. I am not boasting and relaying to [you] the impossible, You, the youth of my motherland, ought to act immediately [upon this example]! Do not waste the opportunity of this lifetime!37 34. Zhuang Yin, Huaben xiezi huishuo. A detailed study of the wedge form will be given in chapter 7. 35. Liang refers to this at the end of chapter 1 as the “segmentation of fiction” (shuobu tiduan 說部體段). 36. Liang Qichao, Shiwu xiao haojie, 3:100; see also Xia Xiaohong, Jueshi yu chuanshi, p. 58. 37. Verne, Shiwu xiao haojie, 2:93.

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This wedge poem does not only highlight the key themes of the novel, but also locks the reader into a reading strategy that directly links the French story to China’s present. Liang Qichao praises Wu An, the main protagonist of the novel, as someone with the true qualities of a hero (3:96). This fifteen-year-old not only has knowledge of sea navigation, geology, and geography; he also is morally upright, level-headed in the face of calamity, caring for those who are weak, selfless and brave, and, most important, he has vision. He sees farther than others and is able to translate his vision into action through democratic means. Liang Qichao quotes Wu An in his commentary: “We should not lose faith; we must understand that besides our individual survival there are things far more important.” In him Liang sees the “hero who has grasped the ‘way’ ” 有道之士, and through him Liang articulates his understanding of the new leader (3:96). Although this hero is important to the novel, it is collective heroism that is at the heart of the original work as well as the translation. The novel highlights the moral truth that every member of this collective is instrumental to the youths’ survival. This point is driven home through examples from various situations and crises. As each member of the group demonstrates and reinforces this point, it becomes evident that the novel and its translation set out to convey this programmatic vision. In this context, Liang’s translation of the adventure of youths on the island can be read as an allegory for the reform process. The troubles and difficulties faced by the youths mirror the political world of China at the time. There is the issue of national identity. The youths are from three different nations with eight of them being English from Australia. They include Du Pan, the most brilliant among them but also the most arrogant and self-centered; Wu An and his younger brother, both of whom are French; and E Dun, the American, who is the oldest among them. At times the question of nationality causes tensions, as in the situation where the group is electing a leader. Another difficulty comes from the democratic process, which is presented as the success model in the struggle for survival. As the youths struggle with the challenges of nature, factions develop. Four boys with Du Pan as their leader form a faction opposed to Wu An. At stake are not so much differences in opinion or strategy but rather of personality. During one of the first crises in which the four make trouble and attempt to act independently from the group, Wu An stands

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firm and persuades them that it is vital to remain united: “Today is our most dangerous moment. When we stick together, no matter whether the problems are urgent or drawn out, we can help each other. But if we divide and go our own ways, this is the way of destruction” (3:92). Through Wu An’s patience and reason the four youths finally are persuaded to stay with the group. As a consequence, they are saved from drowning. The real crisis comes when Wu An is elected as the president of their little republic. The four declare independence and break away from the rest of the kids. Again, it is Wu An who braves life-threatening difficulties to warn the four of the arrival of eight murderers on the island. In fact, he saves the life of Du Pan. Wu An’s action not only demonstrates the moral character of a leader, but, more important, it signals a principle of democratic rule—the rights of a minority. Finally, the group is confronted with the political issue of how to both practice democracy and be united in purpose. Day-to-day hardships teach them that treasuring liberty is intricately linked to willingness to obey orders and that the strong must protect and help the weak. This process helps the youths to become true and civilized citizens. On the social and political side, they struggle to survive, learn about the strength of the collective, elect their own president, and make decisions by consensus and through democratic debate. In this manner, they overcome divisions through compromise and persuasion. On the technical side, they become experts in animal husbandry, carpentry, agriculture, wine making, and all kinds of scientific enterprises. As the novels ends, the youths embody with their collective courage, discipline, moral qualities, knowledge, and skills the qualities of Liang Qichao’s reformed citizen. Social and political conditions are translated into natural conditions in this novel. The novel begins with a life-threatening catastrophe. The storm at sea is represents the political conditions facing the weaker nations in the world; the sinking ship—a new metaphor from the West— represents nations unprepared and unfit to survive. The nationalities of the children, which prompt them at times to struggle against each other, are read by Liang Qichao as an allegory for the “struggle among nations” (3:96), and the spirit of the children fighting the tyranny of nature as an allegory for freedom and independence from the powers, highlights the prospects for political reform.

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The life-threatening crisis in which the group finds itself shakes up their old habits enough to stimulate the growth of both a political hero and reform-minded citizens. The opening poem addresses the youth of China in their sinking ship of state and calls on them to have a bold and daring spirit. This alone will allow them to survive, to become part of a world community, to educate themselves and develop reform ideas, and thus to serve and save the nation. To become a public political leader was for late Qing society a new kind of vocation. It implied a new kind of personality operating within a new state-society relationship and a new media landscape. In contradistinction to the emperor, who normally comes to power by birth or through open rebellion, the stature of the new political leader, the novel suggests, is based on his ability, his vision, and his effectiveness, all of which will help him to garner the support of the people in a democratic process. The translation seeks to inspire the reader to recognize individuals with these qualities and to support them even if they do not qualify for leadership themselves. Thus the new personality of the public leader replaces the emperor as the only known candidate for legitimate leadership, and the children as an active, qualified, and civilized group replace the traditional yumin 愚民, the “dumb” yet honest and obedient common people. Through the adventure story, a genre used for the Western counterpart of knight-errant tales, the novel employs a romantic mode to use the children’s struggle for survival as a political metaphor. The storm and the shipwreck, with the young people from different nations being stranded together and having to build up the structures of a new life, all add to this romantic flavor as the adventure story stimulates the imagination of readers and inspires them to become active in the real political world beyond fiction. Once the Verne novel appeared in the Chinese environment, its localization derived not only from interventions by the translator or commentator, in the manner stressed in translation studies, it came most of all from its interaction with—and especially its contrast to—intrinsically unrelated cultural patterns. The character of Wu An gets its particular Chinese focus through his counterpoise, Jia Baoyu—the main protagonist in Dream of the Red Chamber, the novel most widely read by young people at the time and most widely imitated. Jia Baoyu is a paragon of sentimental attachment and high literary sophistication who hardly ever ventures

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beyond the confines of the idyllic Great Prospect Garden and is utterly unconcerned with either court or society. Against him, Wu An’s bold actions, social commitment, and effective leadership stand out all the more. Furthermore, both novels are stories about the coming of age of a group of young people. The garden and the island are both environments in which they can set up their own system of “governance” as the ship goes under in the one novel, and the grand clan from which Jia Baoyu hails undergoes a fatal decline in the other. The young people in the Great Prospect Garden, however, live a life of high luxury, introspection, and sentimentality; they are oblivious to the crisis that threatens the great house from within and are never shown engaging in social action of any kind to avert it. They eventually are separated and suffer a bad fate, with Jia Baoyu finishing his journey on earth by becoming a monk—the ultimate symbol of social disengagement and inaction. The children on the deserted island, in contrast, have to fight for their survival, facing the challenges of internal disunity, environmental onslaught, and outside invasion. Living for two years on the deserted island, they learn to trust each another, overcome division, and freely elect a leader. Living in the wild does not turn them into beasts but makes them civilized citizens who ultimately use what they learned in school to muster up the technical means to build their own ship and return home in triumph. Read against the countertext of the Dream in particular, Fifteen Little Heroes becomes an allegorical tale about China in crisis, “traditional” obstacles blocking the advance, and ultimately finding a way out.

The Western Scientist During the late nineteenth century, science and technology were hailed by Chinese reformers as powerful engines for progress and democracy. The scientist and particularly the engineer, with his questioning of established wisdom, his willingness to behave in an uncompromising way toward the scholarly community as well as the powers-that-be, his proactive attitude, and his focus on useful technical innovation, were

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intrinsically linked to the politics of a new China. The literary figure of the Western scientist in the genre of science fiction or science fantasy, a genre hitherto unknown in Chinese-language fiction, thus became a candidate for new Chinese hero roles. Translations of Western science fiction would offer the model and provide the trajectory for Chinese original works of this genre, some of which donned the cloak of being a “translation” for status enhancement. Science fiction, faithfully rendered by the Japanese-created term kexue xiaoshuo 科學小說, was among the earliest Western literary genres to be introduced to China.38 Following the Japanese precedent, a Chinese translation of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days came out in 1900.39 But only after Liang Qichao’s Xin xiaoshuo magazine gave it a special column did science fiction become widely known and accepted as a genre associated with political reform. Xin xiaoshuo published many translations of the genre, including some by Liang Qichao.40 The revival of the utopian narrative and the creation of science fiction in the West during the late nineteenth century, scholars have argued, captured and reflected the tensions between industrial and technical development, with its ever tighter control over the individual, and aspirations for social and political progress.41 Translations of science fiction works into Chinese carried this tension as a marker of the genre that stimulated local readers and writers to explore their own sociopolitical dilemmas and anxieties through plot variations and new narration trajectories that carried a ring of the familiar through their association with traditional stories of the fantastic. During the first decade of the twentieth century, almost all science fiction novels translated into Chinese were Western works that had earlier been translated in Japan.42 Following the Japanese precedent, the genre

38. For an online listing of late Qing and early Republican period Chinese detective novels and translations, see Zhang Zhi et al., Zhongguo jindai kexue huanxiang. 39. Ye Yonglie, “Xinfaluo.” 40. See Chen Yingnian, “Liang Qichao.” 41. There is a wealth of discussion on the subject; see, for example, Jameson, Archaeologies; Freedman, Critical Theory. 42. See Hisamatsu et al., Gendai Nihon bungaku; Pollard, “Jules Verne,” pp. 179–80.

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was considered a part of the political novel current during the late Qing.43 Reformers from both countries believed that the genre could help them in their efforts to “open up the minds of the people” to the new and to Western culture.44 One of the earliest and most dramatic scientist-heroes was Captain Nemo, the central character in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and other Jules Verne novels.45 Originally published in 1870, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea had seen two translations into Japanese, in 1880 and 1884.46 The Chinese retranslation from the Japanese was serialized between 1902 and 1903 in Xin xiaoshuo.47 Under the title Taixi zuixin kexue xiaoshuo: Haidi lüxing 泰西最新科學小説: 海底旅行 (Travels under the sea. Newest science novel from the West), the translation comes with a commentary by Pifasheng 披髮生 (Luo Xiaogao 羅孝高), who was a disciple of Kang Youwei and an activist in the political reform 43. See Yanagida, Meiji shoki honyaku bungaku; see also Matsui Sachiko, Seiji shōsetsu. The latter study includes a timetable with the publication dates of political novels of the Meiji period; see pp. 251–62. 44. Science fiction in this period included a variety of genres such as adventure stories (maoxian xiaoshuo 冒險小說), philosophy and science novels (zheli kexue xiaoshuo 哲理科學小說), and utopian novels (lixiang xiaoshuo 理想小說). All shared the element of exploring the new and unknown, and entailed travel throughout the world, extending to places previously unknown. The translations of these works were meant to educate readers about the world around them from at least a somewhat scientific point of view. 45. Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (Vingt mille lieues sous les mers) was published in 1870; the figure of Captain Nemo also appears in Jules Verne’s novel The Mysterious Island (L’île mysterieuse) published in 1874–75. For quotations in this study, I use the English edition of the former published by Oxford University Press in 1998. 46. Suzuki Umetarō translated this novel in 1880 as Kaitei ni man li kō. Another translation was done by Ōhira Sanji in 1884 under the title [Bōken kidan] Kaitei ryokō [冒險奇談]海底旅行 (Travels under the sea. Adventure tale); it was followed by several reprints until 1906. A comparison has convinced me that the Chinese text is based on Ōhira Sanji’s translation. 47. Verne (as Xiaolu shi), Taixi zuixin kexue xiaoshuo: Haidi lüxing. The translation was discontinued after the twenty-first chapter. As David Pollard has pointed out, chapters 1 through 4 draw “equally on wenyan (written language) and baihua (spoken language) in hybrid fashion. From the second issue of the magazine onward, the team changed to Hongxisheng as translator, with Pifasheng (Luo Xiaogao) as the commentator, and the language consistently close to story-teller baihua” (“Jules Verne,” p. 180).

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movement. Luo had become a skilled translator from the Japanese. He had participated in the translation of Verne’s Deux ans de vacances (where Verne figured as a Frenchman) and wrote under the pen name Pifasheng a running commentary for chapters 5 and following of the translation of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (for which the author was listed as an Englishman known as Xiaolu shi, Mr. Jules).48 Verne’s heroes perfectly fit the agenda of the Chinese reformers as they had that of the Japanese twenty years earlier. They are men of high ideals and action, and exemplify genius in terms of their scientific knowledge. In Nemo we have one of the first examples of a scientist cum political rebel to be depicted as a hero. The translators chose Captain Nemo with an acute sense for his potential.49 He first becomes known to the world in connection with a mysterious force in the sea with insurmountable powers, a strange and threatening phenomenon generally referred to as “the monster.” “The monster” in fact is the submarine Nautilus, built by Captain Nemo. Nautilus is a strange object, “hard as metal and rock, and of pure black color.”50 Captain Nemo himself is the embodiment of the symbolic qualities of his ship—a man with a will of iron and ideals as pure and incorruptible as the color black. His mastery of science has given him mysterious and seemingly unlimited powers over the forces of nature. His name (which means “no one”) is translated into Chinese as Li Meng 李夢 with a comment by the translator that “it means ‘the one who does not know who he is’ ” 不知我是誰之意 (2:40). This Buddhistsounding name notwithstanding, as a literary character Nemo/Li Meng brings forth new qualities that make him stand out from traditional Chinese literary heroes. The Chinese reader is told that not only does he have a “godlike” physical appearance, but he is also full of spirit. This spirit keeps him relentlessly focused without a moment of relaxation. Besides his limitless knowledge of all branches of the natural sciences, his learning also includes vast knowledge in all aspects of history, art, and literature. As a leader he is endowed with great power and charisma while also caring 48. Judge, “Factional Function,” p. 120, n. 2. 49. I use the 1906 reprint of the Japanese translation by Ōhira Sanji under the title [Bōken kidan] Kaitei ryokō. 50. Verne, Taixi zuixin kexue xiaoshuo: Haidi lüxing, 1:95.

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for the men who share his ideals. Morally upright, he applies his knowledge to create an “ideal new world” under water on his submarine Nautilus, a “mobile island,” and to set himself up as a challenger to the powers who have taken control of all corners of the earth. Only under the sea, he believes, can one find a world “free of oppression from despots and corrupt officials, and live as one likes” (2:42). “The sea does not belong to despots. On its surface men might apply unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces, and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at thirty feet below sea level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched, and their power disappears. Living in the bosom of the waters, there only is freedom, independence, and self-rule!” (2:42).51 Politically, Nemo is motivated by strong beliefs, seeing recent history from the perspective of the oppressed. At the core of his political philosophy are his ideals of national independence and personal liberty. He thus uses his knowledge not only for his scientific undertakings, but also for the benefit of the struggles for independence by oppressed peoples, prefiguring what later became the link between “Mr. Science” and “Mr. Democracy” during the May Fourth Movement in 1919. His courage applies to scientific explorations as much as to political commitment: the unknown does not frighten him. Although a very wealthy man, he cares not for his wealth; much of his wealth is in fact used to support independence movements around the world. Yet, this is not a hero without weakness; the novel presents an emotionally tormented man. Even though the cause of his self-imposed exile and isolation and the actual source of his sorrows remain a secret, his unflinching hatred for colonialism and despotism sheds some light on the cause. Using science, he has invented for himself a new kind of independence that makes him free from any foreign power. He plants his black flag (which became associated with revolt and eventually anarchism after the 1880s) with the letter “N” at the South Pole as a sign that he has taken possession of this land, the only that is free from control of the big powers. In short, Captain Nemo is a scientist who is motivated by uncompromising political beliefs; although a thoroughly Westernized man of Indian 51. The English translation of the French original, on which the Japanese versions are based, reads: “Ah! Sir, live—live in the bosom of the waters! There only is independence! There I recognize no masters! There I am free!” See Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues, p. 76.

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descent, he chooses to turn his back on the dark side of Western civilization and create his own brand of society. He displays the spirit of the untainted explorer, reaching toward the unknown with supreme courage and will power. The sharply defined contours of his distinct transcultural personality are sharpened by the contrast with Aronnax (O-lu-shi), a professor of natural history, who has been rescued by Captain Nemo. Aronnax is the narrator of the book, and the story is told from his perspective. For reasons of cultural convention, the Chinese translation did not follow the French original or the Japanese translation, and changed Aronnax from first- to third-person narrator. Although there are two scientists on board Nautilus, there is only one hero. Professor Aronnax is an apolitical scientist. Through the contrast between the two, the issue of the social meaning of science is highlighted. A case in point is the reaction of Aronnax to Nemo’s revolutionary scientific ideas that went into the creation of Nautilus. Completely disregarding the fact that Nemo’s invention was motivated purely by ideological commitment and political conviction, Aronnax is only interested in understanding the scientific breakthroughs and making this work of scientific genius known to the world. Nemo becomes the modern scientist-hero not through his superior knowledge of science but through the linking of this knowledge with his political commitment. This scientist-hero is also the explorer who opens uncharted paths. Nemo’s explorations of the unknown reaches of the ocean provide suspenseful reading and for the Chinese reader offer a glimpse of the strange and unfathomable, qi 奇, as well as knowledge of the unknown West. In less than ten months Aronnax and his companions have crossed 20,000 leagues in their submarine tour of the world. They have traveled the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the Black Sea, and the Coral Sea north of Australia, and they have passed under the North Pole. On their way they have confronted life-threatening dangers; have found lost cities, islands, and legendary historical relics; and have seen unfathomable wonders generated by nature or science. Even these far-flung explorations, however, have political implications. The symbolic message is clear: modern science can help in finding utterly new ways to resist powerful despots. Nemo shows that one does not have to fight on the terms set by the enemy. His experiments on board Nautilus do not prepare for some ultimate conventional battle but chart new paths and create new forces for the liberation of the oppressed.

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The effort to shape the scientist into the ideal type of new hero with strong political commitments is highlighted in the differences between the Chinese and the Japanese translations as well as their common differences from the French original. The Chinese translation portrays Captain Nemo as a leader who belongs to all oppressed peoples and nations. And while his Nautilus represents a new scientific strategy for countering social and political injustice, it also shows the global nature of this struggle. Nemo’s nationality is only indicated but not revealed, and his self-given name suggests that he does not want one. The men on board Nautilus are from all different nations. The international nature of Captain Nemo’s struggle is one of the main themes in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. The enemy oppressor is not identified by nationality, and the enemy’s gigantic man-of-war flies no country’s flag. Captain Nemo’s war is the universal struggle for liberty. In the French version Nemo is less of an abstract ideal figure; he acts out of a very personal experience and political philosophy. In the original he cries out as he prepares to counterattack the enemy battleship: “I am the law, and I am the judge! I am the oppressed, and there is the oppressor! Through him I have lost all that I loved, cherished, and venerated,— country, wife, children, father, and mother. I saw all perish! All that I hate is there!”52 There is an element of personal vengeance in this outburst, and by identifying the enemy as an individual rather than a political system it has anarchist overtones. In the Japanese translation this last outcry is made even more elaborate: this may reflect the popularity of stories of revenge within Japanese popular culture. In the Chinese case, this last outcry is simply cut. Although they identified with the universal nature of Nemo’s struggle, personal revenge as a motive for political struggle did not sit well with Chinese political reformers. Thus the whole passage was eliminated. When dealing with the complex relationship between nationalism and the international nature of the struggle of oppressed peoples, the Chinese reformers’ agenda has an even stronger impact on their translation. What is at stake is the compatibility of the image of the hero with the Chinese reformer’s vision for the common people. One of the most interesting cases of divergence, where the Chinese adaptations 52.

Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues, p. 410.

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fundamentally diverge from the French original, its English translation, and the Japanese rendition, comes in the episode where Nemo saves an Indian from the attack of a shark. In the French version the narrator Aronnax reflects on the event: “Two conclusions I must inevitably draw from it—one bearing upon the unparalleled courage of Captain Nemo, the other upon his devotion to a human being, a representative of that race from which he fled beneath the sea. Whatever he might say, this strange man has not yet succeeded in entirely crushing his heart. When I made this observation to him, he answered in a slightly moved tone— That Indian, sir, is an inhabitant of an oppressed country; and I am still, and shall be, to my last breath, one of them!”53 In the Japanese version Nemo answers the narrator’s reflections on his ties to the real world: “But sir, what kind of a country do you think India is?! That its inhabitants are being oppressed by the British is something which I always think of with unbearable anger. Therefore, whenever I see these inhabitants, my feelings overwhelm me and I cannot control myself any longer. This is the reason why I helped the Indian.”54 In the Chinese translation, Aronnax concludes his comments on Nemo’s saving the Indian by saying that Nemo “must be a person full of emotions and a strong sense of righteousness (duoqing duoyi 多情多義),” who has not yet been able to be free himself of worldly concerns. He then wonders what might have motivated Nemo to live under the sea. As the ship sails on, Nemo turns to Aronnax: “At the moment we are skirting the shores of the Indian Ocean, but this again causes me vexation! Whenever I travel to these shores I am always uncomfortable. Do you know why? [It is because] I see that the common people of India are naturally gifted, and their nature is naturally pure and good; it was once a most wonderful country. Owing to a few bad government officials, they were able to bring [down the country] to such an extent that even the color of its national map has changed. Today, the natives are oppressed by the English; so dark and full of suffering [is the life under a tyrannical government] that it is as if the sun were not in the sky. Often I am filled with grief and indignation on their behalf and have thought of ways to help them. But at last I have made the decision to become a disengaged man [who lives] 53. 54.

Ibid., p. 229. Verne, Godaishū chū, chap. 16, 32.

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under the sea and will not involve myself with this distasteful affair; there is thus no other way but to let them continue in their suffering.” [Nemo] looked scornfully at the horizon [where India lay] and was overcome with grief and indignation.55

This passage in the Chinese version comes with a commentary in the form of an exclamation: “[If only] Nautilus [could] come a bit farther toward the East, and [Nemo] could see how the government of our old empire (laoda diguo 老大帝國), even though it is on the brink of death, never misses a chance to commit a crime, what indignation would he feel! What pain and anger would his [Nemo’s] comments reveal! What a pity that we are not able to hear them” (4:19). In both the Japanese and the Chinese rendering of this episode, the notion that Nemo might be Indian himself has been eliminated. In this rendering, the scientist as hero is cast not simply as a patriot, but as a hero with a universal cause that transcends national boundaries. Both translations place their emphasis on the oppressed people of India rather than the oppressed country of India. This effectively transforms Nemo’s personal anger against British colonialism and the personal loss that might be connected with it into an all-embracing compassion for the weak and hatred for the despots. In the Chinese rendering and added comment, the confrontation is between the weak but brutal native government and the natural goodness of its common people, which in effect complicates Nemo’s contradictory feelings toward his own role in the struggle of the oppressed people. By placing the blame for the country’s demise not on the outside forces of colonialism and imperialism but on the native government, the Chinese text directly injects the views of the Chinese reformers into the story. Although these concerns were not present in Jules Verne’s original text, Verne had set the stage and created the opening for a dialogue with translators and readers in other countries and cultures. Jules Verne’s own political orientation and conviction can be seen in the heroes with whom he associated Nemo. The wall of Nemo’s study is studded with their pictures. In a passage from the original French edition, which had been eliminated as too political and too obscure in the English edition on which the Japanese versions were based, we read: 55.

Verne, Haidi lüxing, 4:18–19.

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They were portraits, portraits of those great men of history who had lived only to devote all their time to a great human ideal: Kościuszko, the hero who died with the words “Finis Poloniae” on his lips; Botzaris, the Leonidas of modern Greece; O’Connell, the Irish patriot; Washington, the founder of the United States; Manin, the Italian patriot; Lincoln, killed by a bullet from a slave owner’s gun; and finally John Brown, that martyr to the liberation of the black races, hanging on his gibbet as so frighteningly depicted by Victor Hugo.56

All of these heroes are committed to their nation’s cause rather than to social revolution. The list therefore is as significant for the absence of a single name from the French Revolution as for the names it contains. Captain Nemo exclaims elsewhere in the novel: “The earth does not want new continents but new men!”57 Had this passage been in the Japanese version, Chinese translators too would probably have been inspired enough by these political heroes to include the passage. Although Nemo was a glamorous fiction hero apt to win the sympathy of Chinese readers for his reformist ideals, his isolationism was a drawback. In order to succeed in changing a place actually existing on the surface of the earth, such as China, the great leaders and heroes had to participate in the affairs of the nation and of the world. To fit Nemo to this purpose, the Chinese translator used a variety of strategies. He recast Captain Nemo’s self-imposed isolation as the ultimate renunciation of the world’s pollution, ironically with strong Buddhist overtones. The pure and the noble are naturally repulsed by this world of sin and inclined to withdraw from this realm of “red dust.” His renunciation of worldly happiness was explained by his wish to devote himself fully to the pursuit of science with the aim of aiding the struggle of the oppressed. Withdrawing from the world in this context becomes an act of defiance. This reworking extends to Captain Nemo’s references to himself and his motives as well as the translator’s comments on Nemo’s motives for living under the sea. When one of the three men rescued by Nemo expresses the desire to be let free so that he can return to his country and family, in the Chinese translation Nemo scoffs: “People all over the world are craving the filth of the dusty world; they are unable to see through 56. Verne, Vingt mille lieues, p. 283. For an analysis, see Chesneaux, Political and Social Ideas, pp. 45–46. 57. Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues, p. 141.

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(kanpo 看破) the [falsehood of] wealth and fame, and unable to sever the ties with the seven emotions and six desires. They have fallen into bitterness yet still claim that it is thoroughly enjoyable. The views held by such people I will never understand” (2:38). But this alone would not do. In a blunt intervention, the Chinese translator articulates his critique of Nemo’s isolationism within the novel itself. When Arronax suggests to Conseil, who also has been saved by Nemo, that they should stay under the sea since it is such a wondrous world, the Conseil of the Chinese version rejects this suggestion by his master: “Yes, indeed even I know that Nautilus is a work of wonder and a supreme technical achievement; it could be the foremost model for modern industrial manufacturing. But being cut off entirely from humanity, forming its own kingdom, day after day the only things it comes into contact with are fishes and sea urchins. For this reason, even if Nautilus is made ten times superior to what it is now, pray tell what good can it achieve for humanity? In fact Nautilus is an object that holds no significance whatsoever” (5:106–7).58 There is no counterpart to this passage in the Japanese translation and certainly none in the French original. More important, there is no retort to Conseil’s statement. Its insertion drastically changes the character of the text as a whole. It requires the reader to differentiate between Nemo’s admirable qualities and a clear deficiency in his attitude, which in turn reduces the straightforward advocacy aspect of the novel. A reform hero should not be seen as a lonely hero who fights his battles largely by himself and within himself. In the original novel Captain Nemo is portrayed as a loner, an individualist warrior, a tragic hero who single-handedly takes on the battle against nature and the (Western) powers. For the Chinese translator, this presented not only an ideological but also a cultural problem. How would such a hero be accepted by the Chinese reader? Within the Chinese literary tradition of popular fiction, a lone hero is hard to come by; Chinese heroes are depicted mostly in relationship to each other as a band of heroes. The translator thus relied on all the traditional set phrases from vernacular fiction to describe Captain Nemo. In the process, the loner image of Nemo is transformed into that of the leader of a band of heroes. The alteration of the original is most striking in this area. Most of the action scenes that 58.

A similar statement from Arronax can be found in Xin xiaoshuo 12:4.

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in the original highlight the courage and strength of Nemo individually were rewritten in the Chinese version to demonstrate cooperation among members of the Nautilus crew in a way reminiscent of scenes from Water Margin. Similar alteration also occurs in the language used to describe the heroes and their actions.59 Twenty Thousand Leagues gets its local identity from interacting with a Chinese text, Water Margin, much as Deux ans de vacances does from its interaction with Dream of the Red Chamber. Although the translator draws on tropes and modes of description familiar to him and his readers from this prime model of a chivalric novel from the Ming, he adapts and alters them to serve the presentation of a new kind of hero. The essential difference between Nemo and the heroes from Water Margin is in their overall political outlook and thus their roles as hero. In the older novel the heroes are torn between what David Wang termed “total self-dedication and total self-betrayal” by first adhering to the code of chivalric fraternity against the authorities and then to the ideology of imperial loyalty.60 In Nemo there is consistency over time and no contradiction. Guided by his ideals, Nemo fights on, and the Chinese reader is challenged to share his ideals and emulate him. In a sense Nemo is an antidote to the heroes of Water Margin. His scientific knowledge, his political dedication, and his consistent act of rebellion all set him off from his counterparts in Water Margin. With these additions and changes, the Captain Nemo of the Chinese translation becomes a sharp and well-defined figure through which the translator is able to communicate the new spirit of the time—the struggle and protest against tyrannical forces. The scientist hero thus is both romantically portrayed and politically tailored to Chinese reformers’ needs.

The Urban Detective More than any other genre, the detective novel enjoyed commercial success during the late Qing period, when it was first introduced to China. 59. Shuihu zhuan depicts 108 heroes. Pollard gives a fine example of a piece of Shuihu zhuan parody in the translation; see “Jules Verne,” pp. 181–83. 60. David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, p. 123.

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Yuan Jin has shown that the popularity of translations of Western detective novels surpassed even the sentimental novel of the early 1910s, although the number of translations peaked early after the introduction of the genre and never reached this high mark again.61 According to A Ying, half of all late Qing translated novels were Western detective novels.62 Nakamura Tadayuki has documented the efforts of large book and journal publishers at the time to cash in on the commercial potential of such translations.63 For this genre, the Chinese often translated directly from English originals, such as Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. Yuan Jin attributes the popularity of this genre to its direct association with political reform and its promotion by figures such as Liang Qichao. The genre’s entertainment value was well understood, and reform journals carried translations of detective novels.64 The genre also introduced the Chinese reader to a modern urban society governed by laws and policed by agents who make use of modern science. At a time when only the Shanghai International Settlement had developed a modern urban administration, the detective story introduced through the back door the operation of the institutions of urban law enforcement. Its rigorously structured plot lines were a feature many late Qing writers felt Chinese fiction was wanting.65 Chinese translators were highly aware of the importance of the rigor of these plot lines, and, as opposed to the translation in other genres, there was relatively little cutting, adding, rewriting, or other tampering.66 Whereas it is easy to understand the use of science fiction and the political novel for reformers’ purposes, the value of detective and adventure novels in this respect is not self-evident. Chinese reformers were in fact more enthusiastic about the detective novel than their Japanese counterparts, and they published quite a few exemplars in their journals. Among the political translators interested in the genre, Liang Qichao again stands out. As the chief editor of the reformist paper Shiwu bao, in 1896 he had published China’s first translation of a detective story, The 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

Yuan Jin, “Jindai zhentan xiaoshuo.” A Ying, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi, p. 186. See Nakamura Tadayuki, “Shinmatsu tantei shōsetsu.” Manshu, “Xiaoshuo conghua” (1905). The point is made in Hung, “Giving Texts a Context,” p. 156. Ibid., p. 159.

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Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, under the Chinese title Xieluoke He’erwu biji 歇洛克呵爾唔筆記 (Notes on Sherlock Holmes).67 Even before Liang articulated his utilitarian views on the uses of fiction—and the political novel in particular—for reforming Chinese citizens in 1898, the Sherlock Holmes series in his Shiwu bao had mapped the trajectory he was going to take. Some later writers and translators made translating Western detective novels their specialty. Among them was Chen Jinghan 陳景韓 (1878– 1965), who wrote under the pen name Lengxue 冷血 (Cold Blooded), or simply Leng 冷. Also a journalist, he served as editor of the newspaper Shibao for ten long years from 1904 to 1913 before moving to Shenbao. He pioneered the “short commentary on actual events” (shiping 時評), with its straightforward and terse language, and founded the literary journal Xinxin xiaoshuo (1904–7), which published many of his translations. During his studies in Japan, Chen had developed a special passion for the Russian anarchists and Western detective novels, which is visible from his translations as well as his own writings.68 He became politically active during the 1890s and was forced to seek exile in Japan between 1900 and 1902 to escape persecution by the Qing government. His distinct style in translation is known as the “cold-blooded style” (lengxueti 冷血體)69; though it is likely that it was inspired in part by Japanese writers. Like Liang Qichao, he found personal models for emulation among foreign writers, particularly the detective novel authors Hōitsu’an shujin 抱一庵 主人 (1866–1904)70 and Kuroiwa Namidakaoru 黑岩淚香 (1862–1920).71 Between 1903 and 1904 he translated four volumes of detective novels and stories based on Japanese translations.72 Their title Zhentan tan 偵探譚 (Detective talk) was modeled after the Japanese horn-title 偵探奇談 popular at about the same period.73 It became the carrier of a new set of social values.74 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

See Nakamura Tadayuki, “Shinmatsu tantei shōsetsu” (part 1), 2:14–16. A Ying, Xiaoshuo xiantan, p. 238. Bao Tianxiao, Chuanyinglou, p. 318. See Lengxue, “Xu.” Nakamura Tadayuki, “Shinmatsu tantei shōsetsu” (part 3), 4:41, 55. Ibid., 4:39, 44–45. See A Ying, Wan Qing xiqu xiaoshuo mu, p. 143. Yuan Jin, “Jindai zhentan xiaoshuo,” pp. 94–95.

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Chen Jinghan’s fascination with the detective novel and the figure of the detective reflects the status of this genre and its hero at the time. As a rebel and a lone hero who is not openly threatening the social order and the status quo, the figure of the detective exerted a romantic fascination. He operated on the basis of hard logic but within rules set by him alone; he was able to overcome existing power structures without a grand claim of saving the world; and, although deeply involved in matters of life and death, he remained ironically detached—unlike the judges in traditional Chinese crime fiction, who were the embodiment of the emperor’s law. This figure, with the ability to amaze and an authority lodged in the clarity of his thinking, was able to stir the imagination of the new class of urban intellectuals who were also key figures in the push for reforms. Chen’s fascination comes out in a fantastic hybrid from his hand in whom three figures are merged: the Russian nihilist, the European revolutionary fighting for national independence, and the detective. After having translated a work called the Russian Detective (Eguo paotan an 俄國包探案),75 he created his composite character in “[Eguo xiake tan] Xuwudang qihua” [俄國俠客談]虛無黨奇話 (Extraordinary story of the Nihilist Party. Russian knight-errant talk).76 The popularity of the detective had much to do with the lifestyle of late Qing urbanite reformers who worked for newspapers or journals and lived in Shanghai, the only modern metropolitan center on Chinese soil at the time. The detective was one of the first really modern city figures Chinese readers encountered in literature. Unlike the political reformer hero or the scientist, the detective is not faced with the challenge of a world in conflict that calls on him to lead and provide a new agenda. He is not a world traveler or a man in inner torment. He is simply an intelligent individual who lives and works in the complex web of a big city. His work is to think logically and with the aid of modern science. The state of the world is only relevant when a crime is committed with international implications, as was sometimes the case in Shanghai. He works primarily alone, although he usually has close friends. His work depends on his 75. [Lengxue], Eguo paotan an; see Nakamura Tadayuki, “Shinmatsu tantei shōsetsu” (part 3), 4:40–41. 76. It is unclear whether “Xuwudang qihua” is a translation or Chen’s own work; most likely it is a combination of the two. It ran through the two years of Xinxin xiaoshuo between 1904 and 1905.

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scientific method of deduction rather than a moral judgment on the nature of the crime committed. Chen Jinghan was one of the first to style himself after the detective figure. Bao Tianxiao 包天笑 (1876–1973), a writer now known mostly for the popular novels he wrote during the 1920s and 1930s, recalls how he first came to work for the Shibao newspaper around 1907 in Shanghai and met Chen: When I first met Chen Jinghan, I had two impressions: one was of his bicycle, and the other was of his pipe. I often joked with him that he had two states: one animate, the other inanimate. When he was animate, he was on his bicycle; when inanimate, he was with his pipe. He never rode in a rickshaw; the bicycle was fast, convenient, and economical. As one could, on the spur of the moment, come and go as one wished, writers called it “the vehicle of freedom” 自由車. . . . As to the pipe, he often held one in his mouth, with his foot up on the desk and sunk in deep thought contemplating story plots. I said to him: “Did you learn this from Sherlock Holmes?” He would not pay me any attention.77

In the depiction of the detective figure, there are two extremes: one represented by Liang Qichao’s translation of Sherlock Holmes and the other by Lengxue’s translations. In Liang Qichao’s translation all personal or emotional elements, even those that had been in the original, have been eradicated. Human factors appear only insofar as they are related to the case at hand. Even the friendship between Doctor Watson and Holmes has been entirely cut, and, at least in the first two stories translated, the objective, uninvolved omniscient narrator of the Chinese narrative tradition has replaced Dr. Watson’s first-person narration to avoid confusing the Chinese reader with what Eva Hung calls “an unfamiliar narrative technique.” The speed with which new narrative techniques could be adapted can be gauged from the fact that the third story faithfully followed the narrative mode of the original. A 1903 translation, however, abandoned this again.78 The translated stories place their emphasis on fact-finding and logical deduction. Sherlock Holmes is portrayed as a lone master of logical thinking. The figure of the detective emerging from 77. 78.

Bao Tianxiao, Chuanyinglou, p. 409. Hung, “Giving Texts a Context,” pp. 161–63.

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these translations is modern, scientific, efficient, quick in thought and action, and he offers neither moral nor ethical advice. Lengxue’s detective hero combines rational thinking and decisive action with emotional involvement. In 1904 Chen Jinghan serialized his translation of Eugène Sue’s (1804–57) Les mystères de Paris (serialized 1842–43, published in book form 1843–44), Bali zhi mimi 巴黎之秘密, in Xinxin xiaoshuo. It was first carried under the rubric of “The World’s Extraordinary Stories” (Shijie qitan 世界奇談), a title later changed to “Secret Stories” (Mimi tan 秘密談).79 Chen here attempted to introduce a highly romanticized detective hero. Eugène Sue’s novel was a foundational text for the detective novel, although it was later in the century eclipsed by the Sherlock Holmes series. It was read as a detective story in Meiji Japan, and Chen Jinghan followed this reading in his own retranslation from the Japanese.80 Unlike many of his contemporaries, Lengxue always gives his source when producing a translation, in the case of Les mystères de Paris, Hōitsu’an shujin 抱一庵主人, who not only translated but also wrote detective novels himself.81 By including various forewords by Hōitsu’an shujin and others in his translation together with his own comments, Chen gave the novel and its translation a serious and formal appearance that was unusual for the time. In his introduction he claims that the motivation for translating this novel came from his admiration for the “fascinating and powerful” style of Hōitsu’an shujin (duo qiqi, you bili 多奇气有笔力), whom Chen praises as one of Japan’s most outstanding writers.82 For Chen Jinghan, Bali zhi mimi is primarily associated with this Japanese writer rather than with Eugène Sue. Since Chen’s translation includes a preface by Hōitsu’an that appeared only in the 1904 Japanese monograph edition, we can assume that Chen’s translation was based on this version rather than the earlier newspaper serialization of the years 1900–1901. Chen condensed the Japanese version’s short chapters (influenced by the daily installment format of the newspaper) into larger blocks and in most cases gave them different 79. 80. 81. 82.

Xihe (Eugène Sue), Bali zhi mimi. See Nakajima, Nihon suiri shōsetsu. Nihon kindai bungaku daijiten, 3:102. Lengxue, “Xu.”

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chapter headings. This reorganization might have been influenced by the fact that Xinxin xiaoshuo, where the translation appeared, was a monthly. Other than this, Chen followed the Japanese version faithfully both in language and style.83 Lengxue’s rendering of Les mystères de Paris begins: (1) Demonic goblins! Beasts! Ten o’clock, the long hand on the huge clock on the clock tower of the police station pointed exactly at ten; its loud charms could be heard far and wide. It was cold and raining. On this October night, there were very few pedestrians on the streets. One or two persons moved rapidly, with half of their shadows caught by the light of the street lamp swinging in the wind. As the light dims, the shadow of a person flashes momentarily, until he reaches the next lamp. Nearby are the church towers of Notre Dame and the building of the High Court. The streets here are mostly narrow and windy. There are also filthy lanes further down. Located in one of them are a grocery shop, a coal shop, and a very small butcher shop. During the night all these shops are barbed with huge iron cudgels, because there are many robbers lurking around. When a crime has been committed in Paris, the crime-detectives would always come here first to cast their net; in nine out of ten cases, the person who had committed the crime would be caught in these lanes. These lanes specialize in small restaurants and little inns; they are the private hiding places of thieves and robbers.84

In this manner, Lengxue sets the scene for the criminals as well as his hero, who will need all his intelligence and courage to face the many obstacles this dark world puts in his way. Even though, like many other works of the time, this translation was never finished, Lengxue manages in a relatively short space to vividly depict a new kind of detective hero, Count von Gerolstein (Rodolphe).

83. Hōitsu’an’s translation of Les mystères de Paris appeared first in daily installments in the Tokyo Asahi shinbun from November 1900 to August 1901; the monograph version titled Pari no himitsu 巴里の祕密 (The mysteries of Paris) was published in 1904 by Fuzanbō publishers in Tokyo. 84. Xihe (Eugène Sue), Bali zhi mimi, p. 1.

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Drawn to the lower reaches of the Paris underworld, the count investigates and uncovers crimes committed by gangsters and frees the innocent young woman—who turns out to be his own daughter—from this dark world. Like a professional detective, the count is interested in discovering the truth; he is cool in manner, level-headed, and operates independently of state authorities; but, unlike a professional detective, he is emotionally involved and morally committed in helping the poor, and goes out of his way to punish the truly evil. In this figure Lengxue depicts a hero playing detective. The detective defines his intentions first and foremost as an intellectual pursuit. When Rodolphe finds his motives in placing himself in such danger and consorting with such lowly characters misunderstood by his old servant, he defends his action by explaining: “I want to understand, to investigate, to discover people of this walk of life. In order for them not to be suspicious, I have to dress like them, act like them, and talk like them; it is necessary.”85 He further defines his motive as a strong sense of social responsibility: I am a person in possession of three things at once: knowledge, ideals, and power. Thus I must save the world with my good intentions; to help those who want help is my duty. To give relief to those who do not seek help but have the willpower to struggle against poverty, and to save those who have fallen into criminal ways by temptation, is even more important. One must eradicate degradation which weakens the vitality, poverty which eats away the willpower, and crimes that engulf the body; and revitalize the person with self-renovation, independence, and autonomy in order to recover the original good in the human being. This is the greatest good of all.86

With Rodolphe the detective hero becomes a moral figure as well as a modern investigator. The figure of the detective grows fuller in comparison to the Sherlock Holmes in Shiwu bao. The detective now is also motivated to do good in the world; he can be, as Chen shows his reader, a tough, wise, and deeply caring man. One might say that Chen acculturated Liang Qichao’s purely scientific ideal of the detective by endowing him with the traditional moral qualities of a hero. 85. Sue, Mysteries of Paris, 8:16. 86. Ibid., 8:19.

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The detective enters Chinese fiction with a new way of writing. Terse and rational in manner, it is informed by logical deduction but ends up romanticizing and idealizing. On the surface all the information that is given in the narration relates to solving a mystery, a crime, or both. The detective confronts the complexity of human intentions and desires, and in the end might face the challenge of having to overcome his own contradictory personal, social, and moral commitments. The challenge for the translator was to create a style suited to such a figure and able to reflect its particular literary features and psychological complexity. Under Chen Jinghan’s pen, the detective emerges as a hard-thinking figure of high intelligence, but unlike the scientist he has no problem engaging with society directly. Chen’s “cold-blooded style” won him much acclaim.87 Both Hōitsu’an and Chen viewed Sue’s novel primarily as a detective story with an attractive detective hero with immaculate upper-class pedigree. They developed their translation style within the constraints of the medium in which they published and along the lines of this genre’s conventions. Although Sue’s text certainly had a strong detective element to it, the translations streamlined the novel to this genre. They brought out Sue’s big story line, in which Count von Gerolstein (“Rodolphe”) shows himself to be a supremely gifted and skilled detective and solves the mystery of his missing daughter, and made this into the main content of the work. In Sue’s novel, the story is often only the pretext to justify an unendingly detailed and knowledgeable description of the Paris underworld including its secret language. Based on Hōitsu’an, Lengxue devised a new style for the story and the character of Rodolphe. Characterized by speed and the economy of terse and short sentences, it reflects the hero’s character and at the same time engages with the countertext of the stories about Judge Bao, who is a judge and a detective in the Chinese oral and fictional tradition. Lu Xun has argued that the gong’an, or court-case, novels about Judge Bao shared some of the features of the chivalric novel.88 As a rule the judge in the court-case genre pursues justice to maintain the social system, whereas the heroes in the chivalric genre are outsiders and even outlaws fighting to punish transgressions not covered by the existing legal framework. Judge 87. Bao Tianxiao, Chuanyinglou, p. 318. 88. Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo (1957), p. 424; Chen Pingyuan, Qiangu wenren, p. 77.

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Bao can be read as a combination of both approaches. He operates as a lone figure, he travels, at times incognito, and he manages to reassert justice through unusual means. Rodolphe gains his particular Chinese focus through his counterpoise to Judge Bao. The two characters share a set of common characteristics: both are morally upright, care about the common people, and take it upon themselves to execute justice. Rodolphe, however, stands as a modern silent critique of Judge Bao and the literary form that conveys his feats. In contrast to Judge Bao’s heavy reliance on magic to solve his cases, Rodolphe relies on science; where the judge excels in reading signs and devising dreams, Rodolphe is proactive in personally conducting his investigations, which often requires him to live among the urban outcasts. Perhaps Rodolphe’s strongest contrast to Judge Bao is in his urbaneness. Rodolphe is one of the first urban heroes in Chinese literature. His field of action is the city, with its juxtaposition of a highly regulated environment and a lawless underworld. Judge Bao’s world is characterized by calm, which, when punctuated by crime, is restored through the intervention of the sophisticated judge. Rodolphe’s city is an organism of high speed and energy that is constantly threatened by the forces of anomy. Its literary handling requires a prose of similar tempo rather than a sedate narrative. The detective’s role is not primarily to restore peace by unearthing evil and bringing culprits to justice. Rather, he operates as a modern urban knight-errant. He acts alone, independent and even outside of the legal system. His personal moral conviction prompts him to develop the martial abilities, rich knowledge, and cunning strategies to overcome his ruthless opponents. Lengxue’s electrifying prose matches this modern hero through a new literary tempo that reflects the instability and rapid shifts in the urban environment.

The Revolutionary One of the most hotly debated issues among late Qing reformers was about which path to take: reform of the existing system or revolution. In this debate, the Russian anarchists played an ambivalent role. They were not reformers but revolutionaries engaged in the violent overthrow of the autocratic government of their country; at the same time they were seen

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as potential political allies by the reformers since they opposed a government that threatened China’s sovereignty at the time. In the preface to his 1904 translation from the Japanese of “The Extraordinary Story of the Nihilist Party,” which appeared under the heading “Russian Knight-Errant Talk,” Chen Jinghan explained the reason for his devotion to the anarchists: “I love them for their valor and vigor; love the complexity of their story; and love their uncompromising way of opposing the powerful.”89 And “I feel comforted by the fact that, all the tyranny and injustice of the Russian government notwithstanding, the people still have the anarchists to resist the government.”90 With the Russian anarchists, women heroes come to the fore. Sofia Perovskaya joined Madame Roland as a popular role model with a strong echo in Chinese fictional works as well as life. Through the image of the woman anarchist, the bloody deeds of assassination were romanticized and made more palatable. The paradox between the advancement of “civilized” values and the advocacy of political violence was dealt with by stressing the selfless sacrifice of the young Russian women in their struggle against autocracy rather than the acts of destruction itself. The late Qing narration of the Russian anarchist, as Hu Ying has shown, was explicitly “gender-coded”; the juxtaposition of women and violence in effect detoxified violence itself for the public.91 The depiction of these women, Peter Zarrow has suggested, further contributed to the articulation of female autonomy and helped articulate a new kind of womanhood.92 One might add that within the late Qing mental horizon such a violent act as a political assassination committed by a virtuous female signaled an extreme state of social injustice and the loss of mandate on the part of the ruler. The late Qing legends of the Russian nihilists or anarchists were based almost entirely on Japanese sources, especially Kenmuyama Sentarō’s 煙山專太郎 Kinsei museifushugi 近世無政府主義 (Modern 89. Lengxue, “Xuwudang qihua.” The Chinese version of the novel is based on a variety of Japanese works on Russian nihilists. For details, see Nakamura Tadayuki, “Ban Shin.” 90. See A Ying, Xiaoshuo xiantan, p. 239. 91. Ying Hu, Tales, pp. 115–16. 92. Zarrow, Anarchism, p. 239.

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anarchism).93 The greatest number of writings about them appeared between 1902 and 1911, prompted by Russia’s territorial designs on northern China.94 They range from factual reporting to completely fictionalized descriptions of the anarchist movement and its members, with Jin Songcen’s 金松岑 1904 political treatise Ziyou xue 自由血 (Freedom’s blood) being one of the earliest and most influential.95 In the making and popularization of the nihilist legend, novels and stories played an important role. Best known for the early period were the fictionalized biographies in [Lishi xiaoshuo] Dong’ou nühaojie [歷史小説]東歐女豪杰 (Heroines of Eastern Europe. A historical novel), by Luo Pu 羅樸, who published it in Xin xiaoshuo in 1902 under a woman’s pseudonym, “Bird-Feathered Lady from Lingnan” (Lingnan yuyi nüshi 嶺南羽衣女士); and Niehai hua 孽海花 (Flower in the sea of retribution; 1907), which had been started in 1904 advertised as a “political novel” in Jin Songcen’s Ziyou xue, was continued by Zeng Pu as a “historical novel,” and was eventually concluded as a “social novel.” These novels contain less of a romanticized version of the anarchist movement itself than of the individual members who were presented as model heroes of modern times.96 For the late Qing reformers, the Russian anarchists were men and women of great resolve. They were seen as part of the international struggle against autocracy and were also patriots devoted to the well-being of their country. These figures also posed certain problems, however. Russia was not in danger of being taken over by mighty powers, but rather threatened other countries. The anarchists were rebels inside a powerful state, and their political goal was to destroy the existing order of autocracy and the institution of government with violent means. In his essay “On the Russian Anarchist Party,” Liang Qichao articulates the dilemma as follows: “I admire the means used by the Anarchist Party but cannot agree with its doctrine.”97 Liang was willing to accept assassination as a 93. See Don Price, Russia, pp. 123–26. 94. See ibid.; A Ying, Xiaoshuo xiantan, p. 239; Yeh, “Zeng Pu’s ‘Niehaihua,’ ” pp. 57–61. 95. Jin Yi, Ziyou xue. For a study on Jin Yi (Jin Songcen) and his works, see Yeh, “Life-Style of four Wenren,” pp. 458–68. 96. For a detailed listing of novels dealing with Russian anarchists during the late Qing, see Nakamura Tadayuki, “Ban Shin,” pp. 140–49. 97. Zhongguo zhi xinmin (Liang Qichao), “Lun Eluosi xuwudang.”

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legitimate weapon against autocracy but could not condone the abolishment of government altogether. The anarchist hero thus needed certain adjustments and modifications. The most important difference between the Chinese works on Russian nihilism and their Japanese sources is the shift in focus from introducing the anarchist ideology or political program to depicting the anarchist himself or herself. With an ideology reduced to the “struggle against autocracy,” the anarchist protagonists and their qualities are described in detail. Their activities are said to center on educating the lower classes in the countryside and in the factories, not on assassinations.98 The method of assassination used by the anarchists is described mainly from the vantage point of the courage and spirit of sacrifice needed to go against the might of the power holders.99 These adjustments and modifications are visible from the outset in the deviations of Heroines of Eastern Europe from its Japanese sources.100 To enhance the Chinese relevance of the story and its political message, the novel begins with a Chinese frame story with mythological overtones. The Chinese heroine Hua (= China) Mingqing 華明卿 is born by divine intervention to a seventy-year-old unmarried mother. Although the novel quickly turns from Hua to the Russian nihilists, and to Sofeiya 蘇菲亞 (Sofia Perovskaya, 1854–81) in particular, we are told that Hua Mingqing, unbeknown to herself at the beginning, will eventually follow in the footsteps of her Russian model.101 The novel is designed to call upon Chinese 98. Nakamura points to this alteration, which he identifies as a change to humanism and liberalism. He speculates that the reason Liang Qichao’s group left Dong’ou nühaojie unfinished might be that Liang Qichao felt uneasy about the novel’s later developments; “Ban Shin,” pp. 121–22. 99. My own comparison of Kenmuyama Sentarō’s 1902 Kinsei museifushugi with various Chinese renditions and novels based on this text shows that the Chinese depiction of this movement is largely determined by their assessment of the Russian threat. The Russian nihilists are generally portrayed to show Chinese readers that the unjustness of the political situation in Russia is also perceived within the country. For details on Kenmuyama and his Kinsei museifushugi, see Don Price, Russia, pp. 122–24. 100. Lingnan yuyi nüshi (Luo Pu), Dong’ou nühaojie. The authorship and content of this novel are treated by Don Price in Russia, pp. 124–27. For the Japanese texts that might have influenced the writing of Dong’ou nühaojie, see also Nakamura Tadayuki, “Ban Shin,” pp. 108–31. 101. For a detailed interpretation of the character Hua Mingqing, see Ying Hu, Tales, pp. 129–139.

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“men [and women] of valor,” zhishi 志士, who share a devotion to national renovation and a spirit of self-sacrifice, to learn from the new heroes and become like one of them in the end.102 The novel combines the theme of the hero who makes history with that of women’s liberation. In modern times, the author argues, women are emerging as the new heroes, and they will be the ones to shake the very foundations of despotic rule.103 Heroines of Eastern Europe describes Sofia as a beautiful young woman with good family connections who nonetheless renounces all and joins the anarchist movement because of political ideals she became familiar with during her studies and through her radical friends. After helping to set up a branch of the Anarchist Party in Moscow, she turns to the lower classes and, traveling through villages and small towns, tries to educate the common people. These endeavors are without exception well within the parameters of China’s ideas on political reform. The novel portrays her as a moderate. In her talks to factory workers, she preaches nonviolent and rational economic reforms.104 Her behavior toward the wealthy classes consists of gently persuading them to see and understand the anarchists’ cause. When she lands in prison, her argument against a plan by the workers to rescue her is that one must not appear to be breaking the law (and thus appear to be guilty). Being in prison will give her time to study. Her final instruction to her comrades is that no one should be hurt or suffer on her account. As Nakamura observed, Sofia appears in these scenes to be a humanist and a liberal.105 There are long passages in the novel explaining the anarchists’ basic tenets on government, but, as is the nature of fiction, the actions taken by the characters are what is most persuasive. The women’s liberation theme further changes the radical politics. In most of the anarchist novels on Nakamura Tadayuki’s list, women are the main protagonists, and the novels on the Russian anarchists were in 102. The term zhishi was used often in this period to denote people with the spirit of self-sacrifice for the cause of social justice and national renovation. 103. Lingnan yuyi nüshi, Dong’ou nühaojie, 1.1:34–35. 104. Ibid., 1.2:22–37. 105. On the rendering of the Russian nihilists as liberals, see Nakamura Tadayuki, “Ban Shin,” p. 131.

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fact the first to promote women’s involvement in political movements through fiction.106 In Jin Yi’s terms, the assassin heroine is but “a fragile woman” 弱女子 or “a little woman” 小女子.107 This mode of presenting the anarchist movement, Hu Ying has argued, produces two correlated effects, justifying the political cause of the movement as well as the active and public role of women.108 The contrast between the mighty despot and the “little woman” in the Chinese rendition, furthermore, offers a new political metaphor. The “little woman” might be weak, but through her strong convictions she is in the end able to overcome the strong. The female anarchists offer a symbolic model for the weak and small nations, who also will have a chance to stand up to the brute force of the powerful nations and gain their independence, but only if they develop a similar devotion, purity, and spirit of sacrifice, reinforcing one of the dominant themes of the political novel. Sofia is a case in point. She is the heroine in Heroines of Eastern Europe and appears in several chapters of Flower in the Sea of Retribution. Both novels were great sensations when they came out in 1902.109 In the romantic rendering of this character, the authors created their ideal modern hero. Sofia’s patriotism echoes Chinese nationalist feelings, and her internationalism fits their desire to be part of the international struggle. Sofia goes abroad to seek truth and knowledge, and becomes a member of the Anarchist Party. When she goes back to Russia, it is in order to organize the revolution to overthrow the czar. To understand the situation and to mobilize the people, she travels extensively through the country. Eventually she is caught and hanged for attempting to assassinate the czar. Like Captain Nemo, she is an uncompromising rebel against tyrannical rule. And, most important for the Chinese reformers, Sofia not only has ideals, she acts on them. To create a new world, a new China, there must be such selfless individuals who are willing to give up their lives for what they believe to be right and just. The new citizen should live up to this spirit of

106. Ibid., pp. 108–54. 107. Jin Yi, Ziyou xue, p. 127. 108. Ying Hu, Tales, p. 112. 109. See Huang Zunxian, “Zhi Liang Qichao,” p. 503; and Zeng Pu, “Xiugai hou,” p. 128.

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acting on one’s beliefs, which the Chinese novels emphasize most strongly as a model. Consistent with the profile of new heroes such as Captain Nemo and Count von Gerolstein, moreover, Sofia is portrayed as a heroine completely devoted to social causes without any consideration for her personal well-being. As a precondition for this hero construction, she is depicted as abandoning the option of romantic love. Andreas, who belongs to the same revolutionary party as Sofia and who heroically comes to her rescue when she is jailed, could have been her beloved. They would have made a perfect literary pair. Through them the author could have explored the theme of revolutionary love and romance. Yet they were denied this option. At least for the Chinese author of Heroines of Eastern Europe, Sofia had to be a stand-alone figure wholly devoted to the revolutionary movement for the creation of a just society. In contrast, Flower in the Sea of Retribution suggests a love relationship between Sofia and Andreas, only to have Sofia renounce it for the grand cause. Her denial of any personal interest or happiness for a just cause justifies the use of violence. In Flower in the Sea of Retribution, Sofia agrees to a marriage arranged by her conservative father—only to use this connection for an assassination plot against the czar as well as her husband. During times of national crisis, the Chinese reformer-writers have their heroes and heroines sacrifice personal love and romance. Their new hero, in short, has no private life and is completely devoted to the cause. The authority and power the figure of Sofia exercises over her readers is enhanced through the rich literary as well as cultural context into which the story moved in China. Sophia forcefully—and silently—interacts with the well-established popular literary figure of the female knight-errant. Through Sofia the author of the novel deconstructs the virtues the reader would have found in Chinese chivalric womanhood, providing Sofia’s character its sharp profile through the confrontation with this tradition. Her figure engages in a dialogue with well-known and well-loved female knight-errant characters such as Nie Yinniang 聶隱娘 and Hongxian 紅線 from Tang chuanqi stories. This dialogue includes sharing some features and rejecting others. Sofia shares with these chivalric women characters an unusually public persona as well as a claim to the justified use of violence. The construction

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of Nie Yinniang and Hongxian as positive characters relies on a wellestablished chivalric code as well as the superb martial abilities needed for pursuing what they consider just causes.110 Their actions are justified within this code as showing loyalty to their masters or, in other cases, as seeking revenge for the unjustified death of a family member. In other words, their action is based on personal conviction. Their extraordinariness, or qi, as literary characters stems from their martial abilities; their extraordinariness as women, from, in Chen Pingyuan’s words, “getting the job done.”111 In sharp contrast, Sofia has no martial abilities. Rather than pursuing vengeance for a personal wrong, Sophia’s fighting spirit and use of violence is justified by a public commitment to a political ideal that calls for the overthrow of the existing social order for the greater good of humanity. For the late Qing reader, the best-known literary figure that provided both contrast and points in common with Sofia in the Chinese context was He Yufeng 何玉鳳. Also known as Shisan mei 十三妹, she was the heroine of the recent and hugely popular work Ernü yingxiong zhuan 兒女 英雄傳 (A tale of heroes and lovers; 1872) by the Manchu writer Wenkang 文康 (1798?–1872). In terms of her superhuman swordsmanship, mysterious background, and irresistible beauty, He Yufeng might well have been inspired by Nie Yinniang and Hongxian.112 He Yufeng embodies the characteristics of the female knight-errant literary tradition: the wrongful execution of her father by a corrupt official prompts her to learn martial arts for the purpose of revenge and that of helping the weak and needy against mighty and corrupt officials. When finally her task is completed

110. As a young girl, Nie was mysteriously taken away from her parents and was taught martial arts at a special school. When she had grown up, she was discovered by an officer, who employed her as his assassin. Once she was given orders to assassinate another officer; won over by his righteousness, she switched sides and came to serve this other officer instead. In repayment for the kindness of her master, who was an important official, Hongxian volunteered to act as a spy and entered his enemy’s camp only to find the enemy asleep. As a token of warning, she stole his seal ink box. When her master returned the box with a note, his enemy decided to reciprocate by calling off the impending war and suing for peace. 111. Chen Pingyuan, Qiangu wenren, p. 89. 112. David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, p. 157.

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(in this case, her enemy was disposed of by others), the novel takes a surprising turn: it switches to the “talented scholar and beauty” motif by having He Yufeng become a proper concubine and second wife of the scholar whose life she had saved. This combination of two very different literary motifs was reflected in the novel’s title, with the author explaining in his introduction that without love there can be no heroism, and, in the same way, without heroism there can be no love (“only those endowed with the disposition of an ultimate hero are capable of the tender feelings of a lover; and only after people have experienced the genuine sentiments of a lover can they achieve great successes as a hero”).113 Thus, within the knight-errant literary tradition, the novel merges heroism and love. Sofia also operates according to a code of honor outside the existing social and legal order, and she also sees violence as a legitimate means to achieve her end. She has the capacity to love, and there is even a potential candidate for becoming her lover. Yet the premise of her action is not personal; in fact, it is based on the denial of the personal. She defies the basic mode of characterization of the female knight-errant in Heroes and Lovers and calls on the reader to abandon self-interest and personal grievance and to fight for political ideas. She is a hero who is well capable of having passions and feelings but is also able to transform them for the ultimate benefit of humankind. With Sofia, the female revolutionary emerges as a new literary character type. Framed against the backdrop of the female martial heroine, she receives a particular Chinese profile. She is a public figure, a new type of hero who, instead of being a defender of nation’s inherited order, attempts to destroy the status quo. Her cause is a political one. To justify Sofia as the alternative to He Yufeng and other female knight-errant characters, the author of Heroines of Eastern Europe largely plays down the acts of violence and replaces them with social action. Furthermore, tailored to the Chinese reform movement, the author redirects the rebel within her character to serve the Chinese reform cause. In this way a female revolutionary is created who is a “paragon of Confucian virtues”114 devoted to the country’s political reform. 113. For a study on the merger of the “talented scholar and beauty” motif with the martial hero motif in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century fiction, see Martin W. Huang, “From Caizi to Yingxiong.” 114. David Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor, p. 167.

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Among the different options available to Chinese reformers in creating fiction, some were rejected, and these rejections are as informative as the elements that were selected. We have already seen that no hero of the French Revolution adorned Captain Nemo’s wall, whereas many who had fought for national independence and against the discrimination of the local population did. Out of the entire lore of the French Revolution, only Madame Roland survived in China, and her role in this revolution was discounted.115 Again, Japanese influence is strongly felt. In Meiji Japan, translating and writing on the French Revolution and the Russian antigovernment agitation began simultaneously around the middle of the 1870s.116 But, by the turn of the century, Kenmuyama’s extensive study on the Russian anarchists alone dominated the popular perception of the revolution in Europe.117 Although Kenmuyama’s book is scholarly and unsentimental in nature, its offshoots in the Chinese renditions had a strongly romantic tinge. The choice of Russian anarchists over French revolutionaries has to do with the reform politics of the time. Although Russia was geographically closer than France and posed the greater threat, the Chinese saw the unfree conditions in Russia as resembling the situation in their own country. Russian heroes accordingly had greater relevance for China and could evoke an immediate response among Chinese readers. From the outset a close relationship existed between the Russian anarchist novels and the detective novel. Lengxue symbolizes this link by being known as the leading translator of detective novels and simultaneously of stories about the Russian anarchists. The nature of anarchist

115. From Liang Qichao’s point of view, the reason for her importance is her love of liberty and freedom. The fact that she in many ways symbolizes the French Revolution was downplayed by Liang; see Liang Qichao, “Jinshi diyi nüjie,” in Yinbingshi heji, pp. 6–7. In his essay “Foreigners to Admire,” David Pollard argues that a shift took place from an earlier emphasis on female heroes from the West to male heroes. His study largely focuses on historical rather than fictional characters. I have not found a similar shift in the depiction of fictional characters. Western female heroines were simply replaced by Chinese ones. 116. For a list of the political novels dealing with this, see Yanagida, Seiji shōsetsu, pp. 173–81. 117. See Price, Russia, p. 147.

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politics is secrecy, and this feature lent itself to a combination of the two genres. Xinmin congbao, for example, serialized between 1903 and 1906 the detective novel Meiren shou 美人手 (The hand of a beauty), based on Kuroiwa Namidakaoru’s story Katate bijin 片手美人 (The one-handed beauty) of a Russian woman anarchist exiled in Paris.118 In 1906 the translation Xuwudang zhi mimi 虛無黨之秘密 (The secret of the Nihilist Party) appeared based on a Japanese rendering of an American detective novel.119 The adoption of features of the detective novel was also part of the reformers’ effort to make the new political novels more popular and bring their heroic models closer to their readers.

Conclusions With its strong focus on political ideas, the new novel gets its literary flavor and attraction from its principal characters, who embody these ideas and translate them into action. These characters are at times based on contemporary characters living in identifiable places who have helped both author and reader define their own roles. The new foreign heroes that populate the Chinese literary scene at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries functioned in two major ways. They offered new markers of literary fantasy, and they personified a new code of chivalry. In a sense, to borrow Theodor Huters’s phrase, they “brought the world home.” As emotionally charged literary figures, they allowed readers to experience ideas and ideals through individuals devoted to them. Through them, the world became comprehensible and the new acceptable. At a time when revolutionary and reformer alike were actively engaged in inventing the nation and finding the right kind of heroes to go with it, foreign heroes stimulated the imagination and were the medium to show the universality of the human spirit. Collectively they were promoted by the Chinese political reformers. 118. The Japanese work was announced as a “famous American detective story”; see Nakamura Tadayuki, “Ban Shin,” pp. 135–39. 119. Ibid., pp. 135–39.

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While the new vocabulary and the new plot structures that were relayed largely through translations from the Japanese were instrumental in crafting the Chinese literary works of the utilitarian genres of the political novel, in the adventure story, science fiction, the detective novel, and the fictionalized political biography, Chinese traditional literary models were also actively employed. They entered as props to enhance the effect by offering familiar settings as the assumed framework of readers’ expectations that could not be disregarded even in a translation and, most significantly, as countertexts against which the new works highlighted their own profile. Through a process of negotiating a political agenda that saw itself to be in tune with Western and Japanese currents; adopting foreign protagonists to show the ways to realize such agendas; and culling some familiar tropes from popular local countertexts, a variety of genres were localized in China. Key to their local identity was their critical interaction with local countertexts of wide familiarity with which they did not share a recent common ancestry but that helped to bring out their particular and challenging features. Although there had been efforts to create a Chinese “genealogy” of heroes, these figures as well as the genres in which they had been described had no independent standing. They reentered the stage in an effort to counterbalance what was seen by some as an overdose of foreign models, and their features showed the formative impact of their foreign counterparts. The genres carrying the new heroic figures shared a utilitarian purpose that made them popular at the time but marginalized them in the minds of a scholarship focused on artistic literary achievement alone. The agency in the process was in the pull from Chinese translators, writers, and readers with their own complex interaction. For the Chinese reformers at the turn of the century, the selection of models was fraught with complex considerations. It was motivated by immediate national concerns of survival in the face of government incompetence in dealing with foreign powers, and at the same time it was part of an attempt to see China and its problems in a world setting, where China is neither alone in its predicament nor hopeless in its endeavor. The heroes who best suited the Chinese reformers were fictional rebels from the West. The political rebel is able to unite various forces

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around a common goal without sacrificing democratic ideals; the scientist stands for the vision of a better world based not on brute force but on rational knowledge of the physical laws of nature and his willingness to pursue this goal independent of the approval of the mighty; the detective represents the lone hero of the modern city overcoming all odds in his pursuit of truth, again in a marked autonomy from the powers-that-be; and the woman anarchist is the selfless freedom fighter who is willing to sacrifice her life for the cause. As diverse as these figures might seem, they share a set of features. These features—their moral uprightness, their modern knowledge, and their youthful energy—were seen as the core qualities needed by a leader of China’s renovation. Ironically, their explicit desire to “renovate the people” notwithstanding, Liang and other reformers actually set out to establish nothing less than the composite image of “young China’s” future leaders.

Chapter 7

Beginning of the Beginning The Wedge Chapter

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ne of the signature markers of the modern Chinese novel is the way it begins. In contrast with earlier novels, it enters into the story without situating it in a broader context. Liang Qichao’s translation of Tōkai Sanshi’s Kajin no kigū (Mysterious encounters with beautiful women), for example, begins: “One day, the Wanderer of the Eastern Seas climbed up the tower of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Above him he saw the cracked Liberty Bell.” Yet, when Liang Qichao wrote his own first novel, Xin Zhongguo weilaiji (The future record of new China), which was a political novel, this was not the way he began. Instead, he chose to start the work with a standard feature of traditional Chinese novels, a wedge chapter (xiezi 楔子). This was not a singular event. Owing to the impact of his novel, the wedge chapter was adopted in later works and thus became a specific Chinese contribution to the genre of the political novel. The beginning of the beginning of the modern Chinese novel is thus a feature taken over from tradition. What might have prompted Liang Qichao to adopt the traditional wedge in his own first political novel after he had criticized the traditional novel, had called for new novels to replace them, and had translated a model for such a new novel that operated with a new plot engine and without a wedge? What was the particular challenge he and other authors tried meet with this feature? And once this option was considered, how

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did they handle the apparent contradiction between the new plot engine and the traditional wedge? In order to answer these questions, I look at the countertext against which the new wedge is set off, namely, the traditional wedge and the plot engine with which it is linked. I then analyze the way in which the new wedge was recast to meet a new challenge and fit a different plot engine.

The Wedge and Its Plot Engine As a literary form, the wedge goes back to Tang dynasty Dunhuang manuscripts of Buddhist homiletics where this “seat-setting text” 押座文 prepared the audience for the recitation of the actual sutra.1 In verse form, it gives an outline of the sutra that is to follow and introduces the main text. During the Song the wedge became a regular feature of storytelling texts such as the huaben 話本. It was used in drama since the Yuan and eventually became a standard fixture in novels from the late Ming. According to Jin Shengtan 金聖嘆 (1610–61), who reinvented or adapted the wedge for the novel in both theory and practice, it was coded in a manner different from the novel itself and “used one thing to evoke another” 以物出物, namely, allegory or symbolic language to frame the text of the novel.2 Following this lead, one of the few specialized studies on the subject traced this feature back to the characterization of indirect poetic speech in the “Great Preface” to the Book of Songs as fu 賦, bi 比, or xing 興. Most relevant here is the bi—metaphor or allegory—type wedge. It tells a separate story before the main text starts. Although its message is closely connected to that of the main story, this connection is not spelled out.3 In this sense the wedge is a parallel allegorical narrative designed to prefigure the reader’s perception of the overall theme and focus of the novel. The title of the novel and, more important, the headings of the 1. Mair, T’ang Transformation Texts, p. 10. Mair suggests that these texts, which scholars once regarded as one of the components of the bianwen 變文, or transformation text, are the beginnings of popular Buddhist literature of the Tang period. 2. Jin Shengtan, commentary on Shuihu, p. 15. 3. Zhuang Yin, Huaben xiezi, p. 22.

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chapters, with their characteristic rhymed couplets summarizing the content, added further guidance for the reader. Given this traditional function, we can assume that the challenge the authors of political novels tried to meet with their new wedge chapters had to do with a perceived need to establish control over readers’ strategy for reading their novels. Like all fictional prose, premodern Chinese novels operated by means of plot engines. Invoking high-register philosophical, religious, or scientific principles, these plot engines have the literary function of facilitating the suspension of disbelief necessary for reading a fictional work by giving plausibility to the character of the protagonists and the sequence of events in the plot. The most commonly used plot engine of Chinese novels was based on the Buddhist notion of the law of karmic retribution (yinyuan 因緣) for the moral quality of the behavior of individuals. Although this law left the option open for people to develop and change their attitudes, this option was not explored in these novels. Rather, they assigned fixed character and behavioral traits as well as their karmic outcomes to different protagonists. This resulted in a plot that operated in a circular motion within the endless universe of the Buddhist chiliocosm. To enhance the plausibility and authenticity of the fictional narrative, the stories were anchored in the recorded past but were also often traced back to immemorial times and other worlds. During the Six Dynasties (third to sixth century ce), this plot engine found its way from translated narratives about the Buddha’s former existences (jataka) into new fictional narratives, which greatly developed over the following centuries.4 The resulting plots may have a didactic element, guiding the reader, for example, to insight into the emptiness of worldly attachments with an ensuing move to a Buddhist life (Journey to the West, Dream of the Red Chamber) or showing the failure to gain such insight with the consequence of remaining trapped in the circle of rebirth (Jin Ping Mei). The vast time-space horizon shows up in Journey to the West, with the monkey Sun Wukong maturing over eons under a mountain and eventually joining, as predestined by his karma, the historical monk Xuanzang on his way to the Buddha’s homeland; and it does so in Dream of the Red Chamber, with its characters being traced back to the 4. Idema and Haft, Guide to Chinese Literature, pp. 140–45.

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creation of the universe and then followed up to their entry into the novel, which is situated in historical human time. Another group of Chinese novels derived plots from the contingency of recorded history. However, even a “historical” novel such as the Three Kingdoms or a satirical novel such as the Scholars operates with a circular view of history, which has points in common with the Buddhist worldview and shows up in the absence of a plot development that includes a final solution of the fate of the individuals involved.5 The implied Buddhist agenda of the karmic plot engine was gradually reduced to—or purified into—a formal literary device that presupposes for neither author, cast of characters, nor reader any serious affinity with Buddhism while it retains the focus of the narrative on individual protagonists rather than larger bodies such as class, city, or nation. This allowed late Ming authors such as Feng Menglong (1574–1645) or Ling Mengchu (1580–1644) to make use of karmic plots although they were openly hostile to monastic Buddhism.6 To sum up, we see in traditional Chinese novels a close link between the logic of their wedge and the dynamics of their plot engine. Both are ultimately anchored in secularized Buddhist concepts and might be subsumed under the broad rubric of paratexts that guide the reader’s understanding of the novel.

The Wedge and Its New Plot Engine No text has come to light in which a late Qing author of political novels spells out what motivated him to adopt the wedge when no other exemplar of the genre featured it. We thus have to look for answers in 5. For a discussion of the typology of novels, see Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe; and Sun Xun 孫遜, Ming Qing xiaoshuo lungao, pp. 1–49. 6. See, for example, Ling Mengchu, “Jiu xia jiu,” or Feng Menglong, “Jiang Xingge.” A similar process of the “wearing down” of the high-register implications of plot engines can be observed in other cultural environments. The plot of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, for example, is driven by the gradual realization of sinfulness and the long march to the Heavenly Jerusalem of true faith, but such a gradual development was also used in a secularized manner in the Bildungsroman.

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the wedges themselves and then seek confirmation for what we find in discussions in other media at the time. As the role of the wedge is to focus the reader’s perception of the novel, what do the new wedges tell us about this reader? The new wedges are often self-referential in offering allegorical narratives about the origin of the novel that is to follow and the effect it will have. In a recurring image the novel appears as a loud cry that awakens a mighty but soundly sleeping animal such as a lion. This image of the sleeping lion, here taken from the wedge of Chen Tianhua’s Shizi hou (Roar of the lion, 1906), had by then become a widely shared metaphor for the Chinese people or nation as potentially mighty but factually asleep and oblivious of the crisis of the land.7 The awakening of this lion is not depicted as a present-day reality but as part of the projection into the future. The eventual publication of the novel is hoped to have this effect. The echo with contemporary discussions among Chinese reformers and authors is strong. There was a shared assumption among these men as well as the literati at large that their people as yet lacked the awareness of the nation that would push them to unfold China’s potential might, that they not only behaved like “slaves” but considered their slavery a state of “happiness.” Although in political debate in various states of Europe as well as in Japan and the Philippines, there had been criticism of the lack of political awareness of “the people,” in political novels criticism had been directed against specific conservative political forces, whereas “the people” or the characters embodying them tended to be idealized. The frustration of the Chinese authors of political novels with their people as expressed on many platforms was markedly higher than that of their foreign predecessors. The wedge seemed to offer them a ready-made tool to address the challenge they faced. They were convinced that among the main problems in the way of China’s resurgence was the lack of a politically mature citizenry and saw it as their primary goal to reform and “renovate” (xin 新) their countrymen to reach this state. Their people needed a shock to awaken to the real world. But even to get this shock from literature, they would have to buy, read, and understand the novel. Their ability, furthermore, to connect the plot with its twists and turns 7. Chen, Shizi hou, pp. 31–32. On the metaphor of China “asleep,” see Wagner, “China ‘Asleep.’ ”

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with the grand issues of the fate of the nation could not be trusted. Nothing in their experience of reading earlier Chinese novels prepared them for this. To provide them with this wider framework, the new wedge contains a utopian (or sometimes dystopian) sketch of the results of the envisaged awakening of the people and of the political reforms that would then become possible. Thus it was to meet the challenge of a lack of political awareness and maturity among their potential readers that authors adopted the wedge. In a self-critical turn, the narrator in quite a few of these wedges is himself also asleep and only wakes up through some major political development such as Russian encroachment on the Chinese Northeast. This feature is reinforced by the claim that the narrator himself lacks the capacity to write such a novel (or to lead reforms) and that he is only publishing or translating a text that has been given him by some higher authority such as the goddess of liberty in Jin Songcen’s Niehai hua. As many of these writers had indeed only recently become politicized, this depiction has the ring of truth. Only recently they had been part of the problem themselves and therefore were in a way also addressees of the novel itself. One might argue that the insertion of the wedge together, as sometimes happened, with the complete set of chapter headings into the first installment of a serialized novel did not only keep the reader on target, but also the writer as he continued to write the new installments.8 There is always the danger of getting pulled into another direction by the inner logic of a fictional text. The new wedge adopted elements of the premodern wedge because they seemed to fit a new purpose. It retained its position in the beginning, its allegorical evoking one thing through another continued to mark it as a semi-autonomous unit, and it held on to its overall function of guiding the reader in bridging the gap between the concreteness of the story and the grand underlying issues. It also remained the most self-referential component of the novel, with a vast amount of creative energy being invested here.9

8. Jin Songcen’s Niehai hua is an example. These chapter titles also allow for the reconstruction of the missing parts of incomplete novels. 9. Doleželová, “Seventeenth-Century Chinese Theory,” p. 146.

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Many features, however, were recast to fit the new circumstances. The title of Liang’s Future Record of New China (Xin Zhongguo weilaiji) already marks the difference. With the formula “future record,” a narrative perspective is fixed that this novel will not talk about the past but will describe this renovation of China retrospectively from a future point in time.10 The wedge elaborates what the title has announced. The focus is not the fate of the individual but that of the nation. The novel starts with the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of constitutional government in China and then goes on to outline how this was achieved by “going back” to the present time of the author and reader, namely, the year 1902. In this future, China has successfully transformed its political system into a constitutional monarchy. As a result, it has flourished and has achieved the status of a great power. With the term xin, which is often undertranslated as “new” but at this time is regularly used by Liang as a transitive verb, the reform (“renovation”) of China is announced as a necessary and positive step, polemically rejecting the claims that the only future for China was in returning to the time-honored “old” institutions and values. The wedge spills over into chapter 2. The novel proper begins only in chapter 3 with the “present” time of the reader as the hoped-for start of China’s great future. This great future is defined within a framework that replaces the vast Buddhist chiliocosm with the modern world of nation-states. The spatial framework of the new wedge is the modern world. The most important change to affect the wedge, however, was the introduction of a new plot engine. Earlier European, American, and Asian political novels operated with a plot machine that was derived from contemporary European writing of political history. This history had a linear rather than circular trajectory and was driven by individual and/or collective human agency within the power constellations of the moment. By the time the Chinese political novel developed, scientist explanations of the history of nations that borrowed their logic from Darwin’s evolutionism had been introduced in China through translations of Spencer’s works. As a consequence social Darwinism had come to dominate the reform essay and the first Chinese efforts—many of them by Liang Qichao

10.

For background on the “future record,” see chapters 2 and 3.

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himself—at writing new political history, especially of countries that had lost their sovereignty. The late Qing political novel is part of this current. The new wedge set out to show the logic of this new plot engine in action that was driving both nations and their new historical or fictional narratives. The notion that nations evolved through international competition and were headed toward a single endpoint had become commonplace among enlightened intellectuals in East Asia at the time.11 It gained the stature of a natural law from which a moral imperative for the nation’s citizens was derived. In this sense, both the nation and its narrative retain the agency and responsibility of the individual—either for its own fate or for that of the nation, and both engage the reader to take lessons from the actions and fates of the main protagonists. Anchoring their narration of the nation in “scientific” social Darwinism served to enhance the argumentative weight of the critique of the present and of the reforms that were proposed. If the fate of nations is dictated by iron “laws” that determine the outcome of necessary reforms as well as of the failure to implement them, political novels were not offering fanciful inventions but science-based scenarios. This evolutionist plot engine driving the narrative of the political novel engages with inherited plot engines as its countertext once it appears in the Chinese context. It is this countertext that gives this standard feature of the genre particular “local” character and poignancy. This plot engine is introduced in the wedge, either implicitly in the concrete form of the new wedge’s narrative or, less often, explicitly. An example of the latter is again Roar of the Lion, where the wedge claims that nature operates on the same principle that is prevailing among nations, namely, that “the weak are the food for the strong” (ruo rou qiang shi 弱肉強食).12 The political novel challenged the familiar plot engines in terms of focus, time, space, and thought. First, its focus is not the individual but 11. The worldwide career of social Darwinism is largely due to the writings of Herbert Spencer, whose works had been translated into Japanese since the 1870s and were available and widely read in Chinese by the mid-1890s. See Pusey, China and Charles Darwin; David Wang, “Translating Modernity”; Tikhonov, Social Darwinism and Nationalism. This evolutionist plot engine has its own descendant in a plot driven by class struggle. For examples, see Ostrovskij, How the Steel Was Tempered, translated into English as The Making of a Hero; or Hao Ran’s Jinguang dadao. 12. Guo Ting (Chen Tianhua), Shizi hou, p. 27.

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the nation. As the nation lacks the concreteness needed for fictional description, the actual protagonists of the political novel are symbolic or allegorical representations of political forces that make up the nation. Second, it deals with the present and the future, not the past. The use of modern novels to deal with matters of the present had been introduced through the 1873 Chinese translation of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s (1803–73) Night and Morning (orig. 1841) and had been consolidated by the novels of social criticism that appeared simultaneously with the new political novels in China during the early years of the twentieth century.13 The perspective, however, from which the political novel deals with the present is much more radical than that of the novels of social criticism: it views the present of the nation as the zone of conflict between a lingering past and a dawning future, and does so with a plan for the future. The fictional future of the land had achieved prominence in Chinese translations of Western works since the 1872 Shenbao serialization of Washington Irving’s short story “Rip Van Winkle.” More important, the 1892 Chinese summary of Edward Bellamy’s internationally influential best seller Looking Backward introduced both a model for looking back at the present from the perspective of the future and the option to include a utopian (in this case socialist) agenda.14 Bellamy’s work, which spawned a flurry of similar works in the United States and Europe, deals with the inequities of present-day American society, but rather than focusing on them, it assumes readers’ familiarity and relies on their capacity to discover the negative foil of the present in the positive foil of its future transformation.15 The new Japanese form of a retrospective from a future date, miraiki, provided an immediate model. It deals with clearly marked political spaces in the present-day world rather than with the huge time/space environment often invoked in earlier Chinese novels. There were marked differences as well. The Chinese novels were operating in a perceived environment that also greatly differed from that of other exemplars of the genre such as Disraeli’s Coningsby. The time 13. Night and Morning was translated into Chinese as Xinxi xiantan. 14. It is not clear whether the early Japanese translation of Dioscorides’s Anno 2065 had any impact in China, although the miraiki that followed in its tracks clearly had. 15. The full Japanese translation of Bellamy’s novel was published only in 1903. Beramī, Shakai shōsetsu.

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horizon was marked by a sharply increased and much more visible asymmetry in economic and military power between China and the Western powers, by the worldwide ascension of social Darwinism, by the understanding that the ascendancy of the “West” was the result of recent political reforms rather than long-term developments, and by the assumption that the West offered best-practice models.16 These conditions indicated that there was a real prospect—as shown by Japan—of catching up quickly. The success of the dominating states in the modern world, it was assumed, hinged on their being “civilized,” wenming; on their political institutions; and on the attitude of their citizens. Being civilized gave these countries the economic prosperity and the ensuing military might that enabled them to impose themselves on others. In order to win this battle, China had no alternative but to also become “civilized.” Although it was accepted that the powers were ahead in this race, the concept of being “civilized” was not seen as a foreign imposition but as being based on a scientific study of human progress. The availability of a package of best-practice examples for achieving rapid development—among them the political novel, social Darwinism, and collective engagement for the nation—made for the lure of the genre while the perceived asymmetry in power and development made for the urgency of its adaptation. Social Darwinism can be interpreted as a “scientific” explanation of the reasons for the rise of the Western powers and the decline of Asia’s old civilizations. It was developed in an effort to understand the logic driving past developments to the present. It was an analytical effort to understand those past developments and not intended as a prescriptive toolbox of steps that had to be taken to survive in the jungle of international competition. In Chinese eyes this analytical purpose was without interest as it could only explain why China was in its present dismal shape but did not show what had to be done to help China regain its standing among the nations. The inverted perspective of Spencer’s Chinese readers translated

16. This was most clearly spelled out in the widely read translation of Robert Mackenzie’s The Nineteenth Century, which dated the European transition from barbarity to civilization to the nineteenth century.

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his analysis of the past into prescriptions for the future that came with the “scientific” proof that the predicted outcome was sure to follow. This was an up-to-date plot engine that was not yet worn out by long use, and the Chinese writers went with much zest at exploring its potential. Linking the new wedge with the recast plot engine changed the dynamics of reading. The open-ended linear trajectory of political novels Chinese authors knew from reading originals or translations presupposed what they only wanted to create, a reader mature enough to engage critically with a political analysis that challenged many of his views and willing to be convinced by a good and well-wrought argument. They thus replaced a fictional narrative with a linear promise but an unpredictable end by a linear narrative that led to an end that had been announced from the outset. In this manner even the many Chinese political novels that had started serialization but were never finished had their supposed political harvest in the bower before the plants of the narrative had matured. This Chinese recasting of the social Darwinist plot engine did not need an “open” or “forward-leaning” narrative but a highly predictable “closed” plot line that would either end with the achievement of the great goals of the nation if readers did what was necessary, or, in a dystopian variant, with harrowing results if they did not.17 The switch from an analytical to a prescriptive scenario solved the problem of how to make the political novel into what Liang Qichao called a “sharp weapon” for a Chinese reform agenda. It also had the potential to solve the problem of the structural misfit between the closure provided by the wedge and an “open” evolutionist narrative. Most Chinese political novels followed Liang Qichao’s lead by inserting a wedge, as did quite a few novels that started off as political novels but eventually changed tack. Even some translations from the Japanese had wedge chapters added.18 As the allegorical summa of the enterprise, the new wedge introduced the iron logic of evolution from the present to the future with perhaps a detour on the reasons for the abysmal state of the present.

17. 18.

Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power, pp. 42–79. For examples, see chapter 3.

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Crafting the New Wedge The primary task of the Chinese political novel was to awaken the reader from his (or her) complacency and motivate him to political action. To accomplish this, it was not enough simply to sketch the crisis that the nation faced. The author had to put the reader on the spot, to make him realize that he had to make a decision regarding whether he was going to continue to be part of the nation’s demise or become an agent of its rise. The wedge chapter was employed to take on this new mission. It now had the duty to impress this “scientific” truth on readers by using the entire register of literary fantasy. Given the privileged place of the wedge chapter in the overall design of these novels, it can take on an importance far greater than that of any other chapter and in some cases even replace the actual novel altogether. The effort to recraft an existing literary fixture that comes with a particular ideological frame and bend it to carry out a new mission proved to be a great challenge. The creative energy going into this recrafting is perhaps most clearly visible in Chen Tianhua’s Roar of the Lion, a novel in which the wedge makes up the bulk of the part that was actually written. The wedge begins with a present-day “I” narrator who is despairing of China’s ability to survive in the fierce competition among nations. At stake is the “renaissance” or the “demise” of the country, xing wang 興亡. Social evolution is discussed in terms of natural evolution, with the narrator observing that nature operates on the same principle that is prevailing among nations. A second time frame is introduced through a book that the narrator discovers. It is about the demise of an “ignorant and dumb race” (hundun renzhong 混沌人種) some 4,500 years ago. The Hundun, once a great civilization, were conquered by “the Barbarians” (yeman zu 野蠻族), a small neighboring tribe. The Barbarians took away the livelihood of the Hundun people and imposed celibacy on them. Those who managed to survive were gradually reduced to being half-barbarian, then completely barbarian, and ended up just being “inferior animals without any consciousness” (wu zhijue de xiadeng dongwu 無知覺的下等動物). Whenever a country needed laborers for construction or human shields in wars, these people were the natural candidates. Thus, in the span of three hundred years, the race had completely disappeared. This past stands for the present and one of the possible futures of China.

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After this allegorical treatment of China’s conquest by the Manchu and their reduction to animals used for coolie labor and cannon fodder, the wedge seems to start yet another time with the “I” narrator reentering and bringing the reader back to the present. Alarming reports of Russia’s trying to dominate China’s northern provinces and of the English navy having entered the Wusong port have reached the narrator and prompted him to join in the fight against the foreign invaders. The enemy soon overwhelms any resistance, and the narrator is fleeing into the mountains with his pursuers turning into a pack of tigers and wolves. As they rush at him and push him to the ground, one of the beasts bites his right arm so that the excruciating pain makes him cry out in despair. This produces a dramatic result. A lion, which has been asleep for many years, is awoken and lets out a roar that shakes heaven and earth. Comment from the author: “This loud cry of despair [by the narrator] indeed achieved great effect!”19 This cry is the novel written by the narrator, and the sleeping “lion” that is awoken takes up what already had become a standard metaphor for the Chinese people. The wedge ends with an obvious reference to Liang Qichao’s Future Record. In the China of the future, the “I” narrator no longer recognizes the great and prosperous urban center in which he finds himself. It has “streets ten zhang wide (about 30 meters), made of white stones, without a trace of dust. All buildings are seven stories high, and their luxury and beauty defy description. The streets are busy with electric cars moving about like shuttles. In the sky above trains travel over iron bridges, and deep under the earth underground trains rush along. [In short] this is a scene of prosperity and wealth displaying extraordinary ingenuity and workmanship.”20 For the “I” narrator this could only be London or Paris. But, as he enters into a great hall, a placard announces in Chinese the “Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Glorious Renaissance [of China]” 光復五十年紀念會, another reference to Liang Qichao. China now has a national flag with a lion in the middle. An opera performance in which the leading male role is sung by a character called “the youth of new China” 新中國之少年 evokes in detail the history of the revolutionary wars through which the renovated China was created. Much impressed by this opera, the “I” narrator finds yet another book 19. Guo Ting (Chen Tianhua), Shizi hou, pp. 31–32. 20. Ibid., pp. 32–33.

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with the title The History of the Glorious Renaissance [of China]. On its cover is the roaring lion. The reader is told that the book has two parts, the first dealing with China’s struggle to recover and the second with the country regaining sovereignty and independence from foreign domination. This second book in fact is the very novel the reader has in his or her hands. It represents an alternative future to the Hundun fate described in the book the narrator found earlier. This is the possible future of China’s survival and rise. By offering two possible futures for China, the wedge drives home the importance of the reader’s agency. The dismal future resulting from continuing the passivity and lack of consciousness of the past is contrasted with the bright future resulting from waking up to consciousness and active engagement. Evolutionism reflects the objective dynamics of history and is not simply a literary engine. A grasp of evolution’s laws may be important for following the novel’s action, but it is essential for understanding the dynamics governing the future development of China. The wedge stands as a silent reminder throughout such novels that in the shadow of the glorious achievements of evolutionary success lurks the very real option of failure and loss if the necessary steps are not taken. The allegorical treatment in these wedges reduces the courses of action to two options, one wrong, the other right. The first is anchored in continuing the policies of the present, which will “inevitably” lead to the demise of the Chinese nation and the annihilation of the race 亡國滅種; the other is anchored in the fictional future described in the particular novel and shows the goal that is to be reached and the steps that are taken to get there, in the novel and now also in real life. All the characters in the Chinese political novel are allegorical representations of the forces involved in the political process. They are defined by their support for or opposition to the necessary political evolution, and the action is driven by the effort to overcome the forces representing what is described as the certain path to China’s demise. The chaos evoked by the fast-changing pace, perspective, and mood in the wedge of Roar of the Lion is more indicative of the passion, commitment, and ambition with which it was written than of the writer’s literary maturity. At the center of the wedge is the cry of a man bitten by a pack of wolves. Although the author’s anti-Manchu attitude is clear, the wedge

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does not focus on Manchu abuses but on the inaction of the Chinese at a time of utmost danger to their race and nation. The novel is the cry to wake up the “sleeping lion.” The story itself is not about the danger China is in—this has been spelled out in the wedge. It was to be about ways to overcome the crisis, as described in the second book. The author committed suicide before finishing the novel, however, throwing himself into the sea in Japan after writing a passionate patriotic manifesto.

Coding the New Wedge The wedge employs literary coding to set itself off from the main narrative and the burdens of a realistic narrative. The coding is characterized by continuity in principle and a rich array of innovations in the execution. Various devices are used to mark the wedge as a fictional space with its own rules. It could be a state such as a dream outside of normal daily consciousness, a time—the future or the deep past—no “realistic” description of which can be given, or a place such as a distant island about which no other information can be found.21 Although dream narratives occur in earlier wedges, the new wedge inverts their traditional function. On waking up, the narrator does not realize the emptiness of the dream,22 but its truthfulness.23 In these uses, the individual awakening to Buddhist 21. The entire story might on occasion be told as a dream. Cai Yuanpei’s A New Year’s Dream is one example, (Zhang) Fengchou’s The Dream of the Gentleman from Puyang. A Political Allegory ([Zhengzhi yuyan xiaoshuo] Puyang gong meng [政治寓言小說] 蒲陽公夢; 1909) is another. 22. In this form it is found in Dong Yue’s Sequel to the Journey to the West and, most famously, in Dream of the Red Chamber. 23. Although the links to Bellamy and even Dioscorides in the language of dream and awakening are evident, it retains overtones of late Qing reform Buddhism. Many of the late Qing reformers—including Liang Qichao—had extensive contacts with Yang Wenhui’s (1837–1911) flourishing lay Buddhist communities at the time. See Goldfuss, Vers un bouddhisme. The idea of a social or political bodhisattva was attractive because it stressed the selfless purity of devotion to the great national goal and offered the flexibility to adjust to the foibles of the blind world without becoming tainted. The language used to describe the social and political reformer and the effect (“awakening”) he has on his “blind” and “sleeping” countrymen borrows from the

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truths with an ensuing dissociation from the world is replaced by the need for a collective awakening to the need for a “national” engagement with the world. The common denominator of all these fictional narratives in the new wedge is that the narrator is provided with “factual” and reliable information about China’s present and future, whether through a dream, a trustworthy personal witness, a found manuscript, or a higher being. The reliable access to the future is the concrete form through which the open-ended plot structure of the novel is closed. Examples of dream or daydream narratives in the new wedges are Liu E’s 劉鶚 (1857–1909) Lao Can youji 老殘遊記 (The travels of Lao Can; 1904–7), Chen Tianhua’s Roar of the Lion, Tao Baopi’s 陶報癖 (Tao Youzeng, 陶佑曾, 1886–1927) Xin wutai hongxue ji 新舞臺鴻雪記 (Events on the new stage revealed; 1907), and Huang Xiuqiu. With his access and often mandate to publish his experience, the narrator proceeds to action— normally by writing his political novel or publishing the manuscript that has been “given” to him. Examples of time or spatial frames that set the new wedge off from the rest of the narrative and make a purely fictional narrative “realistic” are Kong Lao’s report given fifty years from now in Liang Qichao’s Future Record or the Island of Immortals in Lü Sheng’s 旅生 Chiren shuo meng ji 癡人説夢記 (A fool’s tale of his dream; 1904). Within this framework the authors are free to employ the full arsenal of allegory, metaphor, simile, and telling names. Many of these features had been used—although to a much lesser degree—in the main text of the English, Japanese, Korean, and Filipino incarnations of the genre. Indeed, the new wedge often draws on a growing international arsenal of political metaphors and allegories that was transmitted via Japan. However, the imagery used in the new wedge as well as in the illustrations of covers for those political novels that also appeared in book form is new. It presupposes no traditional education and highlights the international allure of the genre. The imagery and rhetorical devices are used to bridge the gap between the abstract content of political doctrine and the language used for the action of the bodhisattva; this can even be seen in the critical take on such salvatory efforts in Lu Xun’s metaphor of the people asleep in the burning iron house. See also Wagner, “China ‘Asleep.’ ”

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requirements of fiction to be concrete, without requiring a “realistic” narrative mode. The wedges of the Chinese political novel condense these features into an allegorical scenario in which only the minimum of real-life concreteness remains. Like the preface in many books from the Chinese past with their dense argumentation that absorbed a large part of the labor that was going into the work altogether, the wedge of the political novel is the preferred (and most manageable) place where the author can show his literary skills and imagination together with his grand political vision and agenda. In addition to the allegory of the sleeping lion for China or the double-headed eagle for Russia, present-day China is also the “Island of the Happiness of Slaves” 奴樂島 because the inhabitants are not even aware that they are slaves; it suffers from a “lack of fresh air,” which one needs as much as “liberty” (Zeng Pu’s Niehai hua), or it is the “Village Self-Absorbed” 自由村 with an ironic turn on the new word for “liberty” (Huang Xiuqiu). The wedge in Liu E’s Travels of Lao Can—actually the only segment directly marking the work as a political novel24—offers a well-developed political metaphor in its description of the Qing state as a ship. Lao Can dreams that he goes with two friends with the telling names Wen Zhangbo 文章伯 (Sir Broad in Learning) and De Huisheng 德慧生 (Mr. Morality and Intelligence) to the Penglai pavilion (pavilion of the land of the immortals) to view the sunrise: the dawn of the bright future. The sunrise, however, is blocked from view by thick clouds rising from the East—the political “weather” is dominated by the looming Russo-Japanese war. Out on the sea, they first spot a steamship (foreign modernity), which rapidly disappears beyond the horizon, obviously having a clear direction. Then they see a sailing ship (traditional China) in the northeast (China’s position in East Asia) that is fighting huge waves and is in danger of sinking. As the ship comes closer to the shore, they are able to estimate its length at about 23 or 24 zhang (the number of Chinese provinces) and even see the captain of the ship (the emperor) on the navigation bridge. Below the bridge, four persons are in charge of the actual navigation (the four chief ministers). The ship has six old masts (the six old-style ministries of 24. Once the story begins, the relationship between the narrative of the novel and the wedge dissolves. The only link is the central character Lao Can, who remains the main protagonist throughout the novel.

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the government) and two new ones, one completely new (the education ministry) and one half new (the ministry of foreign affairs). The boat is heavily loaded with goods and with countless passengers in appalling condition (the Chinese population). Below the eight masts there are people in charge of handling the ropes and some other helpers dressed in sailor fashion (lower officials). The boat is in a battered shape, and its problems are evident. Although it is large, its body has many holes. In the northeastern corner of the boat, a stretch of about 3 zhang has already been destroyed (China’s three northern provinces under Russian control), and farther to the east, another piece of about 1 zhang in length is already under water (the Shandong peninsula, in German hands). It does not help that the eight persons who are in charge of the masts (ministries), although all working diligently on their tasks, pay no attention to what the others are doing as if they were working on different boats. Translated into abstract political critique, the state lacks unified leadership. As the boat comes still closer, onlookers notice the sailors mistreating the people on the boat (autocratic rule) to the point of suddenly killing a few of them and throwing their bodies overboard (the execution of the six political reformers by the Qing court after the One Hundred Days Reform of 1898). Wen Zhangbo then suggests that, to save the ship and its innocent passengers, the three friends should try to get to the boat and to kill and replace those in charge of navigation (making revolution). Lao Can disagrees. They would be completely outnumbered, and he doubts whether the ship’s problems are simply due to bad leadership. The leaders lack experience in navigating rough waters (international challenges) since they have been used to sailing in calm waters under peaceful conditions. They lack, furthermore, strategic planning. During good weather, they can always rely on the sun, the moon, or the stars for directions, but now that the (political) weather is cloudy and stormy, they have lost their sense of direction. The friends should offer them a compass (political roadmap of reform), which would give the captain a sense of direction, and they should inform him about the different strategies needed for peaceful waters and for storms. The difference between these two suggestions reflects the late Qing discussion of whether “revolution” or “reform” was needed. As the three get close to the ship on a boat they have found, they hear some people making revolutionary speeches calling for a change of power and cursing the people on the ship for behaving like slaves.

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However, once the speakers have the money they demanded from the people in hand, they have no better proposal than to incite them to beat up the leaders of the ship. Such criticism of “fake” revolutionaries was widespread at the time.25 As the three friends offer the captain a compass and a sextant, he receives them with courtesy (the open-minded Guangxu emperor supporting the reformers in 1898), is interested in the instruments, and is willing to learn how they work. At this moment, some of the sailors “from below” (those who work under the emperor who have something to lose if new Western technology is adopted) start yelling. They say these are foreign things, the Chinese who brought them must be agents of the foreigners, and they must have already sold the ship to foreigners— otherwise they would not have these instruments. This is a reference to both the conservative opponents of the 1898 reforms and the antiforeign agitation of the Boxers. The captain is at a loss as to what to do. As the three flee back to their boat, people from the ship start throwing large planks down at them, and their boat sinks immediately. At this point, Lao Can wakes up from his dream. In this scenario, China’s troubles are homemade, with all—the leadership, the revolutionaries, and the people—sharing in the responsibility. The stormy ocean provides a lively and new metaphor for the geopolitical environment within which China now has to operate, but in this scenario no danger whatever is coming from specific other ships/nations. This wedge informs the reader about the author’s stance concerning the political crisis facing China. Lao Can, the author’s alter ego, perceives that there is a crisis: the Chinese state is a leaking ship in troubled waters. A “compass” is needed to find the direction into which the country has to move. Revolution is not a solution. Its advocates are xenophobic, ignorant, and self-serving, and much less enlightened than the emperor. As the ethnic identity of the captain is not mentioned, the author considers a racial interpretation of China’s troubles irrelevant. He opts for a conservative reform program in which the present court is involved and that entails a reorientation of national policy with the aid of the compass and sextant of Western learning. However, the chances for this type of reform to succeed are nil, and the people who bring the reform proposals go under in a literary scenario that is designed to shock the reader to action. 25. For a study on the satirical treatment of reformers and revolutionaries at the time, see Vandermeersch, “Satire.”

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The state as a ship on the high seas of politics is a widely used European metaphor of ancient Mediterranean origin.26 It has no Chinese precedent.27 It offers both an image of the Chinese state on the high sea of international politics and an image of the internal dynamics of state and society in times of stress. The leaders of the state have little experience with this kind of navigation, and no one on the ship seems to understand that in such a situation captain, crew, and passengers (ruler, administration, and people) must unite, or, in the standard European reading, unite under the captain’s command. The metaphor of the compass offered by Lao Can and his friends nicely combines the technical and the political aspects of modernity. However, the fighting among different interest groups prevents political reform. This wedge uses an allegorical narrative to insert China into a framework of an evolution toward modernity, to show the key problems holding China back, and to deal with the differences of opinion among those who want to bring change to the country. Although it shows the way out of the crisis, it does not offer an encouraging vision of China’s prospects. The wedge of the Events on the New Stage Revealed. A Social Novel by an author signing his name Tao Baopi (Tao, the Newspaper Addict), is of particular interest because it engages critically—and allegorically— with different Western prescriptions for the way to modernity and their appropriateness for China. It comes with the telling title “The Botanical Garden Presents the Main Outline of the Whole Book; A Blow Straight on the Head Awakens from Fanciful Dreams”28 and relates a dream of the “I” narrator. An old man, who calls himself “the elder from the great old empire” (laoda diguo zhi laoda 老大帝國之老大 = China), offers to give him an introduction to a newly built botanical garden. It has six sections, each planted with a

26. In the novel itself, Lao Can is a roaming doctor who “diagnoses” China’s problems. Liu E here makes use of an ancient Chinese metaphor for the state—the body— and of the doctor as a man committed to the health of the patient but also forced to use sometimes bitter medicine (remonstrance). 27. The metaphor of the court as a ship was used in Chinese tradition, but it is a small ship on a river, and the emperor is the fisherman who gets his wealth out of the waters. The river water is a metaphor for the “people.” The water, the saying goes, may carry the ship, or it may overturn it. 28. Tao Baopi, Xin wutai hongxue ji, p. 1.

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different variety, and the old man uses agricultural vocabulary to describe their fitness for the Chinese environment. The first garden grows the “civilization vegetable” 文明菜, which is “green and red, fresh and attractive,” came from the West, and then spread to Japan. From there, “it spread all over the place and was relatively successful in reproduction.” China sent people over to ask for seeds, but many of the seedlings were defective, and no one knew how to plant them. “This is why most of those who know about hygiene [healthy food] dare not eat it casually.”29 The second garden grows big trees laden with “freedom fruit” 自由果, a specialty from the United States of America, “where people definitely eat them every day.” They might have adverse effects on Chinese, however, and they should be wary eating them. The “equality” 平等 grass in the third garden looks pretty with the blades all of the same height, but it is “unacceptable because it lacks any semblance of a moral hierarchy.” The “trees of independence” 獨立樹 from the Philippines30 in the fourth garden are very sturdy and hard; they are not easily toppled. The fifth garden sports huge blossoms in every conceivable color, but among them the red blossoms of the “flower of revolution” 革命花 are the most beautiful. Originating in France, it spread through Europe and Russia. Young people love this flower best. Yet the Chinese climate and soil are unfavorable to its growth; as it also contains a kind of poison, many people have lost their money or their lives to it. These plants of modernity are all ill adapted to the Chinese environment. The sixth garden, finally, is covered with China’s own special product, a shapeless and modest yellow growth, the “medicine of national essence” 國粹药. “This medicine has been passed on by sages and men of virtue for the purpose of treating unscrupulous men who have lost their rectitude.” Yet Chinese youths only go after the bright “flowers of revolution,” utterly ignoring this Chinese medicine. “Have a look at those people who pretend to be reformers,” the old man cries out. “You should write down your understanding of them and expose their hypocrisy.” Using the “big stick” of this argument, the old man strikes the narrator straight over the head and thus “awakens” him. The allegories and metaphors created and adopted in these wedge chapters helped translate abstract and unfamiliar new concepts into 29. Ibid., p. 140. 30. A reference to the Philippines gaining independence from Spain (and passing under U.S. tutelage).

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tangibly concrete and self-explanatory objects such as the state as a ship or a political culture as a plant. They critically interact with the countertext of familiar Chinese political metaphors as does the new novel with the traditional novel form. Far from just applying concrete vocabulary on abstract concepts, they describe complex dynamics and can be translated into bases for judgment and guides for action. Chinese authors’ encounters with and creative use of these already globalized metaphors made for much literary innovation. The authors consciously engage with this translingual and transcultural rhetoric to highlight the international nature of the problems as well as the reforms in China. Even when the wedge about the six gardens claims that it is not the attractive trees and flowers from abroad but “Chinese essence” that is best adapted to nourish the country during its political and social transformation, it consciously frames this argument with evolutionism and “national essence” as a shared obsession of emerging nation-states, quite apart from the fact that the term guocui 國粹 was created in Japan.

Protagonists of the New Wedge: The Narrator, the People, and the Novel Although the specific narratives of the new wedge differ widely, they all operate with the same basic grid. The traditional wedge is deftly reorganized. The new wedge does not have the fate of individuals as its subject matter but that of the nation. It operates with three main protagonists: the narrator, the people, and the novel itself. Of these three only the last had a place in earlier wedges.31 The new wedge is told by an “I” or a third-person narrator. He narrates how he personally woke up to realize China’s crisis, saying that only the help by some higher authority or careful reasoning led him to understand its true causes and allows him to show the people a reliable way out with the book that is introduced by the wedge. We have seen magic interventions that sometimes come in a dream in Roar of the Lion, 31. The wedge of Dream of the Red Chamber claims that this novel reproduces the fate of Jia Baoyu as written on a stone.

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Travels of Lao Can, and Events on the New Stage Revealed. An example of reasoned debate as the source of truth is Chun Fan’s 春颿 Weilai shijie 未來世界 (The world of the future; 1907). It begins with an emphatic call for the establishment of constitutional government: “Establish the constitution! Establish the constitution! To establish the constitution is the most pressing problem for our 400 million countrymen of yellow origin, a question of life and death.” After denouncing autocratic rule in the most passionate manner, the author begins a debate with an imagined figure, whom he qualifies as “someone utterly both obstinate and conservative” (ji wangu ji shoujiu de ren 極頑固極守舊的人), while referring to himself as “the humble writer” (zai xia zuoshu de 在下作書的). The debate makes it clear that China’s problems are not the result of threats from the West but of the failure of the political leaders of the country to recognize the need for reform—even if only for self-preservation—and for the people to get involved. In the end, the author addresses the reader again in a personal manner and tells him or her the purpose of the novel. “I am only a scholar with neither power nor the obligation to leave worthy writings to posterity, yet when looking at society [now] before the establishment of the constitution and imagining the citizens after it has been set up, I was prompted to write this novel. I only hope that, after having read my novel, you readers will behave like citizens of a state after the establishment of a constitution and will not copy the corrupt behavior prevalent in earlier times.”32 These “earlier times” refer to the readers’ present. The narrator mostly does not claim the merit for these discoveries for himself, and the new wedges do not proselytize people to follow the narrator’s/author’s personal leadership, although the effort by the narrator to “awaken” the people can also take the fictional form of a speaker haranguing an audience of Chinese contemporaries.33 His agency is that of a modest intermediary who makes truth accessible. Attributing the capacity to understand the laws of historical development and the ensuing ability to predict the outcome of a people’s behavior to some higher authority (or reasoned debate) translates the scientist claims of social 32. Chun Fan, Weilai shijie, p. 5. 33. Nan Zhina lao jishi (Ma Yangyu), Qin jian; Lengqing nüshi, Xi chi ji; E E 惡惡, [Zhengzhi xiaoshuo] Chengdu xue [政治小說]成都血 (The blood of Chengdu: a political novel); You Fu (Bao Youfu), Xin shu shi.

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Darwinism into fictional language. The narrator’s cry of shock as he realizes China’s predicament eventually unfolds into the novel. The novel as a call to the people to wake up and take action replaces the traditional address of Chinese fictional narrators when inviting their audience to listen to another installment of their story. It is a call for action, not an offer of entertainment. The arousal of the people to change their attitude toward the nation and reform its institutions so as to fit the modern world is the only way from victim to beneficiary of social Darwinist “laws.” There is no determinism in this historical process that one has to endure passively. Heroic action supported by a collective can change the course of history. As opposed to the narrator, who is introduced as a regular human being, the collective of the people is represented through various allegorical figures. Liang Qichao explicitly saw the new novel as a vehicle for the education of the min, the “common people,” a notion echoed by others such as Ma Yangyu 馬仰禹 (dates unknown), the author of Qin jian 親鑒 (Self-examination; 1907).34 This collective is the implied reader of the novel, and its presumed state of mind provides the key justification for the narrator’s intervention as well as the paratexts for reader guidance such as the title, the chapter headings, the wedge itself, and authorial commentaries. In tune with many Chinese political essays written around 1900, with their often sarcastic characterization of the Chinese people, the new wedges—as we have seen—do not hesitate to denounce their present state of mind in the strongest terms. Castigating the implied reader in such

34. Ma Yangyu signed the work as Nan Zhina lao jishi (The old thoroughbred from South China). The wedge of his Self-Examination depicts celebrations following the announcement that preparations are to begin for the establishment of a constitution. People all over Shanghai are giving speeches. Two unnamed characters discuss a speech they have just heard about family education—as opposed to school education—being the best way to prepare the next generation for life under a constitution. The speaker told the gathering that he would be publishing his entire speech in the form of a novel. Although the two welcome this, they also bemoan the excessive promotion of translated novels by publishers and their neglect of novels written by Chinese authors. Such Chinese novels, the two men claim, were written especially for the taste and education of the common Chinese reader. Ma was also the translator of the 1887 Sekai ritsukoku no yukusue by Tōyō kijin as Weilai zhanguo zhi in 1902–3 (see chapter 3).

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terms shows the urgency of the novel that is to jolt the reader out of his complacency. Jin Songcen’s wedge in his Niehai hua (Flower in the sea of retribution) is a good example of the treatment of the “people” in the new wedge. It is also an example of the dialogue between evolutionary and inherited karmic notions. The work was a best seller when it was first published in 1905.35 According to Zeng Pu, its second author, the novel went through five printings and sold 50,000 copies.36 The author of the novel’s opening chapters, which were separately published as a “political novel” in the journal Jiangsu in 1903, was Jin Songcen, writing under a pen name.37 The title of this novel employs the central Buddhist concept of retribution only to have the wedge deconstruct it with the coming of the “flower” (hua 花) of liberty, which is a pun on China, Zhonghua 中華. As China is mired in this sea of suffering, the only savior imaginable is the “goddess of liberty” from the West. From the novel’s title, it remains unclear how this “flower” will do in the “sea of retribution.” Once we enter the wedge, it becomes clear that the object of remonstrance is the people. Although the immediate historical background to Jin’s novel was the threat of Russia’s ambitions in China’s northeastern provinces, the wedge directly identifies the internal cause of the political crisis in the people’s attitude toward the nation:

35. Chapters 1–20 of Zeng Pu’s Niehai hua were published in 1905 by the Xiaoshuo lin she in Tokyo; chapters 21 to 25 were serialized in Xiaoshuo lin, issues 1, 2, and 4 (Tokyo, 1907); chapters 1–20 were again published in 1928 by the Zhen Mei Shan shudian in Shanghai; chapters 21–30 came out from the same publisher in 1931. 36. Zeng Pu, “Xiugai hou,” p. 129. 37. Qilin (Jin Songcen), Niehai hua, 115–19. The opening statement of Jiangsu offers a programmatic harangue of the people and the duty of the reformer. “For us, to discuss corruption and rottenness as people who are corrupt and rotten, we must be residents of that corrupt and rotten land. To discuss corruption and rottenness as corruption and rottenness, one must first establish the fact that it is the special characteristic of the people of Jiangsu to be corrupt and rotten; moreover, it is also the special responsibility of Jiangsu magazine to talk about corruption and rottenness” (Jiangsu, no. 1, p. 1). After Zeng Pu took over the writing of the novel, he redefined its genre first to a “historical novel” in 1907 and then to a “social novel” in 1928. Zeng Pu, “Xiugai hou,” pp. 128–38; Han Liangsheng, “Niehai hua zaoyizhe.”

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Let me now first tell you about an extremely savage, slavish, unfree state.38 Beyond the five oceans of the globe is a place never reached by Columbus or Magellan. There is the great sea called the Sea of Retribution. In this sea there is an island called nolow island [original in Latin letters, a rendering of the English “No Law”], which, when translated into Chinese, gives nule 奴樂, Island of the Happiness of Slaves.

The metaphor of the island to describe the isolation of the country from the world at large and its ignorance about it had now become a standard trope.39 China is in the sea of retribution for the lack of patriotic commitment of its people. Worse, the islanders are oblivious to their condition or anything outside of their immediate environment: “On this island, there had never been a breath of freedom, and yet the citizens believed that, as there was food and clothing, merit and fame, and as they had wives and children, this was a state of freedom and utmost happiness.” The island started showing signs of strain some fifty years ago (a reference to the Opium War). After two gods of liberty (Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao) tried to introduce the true notion of liberty but were quickly cast away, the sky fell down on the island in 1903 (when the novel came out), and it sank altogether. The geographical location given for the island is that of China. The references to the two “gods of liberty” and to the 1903 crisis with Russia further identify this location. The fate of China is a retribution for the inhabitants’ “happiness in their slavery” and for enjoying the fake flower of the consumer’s freedom. The wedge frames China’s fate in a global context. It is unexceptional in tolerating rulers akin to various “last” European rulers, such as Charles I of England, who was executed in 1649, and Louis XVI of France. The narrator, who calls himself the Lover of Liberty, goes to Shanghai to search for the “gods of liberty,” but people there are afraid to speak.40 No other savior is in sight in this version of the novel but the implied reader. Zeng Pu’s 1905 version elaborates on this wedge. When the Lover of Liberty frantically searches for news about the sinking of the island, he 38. Zeng Pu changed the phrase “unfree state” from Qilin, Niehai hua, p. 115, to “a free state.” 39. Other novels using this trope include Lü Sheng, Chiren shuo meng ji, and Xiaoran yusheng, Xin Jing hua yuan. 40. Qilin, Niehai hua, p. 117 ; E E 惡惡, [Zhengzhi xiaoshuo] Chengdu xue [政治小說] 成都血 (The blood of Chengdu: a political novel).

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only finds that the people he meets go about their lives as though nothing has happened. For his efforts, however, a beautiful goddess gives him a manuscript that reveals the fate of China—it is the novel now in the reader’s hands: the new savior is the spirit of liberty that finally arrives in China, and the author, Lover of Liberty, is just the committed scribe to make this blueprint available and allow the implied reader to inculcate himself with this spirit. In this sense, the wedge chapter provides the essential link between the surface and the subtext. It guides the reader through the grand scenes of national crisis, asks him to read the demise of the island as a reference to the “sinking” of China,41 and calls on him to awaken to the need to act on this crisis. The purpose of the wedge is to provide a framework to orient the reader as he or she peruses the rest of the novel. This narrative voice is personal only in an allegorical sense and has no place for the narrator’s private woes. It often comes with the narrator’s claim of being the only one who is awake, aware of the crisis, committed to the common good, and therefore entrusted with the duty to wake up the others and show the way. It is a voice unique to the coding of the wedge and usually does not extend into the novel itself. Some novels deal with specific segments of the population rather than “the people” as a whole. For example, Chen Xiaolu’s Xin Jing hua yuan 新鏡花緣 (A New Flowers in the Mirror; 1908) begins with the provocative claim that women in China enjoy more privileges and advantages than men.42 The significance of this opening only becomes clear when the author turns to the major issue of the fate of China. “Readers, you need to know, has China still its entire territory intact? We do not have to mention the past. Look at today: there is the so-called Anglo-Russian accord, a Japanese-Russian accord, a Japanese-French accord, and I need not go into it any further.” The subject of all of these accords is Chinese territory. “Now there are two more vexing issues: one is the right of decision making 41. In Jin Songcen’s version of Niehai hua, the date given for the sinking of the Island of the Happiness of Slaves is 1903 (p. 116). In Zeng Pu’s 1905 text, this date was changed to 1904 (p. 2). 42. The wedge comes as an independent unit at the beginning of the first chapter. The corresponding part of the chapter heading reads: “To discuss the main idea that covers the entire book” 述大意籠罩全書. The second half of the title, which indicates the beginning of the story itself, reads: “Making poetry in the inner chambers with the aim to educate the next generation.” Chen Xiaolu, Xin Jing hua yuan, p. 219.

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[by foreign countries] in Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces; the other is the[ir] right to build railroads in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.” The author then exclaims that if the Chinese do not fight back, the country will be turned into a “Polish Us, Indian Us, Jewish Us, Korean Us” 波蘭 我，印度我，猶太我，高麗我.43 To save the Chinese as a race, the country needs women heroes. It is in critical times that such persons come to the fore. I am writing this book in order to truly advance the rights of women and truly establish equality between men and women. What I mean by advancement and equality, however, is the opposite of what others mean by it, because if we do not take these terms in their true measure, they do not count as true advancement and equality. Besides, no matter whether man or woman, to set goals is the most important; it entails not only the success or failure in one’s own life, it truly has a profound impact on the two main issues of our times: politics and race.

From here, the narrative enters the story proper. In assigning responsibility for the current state of affairs, some authors go beyond abstractions of the people and the political leadership. Liu E’s Travels of Lao Can is a good example, with its specification of the complex interaction of different segments of officialdom and the people as well as the institutions of the state. In the same manner various different paragons of hope are nominated. These range from “youth” (Events on the New Stage Revealed, Roar of the Lion) to enlightened heirs to China’s tradition (Future Record of New China) to women (A New Flowers in the Mirror, Stones of Goddess Nüwa, Huang Xiuqiu). Although the people of Jiangnan come in for some extra criticism, no region seems to hold a particularly promising group of reformers. The third key protagonist in the wedge is the novel itself. Far from being just a book, it is an authority able to guide the collective reader into a bright future for the nation. It can come in the form of a manuscript or a text purporting to be the speech of an authorized live narrator. Many of the wedges provide a narrative that installs the novel as a voice with the authority of truth. This is a narrative device familiar from earlier wedges, 43.

Ibid., p. 220.

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such as that of the Dream of the Red Chamber, but also from Western novels such Bellamy’s Looking Backward (in the narration of the knowledgeable old man) or the found manuscript in Gulliver’s Travels. In this way the novel claims to narrate the “true” future rather than representing the speculation of an individual author. In many such wedges the novel itself is introduced as a manuscript that has been mysteriously “found” or given to the narrator by some higher being.44 Liang Qichao’s Future Record is said to be the protocol of the official speech of Confucius’s descendant about the amazing rise of China as sent to the journal Xiaoshuo lin in Yokohama, where Future Record was serialized. Other wedges go further in endowing the novel with authority. In the wedge of Niehai hua, the novel is handed to the narrator by a goddess. In this manner the political novel is “deauthorized” and comes with the claim of higher truth associated with the “science” of social Darwinism and symbolized through the available facts of past developments (Future Record) or the superior time perspective of the goddess. In addition to promising a truthful analysis of the present and a prediction of the future, quite a few wedges also feature the expected effect the author hopes that the novel’s publication will have, namely, to shock the allegorical representation of the people to awaken from their sleep.

Conclusions In both literary and political terms, the wedge is the most consciously construed part of the political novel. It is also sure to be finished and published first. The new wedge sets itself off from the rest of the novel formally by situating itself in an environment that precludes realistic description; it highlights this separation through its use of allegory, which leaves neither structural echo nor linguistic trace in the rest of the novel. The wedge chapter thus stands out from the rest of the text through its literary coding and its structural importance. As opposed to Buddhist notions of the 44. Examples of texts that were found by or given to the author include Liang Qichao, Xin Zhongguo weilaiji; Guo Ting (Chen Tianhua), Shizi hou; Zeng Pu, Niehai hua; and Lengqing nüshi, Xi chi ji.

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dream as illusion dominating earlier novels, the dream here becomes a place where one can escape tradition’s prison house of consensual illusion, awaken to the abysmal state of the nation, and find a way out. As opposed to the specific plot elements of the rest of the novel, the wedge operates with large concepts and grand sentiments through the medium of symbolic representation. In adopting the political novel, Chinese writers had to mediate between the value system and world order encoded into this unfamiliar but attractively modern literary genre and the popular Chinese novel, which was widely read but also looked down upon as frivolous entertainment. The new wedge was recast as a paratext above and beside the novel proper that allowed the author to set up a framework that tied the lowly genre to the new high purpose of saving the nation. The result was a revaluation of the status of the novel altogether. The wedge is where the crucial connection between the plot engine driving the real world and that driving the novel is established. Whether this is the karmic law of retribution or the social Darwinist law of the evolution of nations, both serve to connect a novel’s story to a highregister philosophical, religious, or “scientific” principle. Like its karmic counterpart the evolutionist plot engine is a blind mechanism, a “law.” It replaced the Buddhist circular time concept with a linear development, replaced its cosmic spatial framing with a focus on the nation on earth, and replaced its notion of the world as dream and illusion with that of the world as being the ultimate “real” place. This presumed blind mechanism continued to allow predictions of the future results of steps taken in the present with the difference that the individual was replaced by “the people” as the principal agent. Chinese authors read the presumed natural law as a guide to succeed in the struggle among nations and thus stripped it of its deterministic (and/or apologetic) edge. Their reading did not result in a fatalistic belief in the inevitability of China’s demise and the rise of the West but in calling for a mobilization of all energies to prevent this demise and modernize China. There is consensus among the authors of political novels that external factors—such as foreign powers—only have an effect because internal factors—lack of modernizing efforts from the state, lack of patriotic and civilizing energies among the people—make this possible. In the most radical image China is an isolated inward-looking island that just sinks

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from its own inertia. Thus, the new wedge is devoid of “anti-imperialist” language. It deals with the powers only in the context of criticizing the lack of patriotism among the “sleeping” people and the unwillingness of the court to stand up for China. New wedges on occasion sketch the features of the individuals capable of leading the people out of their present situation. These positive protagonists are from a different, fictional—and future—time. They are not realistic emulations of present-day characters but utopian projections of the characters that will be needed if China is to emerge from its present-day quandary. The narrative of an “I” or an individual narrator awakening to the true situation of China does not function as an expression of subjectivity but as a means to highlight rhetorically the desperate loneliness and isolation of the few who have learned about the threat to the country. The source of the novel itself is not described as resulting from the creative energy of the writer. He only transmits truths passed on by higher beings or fate. This modest self-assessment brings the author closer to the reader with whom he shares his original misconceptions. It does not produce the high tone of an educator of the people and a guide for the state but settles the intellectual author as a voice in the public sphere rather than in the state administration. Instead of a memorial to the court, these authors chose the medium of the serialized novel that addresses the public. A new potential agent was discovered in the modern urban public, whose power had already shown itself in Japan and the West. This choice does not indicate that the authors were dissidents or an opposition but that it allowed them the freedom to build on what they saw as reform-oriented initiatives of the court, such as the Reform of Governance, to push for broader and deeper reforms. The control established by the wedge over the reading strategy of the reader reflects a lack of trust in the reader’s capacity to stay true to the agenda of the novel. The wedge closes the structural openness of the novel and reduces the plot outcome to China’s demise or triumph, depending on the people’s behavior. This predictability of the outcome of particular courses of political action, which is inscribed into social Darwinist evolutionism, had been translated in the miraiki variant of the political novel into a “scientific” perspective of looking back from the future to the present. The result of this innovation is that the wedge together with the title and the list of chapter headings often published with the first installment

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closes the “open” or “forward leaning,” in Moretti’s terms, development trajectory of the modern novel. The openness is thereby reduced to the question of what particular characters and plot elements the author will invent to fill out the frame set by the wedge.45 Although the narrative in modern fictional prose is open, it is not random but operates with a plot engine that is familiar to the reader. While not creating a predictable plot development, it provides a limited and coherent set of explanatory modes that secure plausibility. The traditional Chinese wedge, however, provided narrative closure right at the beginning by insinuating the outcome of the story. The pattern was reinforced within older Chinese novels through their titles and chapter headings. And the wedge in these novels was tied to a particular plot engine different from that driving the modern novel. With the introduction of the new wedge into the plot engine of the modern novel, the unpredictability and openness of the new form is eliminated and with it some of the thrill of reading a novel. Chinese authors inserted a guide for the rest of the novel from which neither the story, the reader, nor the writer himself could escape. One might even note that it served to foreclose the narrative for the author, preventing his fictional protagonists from forcing his hand by developing their own agenda. Franco Moretti has argued that, although world literature is a single system, it is a system of variations.46 Referring to Fredric Jameson’s view on the intricacies of the global flow of literary forms in his introduction to Kojin Karatani’s Origins of Modern Japanese Literature,47 he notes that, when the modern novel was accepted by local writers, “the abstract formal patterns of Western novel construction” and the raw material of local social experience inevitably came into conflict.48 The constant adaptation and adjustments of the novel to local experience are the very history of the novel and, according to Moretti, the norm. The argument is borne out by the case of the Chinese political novel. 45. Franco Moretti characterizes the Chinese novel of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as having “symmetry” as its central feature; see “Novel T,” p, 118. In this sense the Chinese political novel of the early twentieth century can be said to echo the traditional structure. 46. Moretti, “Conjectures,” p. 64. 47. Jameson, “Introduction.” 48. Moretti, “Conjectures,” p. 58.

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The migration of the political novel produced tremendous excitement as well as stress for the Chinese reformers. The new novel, with its form evoking the very structure of the advanced social and political systems of its point of origin, proved irresistible. It evoked the vitality, passion, and power of the rising bourgeois class. Yet, after its transplantation into an environment that did not yet share such social experiences, the form posed great challenges to local writers if they were not to become lost in this foreign system and lose their potential readers in the process. They had to establish some kind of control over the form and their readers’ reading strategy to balance out this disjuncture. A plot structure based on social Darwinism was the result of adapting and reinterpreting the defining central element driving the new novel. It legitimized fundamental change in the political system and national policies. The insertion of the wedge served the purpose of bringing this foreign plot structure under local control. This led to a highly creative process of merging and blending to fit the wedge for this new purpose. The new wedge is the place where the integration of the modern political novel into the Chinese cultural universe was negotiated. Its use and transformation of a traditional form straddle two senses of the word “revolution,” namely, return to an earlier form and radical change. It is the beginning of the beginning of the modern novel in China. The agency in this integration was altogether with Chinese authors and translators. Fitting a genre that owed its genesis to the particular situation in European history, the explosion of print and a reading public during the middle of the nineteenth century, into the new urban environment of China in the early twentieth century ran into an evident problem: the readers and their cultural dexterity in handling this genre differed as much as the situation of England in the 1840s from that of China around 1900. The wedge tried to bridge the perceived asymmetry in readers’ handling of this “open” genre by providing a conceptual closure that would hold the text together and keep the reader focused on the real issue at stake. After the pioneering effort by Liang Qichao, the form of the wedge was widely used by other authors. Its acceptance shows that it was considered successful in handling the perceived untrustworthiness and unreliability of the late Qing reader. With its recast protagonists and its reengineered social Darwinist plot engine, the new wedge of the Chinese political novel shows the dynamics of the transcultural migration of genres as well as the agency involved.

Conclusions

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his book set out to study the political novel as a world genre and to test the viability of an approach that goes beyond the traditional nation-state– and language-centered history of literature as well as a comparative literature approach, with its comparison of intrinsically unconnected works. It might be seen as the first stage of a critical reflection on the nation-state default mode more generally. By focusing on a genre at the margin of literary scholarship, the political novel, it takes advantage of the economy of relatively small numbers, the feasibility that comes with studying variants of the same genre, and a strong local context through the explicit engagement of these works with their political environment. The evidence for the global nature of the genre is strong. It is buttressed by translations of some core works, by a set of core markers shared by works written in different languages and places as well as at different times, by the explicit promotion of “political novels” in the United States and East Asia, by a shared set of political ideals, and by the political and social status of the most prominent authors as advocates of political reforms. The political novel is a form of public advocacy that emerges under a set of particular conditions and loses its standing once these change. The most important political condition is a perception that the nation is in a crisis and an assessment that the government in power is unable or unwilling to confront it. The crisis often manifests itself in the relationship

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with other nations. It may show up in a variety of ways, whether it is the ineptitude of government to secure representation of newly rising elements in society (Disraeli), the inability of a relatively enlightened colonial government to curtail the power of the colonial religious authorities (Rizal), or the continued weakness of the nation due to the authorities’ inability to activate the citizens’ patriotism through participation in the political process (Yano Ryūkei, Liang Qichao). The advocacy of the political novel in solving the crisis is tied to a particular understanding of the cause of the crisis, the social segments responsible for it, and a political program that takes issue with other proposals for solving the crisis. The ultimate cause of the crisis is seen not in foreign but in internal factors, which also means that the solution can and will have to come from internal resources. The main culprits are institutions of the state bound to ideologies that are out of tune with present-day requirements and immaturity of the citizens including the literate elite that prevents them from realizing the crisis of the nation and becoming active in solving it. The agenda written into the genre supports far-reaching institutional reforms in the state and reforms in the world outlook of society but explicitly opposes radical (“revolutionary”) solutions as much as stubborn defenses of the status quo as self-destructive. Advocates of “revolutionary” solutions share in the assessment of the crisis, but their non-use of the genre signals that they realize the intrinsic link of the political novel with reforms in state institutions and society’s world outlook. A second condition for the public advocacy of the political novel to flourish is the presence of a lively urban-centered public sphere with a broad array of media and institutions for articulating opinion that also offer a variety of other ways to articulate reform proposals. In each of the areas studied, such a broad media landscape was just emerging when works of the genre first appeared. This also meant that large groups of new readers could be reached through the new media with the effect of enhancing the impact of the novels. The connection of the political novel with the flourishing newspaper and publishing market is structural, not accidental. In areas where open articulation through the media was impossible (Italy) and/or the local population lacked the required literacy (Philippines), the political novels were directly addressed to foreign audiences whose attitude was considered crucial for the success of the local reform efforts.

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In these cases the genre was not primarily used to reach and educate the in-country population. The cases of Ruffini and Rizal highlight the special conditions under which the Chinese political novels could be published, namely, only in Shanghai or Japan, outside of the direct control of the Qing court but with access to the Chinese inland markets because printed matter came as commercial goods protected under treaties with foreign nations. In the case of Rizal, the U.S. administration created the conditions for his novel to be published in Manila after the victory over Spain, plausibly in an effort to harness the prestige of his name and the content of his work for its reformist agenda. The authors of the political novels come to the fore in this new media and institutional environment whether they are professional politicians, writers, or journalists. In many cases they also make use of other platforms of articulation. Both of these conditions—the crisis with its perception and a public sphere conducive to political articulation—are necessary, but they are not present simultaneously on a global scale. This results in asynchronous peaks in political novel publishing in different countries as well as in the availability of models of the genre from earlier manifestations in other languages. Translation (besides reading by bilinguals) therefore becomes the channel through which the genre is made available as a form of advocacy that might fit local needs. The agency in this process is with translators (and readers of foreign original works), but their own agency is energized by an assumed interest of local publishers and readers in the translated work and/or an advocacy agenda of the translators that prompts them to make these works available often regardless of personal monetary benefits. Where the necessary conditions are “late” in coming about, the translators as well as the writers of political novels are aware of this delay and of the moment when the time is right (Liang Qichao). The result of the strong dependency of the political novel on the political and media environment is that the criterion of simultaneity of world literature postulated by scholars for modern world literature (Casanova) does not apply, but also that an asymmetry of cultural relations manifests itself in this time delay. In the case of the political novel, this asymmetry shows up as part of the massive translation of features of modernity. These translations— which include concepts, institutions, practices, techniques, and goods

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besides texts—are seen as part of an internally cohesive modernization package. Their mass translation signals a local recognition of their importance. As opposed to small-scale translations, which generally leave the target language largely intact, massive translation fundamentally recasts the entire target environment. The genre of the political novel together with the specific translations of works in this genre develops an oversized impact through interaction with the other elements in this package. The marginalization of the political novel in literary scholarship also indicates a disregard for the political and media context in which it developed as well as its markers of modernity. Although this study has shown the career of the genre in Europe, the United States, and the Far East, and there may be other places where it has yet to be discovered, its failure to be adopted elsewhere (for example, in the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman empires or on the Indian subcontinent under British rule) has to be accounted for. From this angle, further conditions for its flourishing come into view: a shared understanding of belonging to a nation, relatively developed urban literacy, and a tradition of novel writing in the local language. In the case of the Indian subcontinent, the identification of Disraeli with the consolidation of the British Empire resulted in a perspective on his literary work that was markedly different from, for example, the Japanese admiration of this politician/ writer. The genre of the political novel is defined through a set of relatively stable core features rather than through the—in fact unstable and often shifting—ascription of the eponym “political novel” to a given work in the respective language. The link to the political and media environment is a stable external feature. The internal core features include elements of content such as the critical assessment of the present crisis and the mapping of a way out, elements of plot such as a developmental plot engine—along with its inversion as a “future record”—featuring key players in the fate of the nation through symbolic representations of their individuality and social relations, and elements of style and coding such as telling names or the insertion of historical documents. Even some very specific elements retain a high stability. Examples are genderized representations of state and society or the complex relationship between the author, the author’s alter ego, and the requisite hero who guides the nation out of its crisis.

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Although in Meiji Japan people with political aspirations and a reform agenda emulated Disraeli’s example as a way to spread their message and attain a similarly prominent political position, the self-stylization of the author as the hero is not a core feature of the genre. Thus, in many cases, the author explicitly denies any ambition to be the hero of the novel by inserting an alter ego who, through some accidental find or some higher being rather than his astute political analysis, understands the state of the nation and then just acts as the scribe to make this information accessible—a fine image of a writer or journalist as a public and responsible intellectual. Other authors defuse the potential personal advocacy through an alter ego that is the object of criticism or even irony. Kong Lao in The Future Record of New China is not Liang Qichao’s alter ego; rather, Liang himself comes in as the unnamed editor of the journal Xin xiaoshuo to which Kong Lao’s speech is sent and through which it is to become widely known. The same pattern is repeated in other political novels. The core features of the political novel cannot be considered trivial. They serve to gain authority for new authors by making their works recognizable as belonging to a world genre that has shown its impact elsewhere and propelled past authors to political prominence. Furthermore, the stability of the core features supports a wide array of other features through which the particular work is inserted into a specific local environment. Both translations and original works of the genre gain their local color and identity through their interaction with silent countertexts that enjoy wide familiarity among readers. This interaction involves both rejection and emulation of features. The ability of these works to interact with these local features is a key to the genre’s vitality as well as its ability to stimulate local developments in fiction and public advocacy. These local features show up as much in new original works as in adjustments and changes in plot, political message, and form to which texts from other languages are subjected in the process of translation. From a reader’s perspective both are part of the literature of the local language. The link to the political and media environment defines the timeline of the political novel. In each instance where such works are found, they do not deal with abstract principles, but with specific institutional and spiritual reforms discussed at this time and place. Although these show great similarities in their general purport, they widely differ in the particulars, and this is where adaptation comes in. Whether treating

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Manchester mills, the corrupting influence of U.S. trusts, Dominican friars, a parliament, or girls’ schools, the novels have to address core features of the local crisis, and the genre is open enough to allow this. In late Qing China the publication peaks of political novels directly coincide with the key court edicts of the Reform of Governance. In Meiji Japan similar peaks would be found in the public clamor for a parliament and a constitution. The figure of the heroic leader is a further area of adaptation. Beyond programmatic punning on names, this is the place for the depiction of ideals and behavioral features that might save the nation. The heroic leader has to be able to operate in the local environment, all his or her radical commitment to modernizing reforms notwithstanding. Although all the heroes in these novels present a marked contrast to the average present-day member of the elite, constraints are strongest for the women protagonists in Chinese novels with their adherence to the mandate of “chastity.” The figure of the “people” including the educated elites is another point of adaptation. There is a shared understanding that they need awakening, education, and “civilization,” but the pitch and the specifics with which they are addressed are adjusted to local rhetoric. Their treatment might range from being chastised as having a “slave mentality” devoid of patriotic commitment in some Chinese works with a strong focus on China’s standing among the powers, to being associated with “female” attributes of weakness and dependency on patronage, to depiction as a self-confident and articulate new urban class. With their strong focus on the political arena and their rationalist modernization agenda, these novels waste little time on detailed “realistic” descriptions of the mindset and life circumstances of the “people.” The open structure of the novel medium (Moretti) signals a trust that the reader can be relied on to follow along as these open options gradually close with the actual development of the novel’s plot within the logic of the plot engine that has been chosen. In the novels of Ruffini and Rizal, this reader is not the local people but foreigners from centers where the problems associated with the people in Italy or the Philippines have already been overcome. The lowest assessment of “our people” will be found in the writings of late Qing reformers desperate about the lack of national commitment in even the most prosperous region of the country, the

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Lower Yangzi area. These reformers felt that Chinese readers needed stricter guidance than the Western novel form could offer, and they solved the problem by foreclosing their novel’s openness through a new feature in this genre, the wedge chapter, which they even added to some of the translations from the Japanese. The wedge and the “future record” (miraiki/ weilaiji) are important and widely shared new features in China and East Asia, respectively. They often are linked. The closure they provide gains a “scientist” legitimacy from the evolutionist plot engine coming with the genre that had developed into a widely shared social Darwinist understanding of the historical process. This understanding supported a language that described projections into the future as hard facts. In East Asia, the political novel had an impact on the fate of the novel more generally. The ascent of the novel to a genre where the great issues of state, society, and the individual could be laid out was nowhere easy. In societies with a longer novel tradition (Europe, Japan, China), the novel was associated with light reading about topics particularly engaging young people, especially romance. Warnings about the deleterious moral effects of reading novels were frequent. By the 1840s and 1850s, however, the novel had become recognized as a potentially serious genre, while it was at the same time making full use of new print media to reach wider audiences. In Europe and the United States, political novels were part of a flood of new works with such serious themes; in Japan the large number of translations of foreign novels helped to free the genre from the opprobrium of just being romantic reading for besotted youngsters; in China, we see a merger of several processes resulting in a resetting of the status of the novel. Protestant advocacy novels with their high moral pitch and allegorical coding introduced the serious theme; the insertion of a select and superbly edited group of older and newly written Chinese novels into the deluxe editions of the Shenbaoguan, with its national distribution network, as part of a book series that also contained scholarly reference works of great rarity and high status gave the genre a market and visual respectability; and finally the linkage of advocacy with the exploding Chinese-language media scene since about 1895 and the framing provided by Liang Qichao established the political novel as the pivot that would drive the fate of the entire novel genre. The linkage to the advocacy for political reform gave the novel altogether a focus and respectability it was to retain for the next century.

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The political desire to make these works effective in a Chinese context prompted writers to make them critically interact with local traditions of writing and reading by developing narrative strategies that would be accepted while retaining the link to world literature. After a decade where the political novel dominated among newly written as well as translated works, its Chinese timeline was over as the hopes for a Qing constitutional monarchy floundered. By that time the political novel had helped to establish the novel as the primary literary platform for dealing with present-day life and society. Some features of the political novel have survived to this day and even flourish in the exposé novel, which is sometimes also (and erroneously) referred to as a “political novel.”1 The fact, however, that these works deal with the abuse of political power in the present is not sufficient to make them “political novels.” They neither link up with the particular political agenda of the genre that includes perception of a grave national crisis nor do they offer an idealistic or dystopian blueprint for the future. Last but not least, their authors do not have the standing in terms of public articulation nor do the printed works have the market access enjoyed by the novels discussed in this volume. There are Chinese novels of the late Qing in which the conflicts between tradition and a rapidly shifting political, social, and psychological environment receive a tentative and contradictory treatment. David Wang has read what he calls the resulting “messiness” of these novels as indicator of ambivalence, which he sees as a marker of their “modernity.” I wish to offer an alternative scenario not by reading the same novels differently but by stressing that the political novel must be seen as the lead novel genre of the late Qing and that, far from being an obstacle to thematic and literary innovation, political motivation was the main engine driving these works. In its short period of prominence, the political novel was a force in literary innovation in terms of plot, coding, role casting, and interaction with the immediate present as well as with foreign works, innovations that left their mark far beyond the immediate purview of these romans à thèse. It helped to stabilize the place of the novel as a serious genre worthy of the attention of government and people alike, and it is responsible for readers’ acceptance of narrative innovations that have 1.

Kinkley, Corruption and Realism.

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become a staple of twentieth-century Chinese fiction. It did so, however, while closing with the wedge even the modest elements of openness and ambivalence earlier Western exemplars might have granted to its readers. This study has opened more questions than it could ever aspire to answer. However, I hope it has shown the fruitfulness of an approach that is willing to be guided by the intrinsic connections among literary works rather than by more or less arbitrary borders around literary fields. Once the proposition is entertained that transcultural interaction is the rule rather than the exception for cultural features, significant connections and interactions quickly become visible. While promising an immensely rich harvest, the intrinsic connectedness of world literature also forces us to adjust the way we organize scholarly research to the demands of our material.

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Index Literary works are indexed by their English translated titles; authors’ names may also be found under the titles of their respective works. Adams, Henry. See under Democracy advocacy (reform): driving both content and literary innovation of the political novel, 3–5, 14, 354–56; determining time line of the political novel, 2; use of fiction for, 1–2 allegory. See metaphors/allegories/ symbols An Kuksŏn, 104–6. Works by, see Protocol of the Meeting among the Beasts, Trial among the Beasts, Record of the Great Meeting of the Barbarian Nations anarchists: attitudes on state contested, 305; in political novels, 140, 151, 201, 303–8; women, 239, 245–46, 306–11; on women’s rights, 234. See also Modern Anarchism Ange Pitou (Alexandre Dumas Sr.): in Japan, 59, 61, 151 animal allegories: China, 103, 106n142, 327; 223–25; Japan, 105; Korea, 102–5; powers, 148 Animal Parliament, The. Mankind’s Attack (Jinrui kōgeki. Kinjō kokkai) by Tajima Shōji, 105 Annals of the Future Warring States (Weilai zhanguo zhi) by Takayasu Kamejirō, 117; wedge added to Chinese translation, 147 Anno 2065: Een Blik in de Toekomst (Pieter Harting), role in Japan, 63–64, 70

Around the World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne), 283 asleep. See under metaphors/allegories/ symbols asymmetry in transcultural interaction, 54, 324, 347, 350 awakening. See under metaphors/ allegories/symbols Ban Zhao, 269 Bell of Liberty (Chayujong) by Yi Hae-jo, 103–4 Bellamy, Edward. See Looking Backward Biheguan zhuren. See New Century Bingshan xuehai. See Glaciers and Snowdrifts Biography of Moses, The (Moxi zhuan) by Guan’an (Zheng Guangong): as allegory for China, 86–87 Blood of the Lion, The, or the Chinese Columbus (Shizi xue / Zhina Gelunbu) by He Jiong, 125 Bluntschli, Johann Caspar: Chinese translation, 76 Botzaris, Marcos, 291 Bronze Statue of the Daughter of China, The (Zhongguo zhi nü tongxiang) by Nanwu jingguan zide zhai zhuren, 238 Brown, John, 291 Buddhism: bodhisattva as social activist, 329n23; in plot engines of fiction,

412

Index

317–18; in terminology for evolutionism, 340 Bulwer-Lytton, Edward. See Ernest Maltravers; Kenelm Chillingly; Night and Morning Bunyan, John, 1, 318n6 Byron, Lord, 273; poems as inspiration for Chinese reformers, 90 Cai Yuanpei. See New Year’s Dream, A caizi jiaren. See “scholar and beauty” captain. See under metaphors/allegories/ symbols Carlyle, Thomas. See On Heroes, HeroWorship and the Heroic in History Casanova, Pascale, on world literature, 5, 350 “Celebration on the Occasion of the Establishment of the Constitution!” (Qingzhu lixian) by Wu Jianren, 226 censorship of political novels: in Korea, 102, 104 Chayujong. See Bell of Liberty Chen Hongbi (translator), 118. See also The Record of Scotland’s Independence Chen Jinghan, 295–98. See also The Extraordinary Story of the Nihilist Party; Mysteries of Paris; Russian Detective; translators Chen Tianhua, 152–53. See also The Roar of the Lion; Sudden Turn-About; Wakeup Call for the Age Chen Xiaolu. See New Flowers in the Mirror, A (Chen Xiaolu) China: asleep, 319, 327, 329n21, 329n23; awakening, 327; civilizing the world, 125–26, 134; country of fake reform, 190–93; effeminate, 242; Fifteen Little Heroes depicting path of needed reforms, 282; gaining world supremacy after reforms, 134, 215; “grotesque,” 218– 19; “ignorant and dumb race,” 326; in Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful

Women, 83; national essence, 335; past as hell, 221; reasons for political crisis, 96; self-perception as part of “world,” 115, 270; transformed from “rat” to “tiger” country, 223–25; in Travels of Lao Can, 331–32; unsuited for global political ideals, 335; as women’s hell, 238–40. See also animal allegories: China; education; metaphors/allegories/symbols; women China Discussion, The, political novel serialized in, 77 Chiren shuo meng. See A Foolish Man’s Dream Talk Chiren shuo meng ji. See A Fool’s Tale of his Dream Chivalrous Beauties, The (Xiayi jiaren) by Jixi wen yu nüshi, 237 Chong tian yishi shi. See Territorial War between Snail, Speck, and Mite Country Chun Fan. See World of the Future “citizen” (China): formed through World of the Future, 211; Fifteen Little Heroes as Liang Qichao’s models, 280; heroes to provide models, 268; qualities required of, 271. See also people “civilization”: allegory for spread of, 335; Chinese developmental goal, 96; Korean developmental goal, 101; measured by treatment of women, 231n1, 256; standard of behavior, 258 Cixi, Empress Dowager: depicted through empress Wu Zetian, 190; responsible for failure of reform, 193 colonial rule, 42, 44n85, 45, 47, 51, 102, 107, 109, 118, 120, 121, 196, 277, 286, 290; by Chinese 125–26 compass. See under metaphors/allegories/symbols Confucius, 89, 127, 159, 186n46, 210, 251, 269 Coningsby by Benjamin Disraeli: analysis, 18–24; core features of political novel,

Index 86, 109; Japanese translation, 55, 78; literary features, 21–22; model for Japanese political novels, 59, 68–69, 137; political alliance depicted, 22; political program, 20–21; as selfdepiction of Disraeli, 23; success, 16; telling names, 21 constitution (China): Chinese discussion, 205n68; and citizens’ maturity, 196, 211–12, 226–27; European models, 208–9; novels about, 162–230; process of implementation, 212; in Reform of Governance, 169–70, 196; as topic in political novels, 197–205, 210–15, 217, 221–28; satires on people’s understanding of, 226–27; women’s constitutional standing, 255–56; in Yueyue xiaoshuo novels, 228 constitution (Japan): constitutional novels, see New Japan; Future Japan; Future Record from Meiji Year 23; Japan after the Founding of the Diet; New Stormy Waves; Orioles among the Flowers; Plum Blossoms amidst the Snow; Stormy Seas of Passion; political movement and political novel, 57–58, 65 constitutional monarchy: as ideal for Reform of Governance, 208–9 coolie labor, 327 countertext (Chinese), 312, 351; of Fifteen Little Heroes, 281–82; of Mysteries of Paris, 301–2; of Heroines from Eastern Europe, 308 court (China). See government (China) Daehan Daily, 101–2 Dalu. See New Enfeoffment of the Gods Damrosch, David: on world literature and translation, 6 Darwin/Darwinism. See evolutionism Debts in the Realm of Love (Qingtian zhai) by Donghai jue wo, 131–32, 237 Democracy by Henry Adams, 36–38

413

detective (China): Judge Bao stories as countertext, 301–2; hero, 293–302; novels, 294–302; personality in Chen Jinghan, 296. See also leng(xue) style dialogue, as literary device, 101, 109 Dialogue between a Blind Man and a Cripple (Sogyŏng kwa anjŭnbangi ŭi mundap), 101–2 Dian shijie. See Electrical World Disraeli, Benjamin: career as inspiration for authors, 56, 351; casting of political reformer as hero in fictional works, 18; intentions in using political novel, 16; as model orientalist for Edward Said, 17n12; self-depiction in Coningsby, 23; use of political novel, 2; and Young England trilogy, 15–16. See also Coningsby; Endymion; Sybil; Young England Doctor Antonio by Giovanni Ruffini, 30; symbolism of key protagonists, 31 Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdó: and Noli me Tangere, 44 Donghai jue wo. See Debts in the Realm of Love Dong’ou nühaojie. See Heroines of Eastern Europe Dong Zhou lieguo zhi, sequel to, 207 dreams: as narrative device in political novels, 70, 104, 131–35, 159, 329–30, 329n21; in traditional Chinese novels, 131 Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng) by Cao Xueqin, 77, 136, 139; effect on Chinese national character, 242–43, 243n44; Great Prospect Garden as countertext to Fifteen Little Heroes, 281–82; engine driving the plot, 317; self-referential, 343 Du Fu, 269 Dumas, Alexandre. See Mémoires d’un medecin, Ange Pitou Duoshao toulu. See How Many Martyrs? dystopia (China), 326–27, 342

414

Index

Edgeworth, Maria, 34 education, of citizens, 26, 39, 42, 45–46, 64, 73, 95, 101, 103, 110, 132–33, 153, 159, 191, 199, 209–10, 214, 216, 232; during the Three Dynasties, 252; in Huang Xiuqiu, 176–84. See also women: education Egypt: as example of loss of sovereignty, 84; history translated into Korean, 105 Eikoku meishi kaiten kidan. See Fantastic Tale of Saving the Nation Electrical World, The (Dian shijie) by Gaoyang shi bucaizi, 134–35 Endymion by Benjamin Disraeli, 59 England, as model for Japanese constitutional parties, 58–59, 116–17; reforms as model for China, 209. See also Disraeli Ernest Maltravers by Edward BulwerLytton, 55, 70, 77 Ernü yingxiong zhuan. See Tale of Heroes and Lovers Events on the New Stage Revealed (Xin wutai hongxue ji) by Tao Baopi, 228, 330, 334–36 evolution. See plot engines evolutionism, 26, 52, 195; Chinese reading, 118, 130–31, 270, 322–26, 328; Buddhist terminology, 340 exile, reformers’, 31, 190, 273 Extraordinary Story of the Nihilist Party, The (Xuwudang qihua) by Lengxue, 303 Fantastic Tale of the Outstanding Men of England Saving the Nation (Eikoku meishi kaiten kidan) by Katō Masanosuke, 117 Fantastic Tale of Saving the Nation (Huitian qitan) by Katō Masanosuke, 116–17 Fei Yourong, 186n43 Feiliebin wai shi. See Unofficial History of the Philippines Feng Menglong, 318. See also Dong Zhou lieguo zhi

Fiction: addressee of new fiction, 80; Chinese fiction in Japan, 55; in Chinese literary magazines, 94; contribution to Meiji Restoration, 78; dialogue form in, 101; as instrument of advocacy, 1, 77–78; Liang Qichao on its political functions, 94; lure of traditional fiction, 77; newspapers in promoting Chinese, 94; as platform for public political debate, 77, 193; Prague School on rise of global literary genres, 5; in Qingyi bao, 79; status of writers in Japan, 71; status compared to poetry, 55; as teaching device, 72, 74, 77–78; as used by Christian missionaries, 1, 73–74 Fifteen Little Heroes (Jules Verne): Chinese translation, 276–82; countertext to Great Prospect Garden, 281–82; Japanese translation, 277; Korean translation, 100; Republican system, 278 Fin du Monde, La (Shijie mori ji) by Camille Flammarion: Chinese translation and impact, 133 Flammarion, Camille. See La Fin du Monde Flower Crown of Freedom, The (Jiyū no hannagasa) by Sakazaki Shiran, 151 Flower in the Sea of Retribution (Niehai hua) by Jin Songcen and Zeng Pu, 304, 320, 339–41, 343 Flowers from the Women’s Hell (Nüyu hua) by Wang Miaoru: analysis 237–41; heroines, 144 Flowers in the Mirror (Jing hua yuan) by Li Ruzhen, 249; sequel to, 190, 249 Foolish Man’s Dream Talk, A (Chiren shuo meng) by Wu Rucheng, 159 Fool’s Tale of his Dream, A (Chiren shuo meng ji) by Lü Sheng, 126, 331 foreign loans (China): discussed in political novels, 201, 204, 217

Index foreigners: in political novel, 118–19, 123– 25, 127; role in China’s demise, 326, 333 Founding of the Swiss Republic, The (Ruishi jianguo zhi) by Zheng Zhe (Zheng Guangong), 87–88; Korean translation, 105 Freedom and People’s Rights Movement (Japan), 56, 61, 66–67, 78 Freedom in Marriage (Ziyou jiehun) by Zhendan nüzi ziyouhua, 152 Freedom’s Blood (Ziyou xue) by Jin Songcen, 304 France: equality as specialty, 335; reforms compared to England, 210 French Revolution: excised from Vietnamese translation, 108, 291; as model for Japanese reformers, 59, 90; vs. Russian anarchists, 311 Fryer, John: on Chinese women, 254; organizer of fiction competition, 74 Future Japan (Shōrai no Nihon) by Tokutomi Iichirō, 91 Future Record from Meiji Year 23 (Nijūsan nen miraiki) by Suehiro Tetchō, 63, 91–92, 130, 241 Future Record of the Diet. The year Meiji 23 ([Nijūsan nen] Kokkai miraiki) by Hattori Seiichi, 91 Future Record of New China, The (Xin Zhongguo weilaiji) by Liang Qichao, 87–93, 130, 154, 218, 321 future retrospective: as literary device in political novel, 40, 63. See also miraiki Galdó, Benito Pérez. See Doña Perfecta Gandhi: and Rizal, 44. Gaoyang shi bucaizi. See Electrical World garden. See under metaphors/allegories/ symbols gender relationships (China): anarchist demand for revolution, 234; connection to grand questions of nation, 244, 255; freedom in marriage, 260; and social reform, 231, 255

415

gender relationships (general): use for political allegory, 22, 47, 68–70, 264 Germany: as model for Chinese reformers, 90, 154; occupying Shandong, 332 Giovine Italia. See Young Italy Glaciers and Snowdrifts (Bingshan xuehai) by Li Boyuan (attr.), 125–26 government (China): reformers cooperating, 258–59; republican form, 278. See also Reform of Governance Great Achievements of Colonization, The (Shokumin iseki) by Hisamatsu Yoshinori, 116 Gu jin jin jian, 252 Guafen canhuo yuyan ji. See Prophecy about the Sad Fate of Being Carved Up Guan’an. See Zheng Guangong Guangzhi shuju bookstore, 151n78 Guanyi. See Zheng Guangong Guo Ting. See Roar of the Lion Guowen bao: on didactic fiction, 74 Haitian du xiaozi. See Stones of Goddess Nüwa Hand of a Beauty, The (Meiren shou) by Kuroiwa Namidakaoru, 312 Hangzhou Wugong. See A Mirror Held Up to Constitutional Reform Harting, Pieter. See Anno 2065: Een Blik in de Toekomst Hattori Seiichi. See Future Record of the Diet. The year Meiji 23 He Jiong. See Blood of the Lion, or the Chinese Columbus He Zhen: arguments in Flowers from the Women’s Hell, 239 He Yufeng, 309–10 hell. See under metaphors/allegories/ symbols heroes: Carlyle on, 85; founding nations, 84; and sentimental love, 138–41, 154– 55, 292, 308–12

416

Index

heroes (China): adjusted to local conditions, 353; Captain Nemo, 282–93; character features, 271; detective, 293– 302; engaging with the world, 291–93; female, 145, 256–61, 305–6; foreign, 122, 252, 267, 271–75, 282–93, 305–14; Jia Baoyu as anti-hero, 281–82; in knighterrant fiction, 139–40, 143; lone male and female, 141–46, 292, 308; models of behavior, 272–73; moral responsibility, 300; new types of heroes, 274; recast Chinese, 124, 269; Rodolphe, 299–300; scientist, 282–93; traditional, 275–76; urban, 302. See also Washington, Napoleon Heroines of Eastern Europe (Dong’ou nühaojie) by Luo Pu, 124–25, 304–11; female knights-errant as Chinese countertext, 308 Hisamatsu Yoshinori. See Great Achievements of Colonization Historical Romance of the West, A (Taixi lishi yanyi) by Xihong’anzhu, 120, 122–23 History of the Rats’ Reform, The (Xin shu shi) by You Fu, 103, 223–25 Hōitsu’an shujin, 295, 298 Honglou meng. See Dream of the Red Chamber Hong Xiuquan, 269 Hongxian, 308–9 Hopkinson, Francis. See Pretty Story horn title, 60, 66, 80, 295, 304 How Many Martyrs (Duoshao toulu) by Wangguo yimin zhi yi, 122–23 Hu Shi’an. See The Seven Knights-errant of Rome hua (flower/woman)/Hua (China). See under metaphors/allegories/symbols Hua Mulan, 269 Huai Ren. See Spirit of Rousseau Huang/huang (yellow). See under metaphors/allegories/symbols

Huangdi, 269 Huang jiang diaosou. See Novel on the Colonization of the Moon Huang Xiuqiu by Yi Suo (Tang Baorong): dream about Madame Roland, 179, 330; social activist, 176–84; woman heroine, 144–45 Huang Zongxi: Rousseau encountering, 124 Huangren shijie. See The World of the Yellow Man Hugo, Victor, 273; and Japanese Freedom Party, 59–60 Huitian qitan. See Fantastic Tale of Saving the Nation Hŭmhŭmja (An Kuksŏn). See Trial among the Beasts Hundred Days Reform: in political novel, 209, 332 independence. See national independence India: and China’s possible fate, 341; loss of independence, 118, 289–90 Inoue Tsutomu, 59 Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship (Keikoku bidan) by Yano Ryūkei, 60, 78, 99, 105; Korean translation, 105 Ireland: in Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women, 83 island (China). See under metaphors/ allegories/symbols Italy, 47, 83, 100 See also Ruffini; Young Italy Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott: Japanese translation, 78 Japan: hub in spread of political novel, 108–9; Meiji political constellation compared to England’s, 54; model for China, 154; policies toward China allegorized, 148; political novel 54–72; stages in development of political novel, 62

Index Japan after the Founding of the Diet ([Seikai enwa] Kokkai ato no Nihon) by Senkyō Sanshi, 91 Jātaka, 317 Jews: and China’s possible fate, 86–87, 341; freed by Chinese hero, 126 Jia Baoyu, 281–82. See also heroes Jiang Jingjian. See Spirit of Chivalric Women (Jiang) Jin Shengtan, 316 Jin Songcen. See Flowers in the Sea of Retribution; Freedom’s Blood Jin Yi. See Jin Songcen Jing hua yuan. See Flowers in the Mirror Jingshi zhong. See Wake-up Call for the Age [Jinrui kōgeki] Kinjō kokkai. See Animal Parliament. Mankind’s Attack Jixi wen yu nüshi. See Chivalrous Beauties Jiyū minken undo. See Freedom and People’s Rights Movement Jiyū no hanagasa. See Flower Crown of Freedom Jiyū no kachidoki. See Triumphal Song of Freedom Joan of Arc, 252 Jōkai haran. See Stormy Seas of Passion Journey to Utopia, A (Wutuobang youji) by Xiaoran yusheng, 194–95 Journey to the West (Xiyou ji) by Wu Cheng’en: plot engine, 317 Judge Bao stories. See Mysteries of Paris Kaizhi lu, 86n93 Kajin no kigū. See Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women Kakanō. See Orioles among the Flowers Kang Aide: fictional character modelled on, 182n39 Kang Youwei: denounced, 167; encouraging writing of political novels, 75; as god of liberty, 340; and Looking Backward, 40; on using fiction to change people’s mentality, 72–73

417

karmic retribution. See plot engine Katate bijin. See Hand of a Beauty Katō Masanosuke. See Fantastic Tale of the Outstanding Men of England Saving the Nation; Fantastic Tale of Saving the Nation Keikoku bidan. See Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship Kenelm Chillingly by Edward BulwerLytton, 77 Kenmuyama Sentarō. See Modern Anarchism Kim Ok-kyun, 99 Kinsei museifushugi. See Modern Anarchism Kishūshū. See Wailing Ghosts Kŏbu ohae. See Misunderstandings of the Rickshaw Men Kokkai ato no Nihon. See Japan after the Founding of the Diet Kong zhong feiting. See Magna Airship Korea: and China’s possible fate, 341; enlightenment, 101; example for loss of independence, 84, 215; political novels in, 99–106; reform and sovereignty as topics in political novels, 99–101 Kościuszko, Tadeusz, 291 Kossuth, Louis, 271–74. See also heroes Kūchū dai hikōtei. See Magna Airship Kŭmsu chap’an. See Trial among the Beasts Kŭmsu hoeŭuirok. See under Protocol of the Meeting among the Beasts Kuroiwa Namidakaoru, 295. See also Hand of a Beauty Lady of the Lake, The by Sir Walter Scott, Japanese translation, 78 language: new Chinese, 191; original and translation, 6, 114; reform in China, 206n69; reform in Korea, 103; study of foreign by Chinese, 186, 227, 236n28,

418

Index

251; taught in reformed school curriculum (China), 182; use of vernacular, 262, 284n47 Lao Can youji. See Travels of Lao Can Lavisse, Émile Charles, 105n138 Lengguo fuchou ji. See Revenge at Cold Mountain Leng(xue), style, 295, 301. See also Chen Jinghan Li Bo, 269 Li Boyuan. See Glaciers and Snowdrifts; Short History of Civilization Li Ruzhen. See Flowers in the Mirror Liang Qichao: advertising A New Society, 62; agency as translator, 85–86; assessing Looking Backward, 40–41; contacts with Japanese writers, 76; on effects of political novel, 2, 93; on effects of women lacking education, 232; on foreign heroes, 270–75; as god of liberty, 340; on heroes of nation founding, 84; introducing political novel in China, 72; on Japanese political novels, 78; on Japanese translations of fiction, 78; and Korean political novel, 99–100, 105–6; on Kossuth and Mazzini, 26; on negative influence of Water Margin, 140–41; on qualities required of citizens, 271; plagiarizing Japanese articles, 76n67; on Rousseau and Bluntschli, 76; solution for China’s ills, 84; translating Fifteen Little Heroes, 276; translating La fin du monde, 133n37; use of media to influence public, 81; work in newspapers. See also China Discussion; The Future Record of New China; Kossuth; “Preface on the translation and publication of political novels”; Xin xiaoshuo liberty: bell in Philadelphia as meeting place for reformers, 82; dangers of, 212–25; goddess from the West, 339; need for, 331; as self-absorption, 178; specialty of the United States, 335;

value of individual vs. national, 84; woman as emblem of, 66, 70 Lienü zhuan (Ban Zhao), 252 Lin Mengchu, 318 Lin Xie, 121n10 Lincoln, Abraham, 291 Lingnan yuyi nüshi (Luo Pu). See Heroines of Eastern Europe Linxia laoren. See Revenge at Cold Mountain lion. See under metaphors/allegories/ symbols Literary journals: publishing peaks and political novel, 164–65 Little, Mrs. Archibald, 177n27 Liu. See Spirit of Chivalric Women (Liu) Liu Kunyi: and reform of governance, 169 Lixian jing. See Mirror Held Up to Constitutional Reform “Lixian wansui.” See “Long Live the Constitution” “Long Live the Constitution” (“Lixian wansui”) by Wu Jianren, 227 Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, 38–41, 216, 343 Lorenzo Benoni by Giovanni Ruffini, 27–30; Mazzini, 27; struggle against foreign oppression, 29–30 Lu Shi’e. See New Three Kingdoms; New China Lü Sheng. See Fool’s Tale of his Dream Lukács, György, on literary form, 113 Luo Guanzhong. See Water Margin Luo Jingren, 239 Luo Pu. See Heroines of Eastern Europe Luo Xiaogao, 284–85 Luoma qi xiashi. See Seven Knights-errant of Rome Luosuo hun. See Spirit of Rousseau Ma Yangyu: translation of Annals of the Future Warring States, 117n Mackenzie, Robert. See under Nineteenth Century: A History

Index Magna Airship, The (Kūchū dai hikōtei) by Oshikawa Shunrō, on effects of reading Chinese fiction, 243–44 Magna Charta, 117 Mai Zhonghua (translator), 116n5 Manchu: conquest, 326–27; unity with Han, 211; novels advocating overthrow of rule, 152 Manin, 291 Max Havelaar by Multatuli (Douwes Dekker): and Noli Me Tangere, 44 Mazzini, Guiseppe, 25–27, 84; in Lorenzo Benoni, 27. See also Young Italy media (China): as channels of communication, 94; run by women, 261–66 Meilijian zili ji. See Record of America’s Independence Mémoires d’un medecin by Alexandre Dumas, Sr., 55, 59, 61 Meng huitou. See Sudden Turn-About Mengzi: as commentary on Reform of Governance, 185; as source for Zou [Yan’s] Talk for Everybody’s Amusement, 185 metaphors/allegories/symbols: “captain” as government leader, 333; China as “hell” for women, 240; Chinese past as “hell”, 221; “compass” as political guidance, 333; “garden” as institutional environment of state, 281–82; 334–35; function of in wedge chapters, 335–36; “hua” (flower) as woman and as China, 132, 194, 240, 257, 305, 339; “Huang/huang” (yellow) for Chinese race, 134, 177–78, 180, 241, 251, 256; “island” as bordered state, 126, 127, 156, 190, 282, 286, 331, 340–41, 344–45; “lion” as emblem of nation, 125, 153–54, 219, 319, 327; metaphors as part of transcultural rhetoric, 336; nation “asleep”, 46, 319, 327, 329n21 and 23; nation “awakening”, 219–20, 319–20, 329–30, 345, 353; “old man” as China, 148–49, 334; “Rat

419

Kingdom” as present-day China, 103, 223–25; “ship” as state government, 128, 278, 280–81, 285, 331–34; “sinking” (island, state) as demise of state, 340– 41; “tiger” as emblem of nation, 103, 224; “Tiger Kingdom” as future China, 224–25; “village” as composition of Chinese state and society, 154, 177n24, 178; “weather” as political climate, 331– 32; “woman” as Chinese society, 145; “woman” as people, 47 military (China): role in reforms, 264 Ming Taizu, 269 miraiki (future retrospective), 40, 63–64, 88–91, 109, 129–35, 215 Mirror Held Up to Constitutional Reform, A (Lixian jing) by Hangzhou Wugong, 221 Misunderstandings of the Rickshaw Men (Kŏbu ohae), 102 Miyazaki Muryū. See Triumphal Song of Freedom; Wailing Ghosts Modern Anarchism (Kinsei museifushugi) by Kenmuyama Sentarō, 303–4 modernization package, 54–55, 351 Moretti, Franco: on asymmetrical literary exchanges, 5; on literary form, 113 Morita Shiken, 277 Moxi zhuan. See Biography of Moses Multatuli (Douwes Dekker). See Max Havelaar Mysteries of Paris by Eugène Sue, 298– 302; Judge Bao stories as countertext, 301–2 Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women (Jiaren qiyu) by Shiba Shirō, translated by Liang Qichao): Chinese translation and adaptation, 77–78, 81–83; importance, 63; love relationships in, 137, 142; national independence movements in, 83; political stance, 85; Vietnamese adaptation, 107–8

420

Index

Nanwu jingguan zide zhai zhuren. See Bronze Statue of the Daughter of China Napoleon, 120–23, 267. See also heroes (China) names: in political novels, 22, 63, 66–67, 90, 91, 125, 132, 134, 154, 155, 156, 177, 180, 182, 239, 251, 331 nation state, as focus of histories of literature, 5 national independence: as specialty of Philippines, 335; ideal, 86n93, 107, 109, 116, 134n39, 212, 225, 280, 286, 328; movements, 30, 81–85, 87, 89, 90, 101–4, 108, 118–23, 157, 274, 286, 291 Nemo, Captain, 127, 284–93 New Century, The (Xin jiyuan) by Biheguan zhuren, 133–34 New China (Xin Zhongguo) by Lu Shi’e, 216–21; foreign loans, 217; miraiki, 216; scientific devices, 217–21 New Enfeoffment of the Gods, A (Xin Fengshen zhuan) by Dalu, 228 New Flowers in the Mirror, A (Xin Jing hua yuan), by Xiaoren yusheng, 188– 93; satire of Reform of Governance, 190–93; translation of pun in title, 194 New Flowers in the Mirror, A (Xin Jing hua yuan) by Chen Xiaolu, 249–53; critique of women’s rights, 250, 341; New Heroine for China, A (Zhongguo xin nühao) by Zhan Kai, 237, 253–61 New History of Nations, A (Xin Lieguo zhi), 206–10; Reform of Governance edicts, 207; modernization of England and France as reference for China, 208–9 New Japan (Shin Nihon) by Ozaki Yukio, 58, 72n53 New Society, A (Shin shakai) by Yano Ryūkei, 62 New Stormy Waves (Shin haran) by Sasaki Tashi, 91, 137 New Thought Movement (USA): impact on Chinese reform thinking, 220–21

New Three Kingdoms, A (Xin sanguo) by Lu Shi’e: advocating reform over revolution, 210; comparison of different approaches to reform, 197–206; ideal reform, 202–6; importance of reform institutions, 204; link to Reform of Governance announcement, 198 New Year’s Dream, A (Xinnian meng) by Cai Yuanpei, 216 Nie Yinniang, 308–9 Niehai hua. See Flower in the Sea of Retribution Night and Morning by Edward BulwerLytton, 323 Nijūsan nen miraiki. See Future Record from Meiji Year 23 Nineteenth Century: A History, The by Robert Mackenzie: as basis for A New History of Nations, 207 Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal: analysis, 45–48; impact, 43; influence of Doña Perfecta, 44; Japanese translation, 44; and Max Havelaar, 45; publication and distribution of, 44; reform versus revolution, 46–47 novel. See fiction, political novel Novel on the Colonization of the Moon, A (Yueqiu zhimindi xiaoshuo) by Huang jiang diaosou, 127 Nüwa shi. See Stones of Goddess Nüwa Nüyu hua. See Flowers from the Women’s Hell Nüzi quan. See Women’s Rights O’Connell, 291 Ōhashi Otowa. See Threatened Pacific Ōhira Sanji, 284n46 old man. See under metaphors/allegories/ symbols On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle, 85, 273 Orioles among the Flowers (Kakan’ō) by Suehiro Tetchō, 63, 78

Index Ortiz, Fernando: on transculturation, 6 Oshigawa Shunrō. See Magna Airship Ozaki Yukio. See Shin Nihon paratext: new wedge as, 344 parliament. See constitution Penn, William. See under Great Achievements of Colonization people: as happy slaves, 331, 340; figure of, 353; implied reader of political novel, 339; lacking political maturity, 46, 127, 174, 211, 214, 226–28, 319–20, 339n37, 340; “medical” solutions to overcome backwardness, 219–21; protagonist in new wedge, 336, 338–40; wedge as guidance, 354. See also “citizen” (China); metaphors/allegories/symbols: male, weak woman Perovskaya, Sofia, 303, 306–7 Peter, Czar, 120. See heroes (China): foreign Phan Boi Chau, 107 Phan Chau Trinh, 107–8. See also Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women: Vietnamese adaptation Philippine Independence Movement, 43–44 Philippines. See under Philippine Independence Movement; Rizal; Unofficial History of the Philippines; Record of Washing Away Shame plot engines: definition, 317; evolutionist, 52, 95, 322–25; karmic retribution in traditional Chinese fiction, 95, 317–18; of real world and novel, 344; “scholar and beauty,” 66, 135–42 Plum Blossoms amidst the Snow (Setchūbai) by Suehiro Tetchō, 63–65, 70, 78, 92, 137; Chinese adaption, 138 Poland: and China’s possible fate, 341; example for loss of sovereignty, 84, 121–22. See also Kościuszko

421

political crisis: China, 73, 141; causes internal, 157, 167, 219, 289, 328–29, 333, 344–45; framework for political novel, 50, 69, 109; similar features in different countries, 162 political leader: fictionalized, 277–82 political novel (general): agency in spread of, 110, 350; antidote to revolution, 21; asynchronous peaks in publishing, 350; Bildungsroman features, 22 51, 245; characters as allegories of political forces, 328; conditions for migration of, 3; context of spread, 1; core constituents of genre, 6–7, 50–52, 68–70, 86, 109, 351; crisis of nation as background of, 21; definitions, 33; Disraeli’s career as proof of effectiveness of, 55, 60; foreign audiences as addressee, 28, 43; historical antecedents, 34; importance of form, 113–14; link to contemporary politics, 24–25; literary magazines serializing, 94; part of modernization package, 54; national independence as theme in, 29–30, 46–47, 109; origins, 15n2; politicians as authors of, 55; reform vs. revolution, 14, 46–47, 90, 109, 150–54, 240–41, 257–58, 265–66, 333, 349; satire, 102, 190–93, 226, 253; shared agenda, 3–4; spread in Europe and Asia, 2; stage for transnational interaction, 53–54; time line, 2, 72, 106, 163, 352; thematic focus, 163; travel as trope, 22, 115; world as stage, 114–15, 321, 340. See also animal allegories; evolutionism; political crisis; political novel (issues addressed); political novel (literary devices) political novel (China): adaptation of features, 136–46; advisor on reform, 258, 261; advocating overthrow of Manchu court, 152–53; anarchists, 124–25; attractiveness of for Liang Qichao, 2; awakening China, 327, 329n23; China

422

Index

awakened, 148; exile as trope, 31, 190; alternative paths of action discussed, 120, 207, 198–206, 328; authors using different media, 163; authors 98; authors of revolutionary, 152–53; dystopian elements, 326–27, 342; explicit part of world genre, 14; guide for reforms, 180; impact on overall standing of novel, 354; guidance for implied reader, 317; importance of foreign origin, 77; narrator as protagonist, 320, 336–37, 341, 352; numbers of works in this genre, 97–98; political context of Liang Qichao’s use, 13–14; political ideals, 335; politics as asset rather than burden, 79; primary role of state in envisaged reforms, 229; publishing peaks, 163–66; range of opinion expressed, 230; Reform of Governance providing timeline and themes, 163, 166–230; reflecting asymmetry in cultural relations, 350; relationship between author and reader, 95; reliability fictionalized, 330; role in establishing public standing of novel in China, 97; role of untranslated Japanese in China, 150–59; role of Zheng Guangong in establishing Chinese, 87; selfreferential depiction, 206n9, 327–28, 336, 341, 342–43; sequels to traditional novels, 190, 197, 206–7, 228; as tool to transform mentality, 73; translating history into fiction, 207; unfinished, 91, 125, 156, 159, 305, 325; use of new and foreign terms and names, 122; utopian features, 127–29, 216, 230, 327. See also science (China); foreigners; political novel (general); political novel (issues addressed); political novel (literary devices) political novel (issues addressed). See under colonial rule; censorship; constitution; coolie labor; education; exile;

heroes; independence; political crisis; people lacking political maturity; political representation; reform vs. revolution; Russian threat; women’s rights political novel (Japan): in Freedom and People’s Rights Movement, 56–57, 72n53; illustration of political allegory in, 68–69; numbers of works, 57–58; political allegory, 66–67; as propaganda tool for Western political ideas, 71; translations into Japanese, 55 political novel (literary devices): allegory, 316, 319; literary innovation, 8, 63, 70, 88, 91, 145, 189, 329; natural events as allegories for social crises, 47, 280; paratexts to guide reader, 318. See also countertext; dream; gender relationships; horn title; metaphors/allegories/ symbols, miraiki; plot engines; names; wedge Political Reform in Heaven (Tianguo weixin) by Xiang feizi, 228 political representation: as topic in political novels: 18, 42, 57, 70, 116, 163 Prague School: on rise of global literary genres in Asia, 5 “Preface on the translation and publication of political novels,” (“Yi yin zhengzhi xiaoshuo xu”) by Liang Qichao, 77, 80–81 “Preparing for the Establishment of the Constitution” (“Zhunbei lixian”) by Wu Jianren, 226–27 Press code: Qing, 171–72 Pretty Story, A by Francis Hopkinson, 34 Propaganda Movement, 42 Prophecy about the Sad Fate of Being Carved Up, A (Guafen canhuo yuyan ji) by Xuanyuan zhengyi, 152, 156–57 Protocol of the Meeting among the Beasts (Kŭmsu hoeŭuirok) by An Kuksŏn, 104

Index public: as addressee of political novels, 32, 95; involvement for successful reforms, 202–3. See also people public sphere: channel for political novel’s impact, 165, 175, 349; Chinese articulations on Reform of Governance, 172–73 Qin jian. See Self-Examination Qin Liangyu, 269 Qingtian zhai. See Debts in the Realm of Love Qingyi bao: fiction in, 77, 79, 81 Qingzhu lixian. See “Celebration on the Occasion of the Establishment of the Constitution!” Qiu Shuyuan, 75 Railroads (China): in political novels, 200, 203, 210, 223 Rat Kingdom. See under metaphors/ allegories/symbols Record of America’s Independence, A (Meilijian zili ji) by Xuan fanzi, 121 Record of Scotland’s Independence, The (Sugelan duli ji) translated by Chen Hongbi, 118–19 Record of Washing Away Shame, The (Xi chi ji) by Lengqing nüshi, 125, 151, 155–56; illustrations, 158 reform, political (China): definition of “reformer,” 9; factionalism, 279–80; political reformer as hero in Disraeli’s novels, 19; Verne’s Fifteen Little Heroes as allegory, 279 Reform of Governance (China): content, 14, 93, 166–74; contested agency, 174– 75, 265; discussed through Mengzi, 185–86; edicts quoted in political novels, 207–8, 221; engagement of Flowers from the Women’s Hell, 248; as fake reform, 190–93; framework for political novels, 167, 177–80, 185–91,

423

194–95, 200–202, 207, 218, 229–30, 248, 265–66; link to Chinese political novel, 163–64, 175–76; merits of contributing, 195; reforms, 171–72; as way to Utopia, 194. See also education, government (China) reform vs. revolution. See under political novel (general) Revenge at Cold Mountain (Lengguo fuchou ji) by Linxia laoren, 121 revolution (political ideal): origin and spread, 335 revolutionaries (China): satires, 253, 332–33, 335 Risorgimento, 31 Rizal, José, 41–42; addressing foreign audiences, 43; assessment of common people by, 42; as national hero, 48. See also El Filibusterismo; Noli Me Tangere; Wilhelm Tell; Propaganda Movement Roar of the Lion, The (Shizi hou) by Guo Ting, 152–54, 319, 325–28, 330 Roland, Madame: Chinese biography, 84; inspiration for Chinese women, 179, 252; Korean translation of biography, 105. See also heroes Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, translations into Chinese, 76 Ruffini, Giovanni, 27; foreign addressees of his novels, 30. See also Doctor Antonio, Lorenzo Benoni Ruiran tōyō. See Threatened Pacific Ruishi jianguo zhi. See Founding of the Swiss Republic Rulin waishi. See Scholars Russia: anarchists, 303–12; threat to China in political novels, 133, 147–48, 153, 159, 190, 305n99, 327, 332. See also Extraordinary Story of the Nihilist Party Said, Edward: on Disraeli’s “orientalism,” 17fn11 Sakazaki Shinran. See Flower Crown of Freedom

424

Index

Sanguo yanyi. See Three Kingdoms Sasaki Tashi. See New Stormy Waves satires, 193, 253 Scholars, The (Rulin waishi) by Wu Jingzi: plot engine, 318 “scholar and beauty” plot: Chinese rejection 135–42; Chinese uses, 154–55, 161; Liang Qichao on Japanese use, 137–38; use in Japanese fiction, 66, 68–69, 136 science (China): cure for China, 134–35, 219–20; detective’s instrument, 302; fiction, 283; scientist as hero, 282–93. See also evolutionism Scott, Sir Walter. See Ivanhoe; Lady of the Lake; Waverly Seikai bōken daidan shosei by Inoue Tsutomu, 59 Seikai no jōha. See Waves in the Sea of Politics Sekai miraiki, 72n53 Sekai ritsukoku no yukusue. See Annals of the Future Warring States Seki Naohiko. See Song of the Oriole Self-Examination (Qin jian) by Nan Zhina lao jishi, 338 Self-Help by Samuel Smiles, 18, 85n90, 277 Senkyō Sanshi. See Japan after the Founding of the Diet Seven Knights-errant of Rome, The (Luoma qi xiashi) by Hu Shi’an, 277n29 Shanghai: as independent media center, 13–14, 81, 93–95, 106, 151n78, 173–74; as futuristic space, 89, 134, 215, 216 Shenbaoguan: role in promotion of fiction, 94 Sherlock Holmes, 294–95 Shi Nai’an. See Water Margin Shijie mori ji. See Fin du Monde Shin Nihon. See New Japan Shin shakai. See New Society ship. See under metaphors/allegories/ symbols Shiwu bao, 294

Shizi hou. See Roar of the Lion Shiba Shirō. See Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women Shin haran. See New Stormy Waves Shin shakai. See New Society Shizi xue / Zhina Gelunbu. See Blood of the Lion, or the Chinese Columbus Shokumin iseki. See Great Achievements of Colonization Short History of China’s Progress, A (Zhongguo jinhua xiaoshi) by Yanshi goutu, 228 Short History of Civilization (Wenming xiaoshi) by Li Boyuan, 194–96 Shuihu zhuan. See Water Margin Shun ōden. See Song of the Oriole sinking. See under metaphors/allegories/ symbols slave, 36, 67, 69; Chinese men, 86–87, 126–27, 255, 251, 268, 319 sleep. See under metaphors/allegories/ symbols Smiles, Samuel. See Self-Help social Darwinism: and fiction, 74; and national survival, 102. See also evolutionism society (China): agency, 265–66 Sofia Perovskaya, 125 Sogyŏng kwa anjŭnbangi ŭi mundap. See Dialogue between a Blind Man and a Cripple Song of the Oriole (Shun ōden) by Seki Naohiko, 59 The Soul of the Constitution (Xian zhi hun) by Xin shijie xiaoshuo she, 221–23 sovereignty. See national independence Spencer, Herbert, 262, 322, 324–25. See also evolutionism Spirit of Chivalric Women, The (Xianü hun) by Jiang Jingjian (1909), 237–38 Spirit of Chivalric Women, The (Xianü hun) by Liu (1906), 237–38 Spirit of Rousseau, The ([Shehui xiaoshuo] Luosuo hun) by Huai Ren 124

Index Staatsroman, 33n45 Stones of Goddess Nüwa, The (Nüwa shi) by Haitian du xiaozi: analysis, 244–48; depiction of Chinese women, 241; emulating Water Margin and Dream of the Red Chamber, 244–45; engagement with Reform of Governance, 248; exorcising the “four thieves” of the female body, 246; heroines, 144, 237; science fiction elements, 247 Stormy Seas of Passion (Jōkai haran) by Toda Kindō, 66–68 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 252. See also Uncle Tom’s Cabin Sudden Turn-About (Meng huitou) by Chen Tianhua, 153 Sue, Eugène. See Mysteries of Paris Suehiro Tetchō. See Future Record from Meiji Year 23; Orioles among the Flowers; Plum Blossoms amidst the Snow Sugelan duli ji. See Record of Scotland’s Independence Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli, 59 Taiping Christians: advocacy fiction, 2 Taixi lishi yanyi. See Historical Romance of the West Tajima Shōji. See Animal Parliament. Mankind’s Attack Takayasu Kamejirō. See Annals of the Future Warring States Tale of Heroes and Lovers, A (Ernü yingxiong zhuan) by Wen Kang, 239, 140, 309–10 Tang Baorong. See Huang Xiuqiu Tao Baopi. See Events on the New Stage Revealed telling names. See names Territorial War between Snail, Speck, and Mite Country (Wo Chu Man sanguo zhengdi ji) by Chong tian yishi shi, 223 Thebes: as locale for Japanese political novel, 60–61

425

Threatened Pacific, The (Ruiran tōyō) by Ōhashi Otowa, 118 Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi), 61; plot engine, 318; sequel, 197–206 Tianguo weixin. See Political Reform in Heaven tiger. See under metaphors/allegories/ symbols Time Machine: An Invention by H. G. Wells: translation and impact in China, 133 Toda Kindō. See Stormy Seas of Passion Tōkai Sanshi. See Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women Tokutomi Iichirō. See Future Japan Tokutomi Rōka, 60, 61, 76n67 Tōkyō: illustration of future, 64–65 Tolstoy, Leo, 273 Tongmeng hui: publication channels, 152–53 transcultural interaction: dynamics in spread of political novel, 110, 160–61; in literature, 5–6, 113; reading of foreign language originals, 150–59; push vs. pull, 6, 114 transcultural studies: methodology as applicable for literary studies, 6; and Heidelberg Cluster “Asia and Europe,” 7 translation: agency, 85, 114, 150, 161; borders between Chinese translations and original works, 121–22; Chinese with commentary, 285; Chinese detective novels, 294; Chinese translation of Japanese political novels, 116–18, 161; importance for Japanese modernization, 77; introducing new heroes, 275; Japanese/Chinese translation of science fiction, 283; massive translation, 351; as part of local literature, 56, 114. See also Mysterious Encounters with Beautiful Women

426

Index

translator, as figure in political novel, 148. See also Chen Jinghan, Liang Qichao, Luo Xiaogao, Ōhira Sanji Travels of Lao Can (Lao Can youji) by Liu E, 330–34 Travels under the Sea by Jules Verne, 284– 93; changes in Japanese and Chinese translations, 288–91 Trial among the Beasts (Kŭmsu chap’an) by Hŭmhŭmja, 102–3 Triumphal Song of Freedom (Jiyu no kachidoki) by Miyazaki Muryū, 151 Tsubouchi Shōyō, 62 Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. See Travels under the Sea Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: relationship to political novel, 35–36; translation into Chinese, 36 United States of America: place of freedom, 335; revolution as model for independence movements, 82, 116, 121, 154. See also Adams, Henry Unofficial History of the Philippines, An (Feiliebin wai shi) by Xia Min, 121 Utopia (China): future China, 327; novels in China, 129–35, 194–95, 286. See also Shanghai Verne, Jules. See under Around the World in Eighty Days; Fifteen Little Heroes; Travels under the Sea Vietnam, example for loss of independence, 84; political novel, 107–8 village. See under metaphors/allegories/ symbols (China) Wailing Ghosts (Kishūshū) by Miyazaki Muryū, 151 Wake-up Call for the Age (Jingshi zhong) by Chen Tianhua, 153 Wallace, Sir William, 119, statue of, 120

Wang Miaoru. See Flowers from the Women’s Hell Wangguo yimin zhi yi. See How Many Martyrs? Washington, George, 120, 267, 291. See also heroes (China) Watanabe Osamu. See Waves in the Sea of Politics Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan) by Shi Nai’an and Luo Guanzhong: emulated in The Stones of Goddess Nüwa, 244; impact on translation of Travels under the Sea, 293; Liang Qichao on its negative influence, 140–41 Waverly by Sir Walter Scott, 15n2; 34 Waves in the Sea of Politics (Seikai no jōha) by Watanabe Osamu, 59 weather. See under metaphors/allegories/ symbols wedge (xiezi) (China), 315–47; added to Chinese translations, 147–50, 160–61; allegory of world situation, 148–50; 334–36; Chinese contribution to genre, 109, 147; closure of open-ended narrative, 325; of Debt in the Realm of Love, 132; of End of the Nations of the World, 147–50; of Events on the New Stage Revealed, 334–36; fate of nation at center, 336; fictional devices, 330–31; of Fifteen Little Heroes, 278–79; of Flower in the Sea of Retribution, 339–41; of Future Record of New China, 88–90; historical background, 316–17; of Huang Xiuqiu, 178–79; miraiki, 321; new wedge, 320, 322; narrator, people, and novel as wedge protagonists, 336; of New Flowers in the Mirror (Chen Xiaolu), 341; plot engine, 317, 321–22; of Roar of the Lion, 153, 325–28; of Short History of Civilization, 194–95; space and time framing, 329–30; of Spirit of Rousseau, 124; of Travels of Lao Can, 33–34; youths as hope, 342

Index Weilai shijie. See World of the Future Weilai zhanguo zhi. See Annals of the Future Warring States Wells, H. G. See Time Machine: An Invention Wen Kang. See Tale of Heroes and Lovers Wenming xiaoshi. See under Short History of Civilization West: Western ways, 251; origin of civilization, 335 Wilhelm Tell by Friedrich Schiller: Chinese work on, 87, 121; Japanese translation, 55; Korean translation, 105; Tagalog translation by Rizal, 42 Wo Chu Man sanguo zhengdi ji. See Territorial War between Snail, Speck, and Mite Country woman: as emblem of liberty, 66, 70; hero needed for Chinese nation, 145, 250–51, 306, 341; weak, 307. See also under metaphors/allegories/symbols women (China): anarchist, 306–11; business owners and managers, 259; cause and cure of China’s problem, 238; chastity norm, 252–53, 258; China as women’s hell, 238–40; citizens, 255; connections with international women’s movement, 261–64; conservative attitudes, 243; constitutional standing, 255; cooperatives, 259, 262; critique of demand for women’s rights, 250; customary behavior, 255; education, 103–4, 177–78, 232, 238, 251–52; effect of lack of education, 232; emancipation, 253; foreign models for, 252; foreigners’ views, 254; footbinding, 177, 179, 232; government reaction to women’s demands, 257–58; journalists, 261–66; knightserrant, 250, 308; literacy, 258–59; newspapers, 261–66; privileged, 341; as protagonists in political novels, 237; role of heroines, 176–84, 255–61; Qing regulations for girls’ schools, 235–36;

427

rights, 250, 255; self-betterment, 258– 260; strategies to secure rights, 257–58; trained as workers, 259; translated Western novels’ influence on behavior, 249; treatment of women as standard of civilization, 231, 256; women’s Herbert Spencer, 262. See also Bronze Statue of the Daughter of China, Heroines From Eastern Europe, Huang Xiuqiu, Women’s Rights, Stones of Goddess Nüwa, New Heroine for China, Flowers from the Women’s Hell, New Flowers in the Mirror (Chen Xiaolu), New Flowers in the Mirror (Xiaoran yusheng) women (Korea): education, 103 Women’s Rights (Nüzi quan) by Zhan Kai, 237; 261 world: as stage for political novel, 115–16, 121, 128 world genre, challenges in determining identity, 4; formation of and transcultural studies, 6; intrinsic links between works of, 7; methodology of identifying core features, 7 World of the Future, The (Weilai shijie) by Chun Fan, 210–15; as advice for implementation of edict on constitution, 214–15; future retrospective, 215; narrator, 337; pains of transition in relations between sexes, 212–14 world literature, 32. See also Moretti; Casanova World of the Yellow Man, The (Huangren shijie), 133 Wu Jianren. See “Celebration on the Occasion of the Establishment of the Constitution!” “Preparing for the Establishment of the Constitution”; “Long Live the Constitution” Wu Jingzi. See Scholars Wu Rucheng. See Foolish Man’s Dream Talk

428

Index

Wucheng zhe yuan shi. See Zou [Yan’s] Talk for Everybody’s Amusement Wutuobang youji. See Journey to Utopia Xi chi ji. See Record of Washing Away Shame Xia Min. See Unofficial History of the Philippines Xia Zengyou. See Guowen bao Xian zhi hun. See Soul of the Constitution Xiang feizi. See Political Reform in Heaven Xianü hun. See Spirit of Chivalric Women Xiaoran yusheng. See New Flowers in the Mirror; Journey to Utopia Xiaoxue, 252 Xiayi jiaren. See Chivalrous Beauties xiezi (opening chapter). See wedge Xihong’anzhu. See Historical Romance of the West Xin Fengshen zhuan. See New Enfeoffment of the Gods Xin jiyuan. See New Century Xin sanguo. See New Three Kingdoms Xin shijie xiaoshuo she. See Soul of the Constitution Xin shu shi. See History of the Rats’ Reform Xin wutai hongxue ji. See Events on the New Stage Revealed Xin xiaoshuo (magazine): political novels, 89; science fiction, 283 Xin Zhongguo. See New China Xin Zhongguo weilaiji. See Future Record of New China Xinnian meng. See New Year’s Dream, A Xinxi xiantan. See Night and Morning Xinxin xiaoshuo, 295, 304 Xinzheng. See Reform of Governance Xiyou ji. See Journey to the West Xu Nianci. See Debt in the Realm of Love Xu Zhiyan. See Electrical World Xuan fanzi (Lin Xie). See Record of America’s Independence

Xuanyuan zhengyi by Zheng Quan. See Prophecy about the Sad Fate of Being Carved Up Xuanzang, 269 Xue zhong mei. See Plum Blossoms amidst the Snow Yan Fu. See Guowen bao Yanagida Izumi, 62 Yano Ryūkei, 60–61, 76. See also Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship; New Society Yanshi goutu. See Short History of China’s Progress Yi Hae-jo. See Bell of Liberty Yi Suo (Tang Baorong), 176n23. See also Huang Xiuqiu You Fu. See History of the Rats’ Reform You Yazi: adapting Threatened Pacific, 117–18 Young China, 76, 327 Young England, 18; reform program of, 21; and other “young” movements, 24–25 Young Germany, 33 Young Italy, 26–27. See also Ruffini youth, as attribute of political movements, 24–25; 279 Yuan Shikai, 199, 264 Yue Fei, 269 Yueqiu zhimindi xiaoshuo. See Novel on the Colonization of the Moon Yueyue xiaoshuo, novels about the constitution, 228 Zaize: study of foreign constitutions, 170 Zeng Pu. See Flower in the Sea of Retribution Zhan Kai. See A New Heroine for China; Women’s Rights Zhan Mingxiong: hero from Chinese past, 124 Zhang Zhaotong. See Freedom in Marriage

Index Zhang Zhidong: and Reform of Governance, 169 Zhendan nüzi ziyouhua. See Freedom in Marriage Zheng Chenggong, 269 Zheng Guangong. See Biography of Moses; Founding of the Swiss Republic Zheng Quan. See Prophecy about the Sad Fate of Being Carved Up Zheng Zhe. See Founding of the Swiss Republic Zhenghai bolan. See New Stormy Waves zhengzhi xiaoshuo (political novel): origin of Chinese term, 72 Zhimin weiji. See Great Achievements of Colonization Zhongguo jinhua xiaoshi. See Short History of China’s Progress

429

Zhongguo xin nühao. See New Heroine for China Zhongguo zhi nü tongxiang. See Bronze Statue of the Daughter of China Zhouli: as source for reform, 203 Zhuangzi: as source for allegories, 67n43, 223 “Zhunbei lixian.” See “Preparing for the Establishment of the Constitution” Ziyou jiehun. See Freedom in Marriage Ziyou xue. See Freedom’s Blood Zou tan yixue. See under Zou [Yan’s] Talk for Everybody’s Amusement Zou [Yan’s] Talk for Everybody’s Amusement (Zou tan yixue) by Wucheng zhe yuan shi: court agency dominating, 187; Mengzi as source, 185; and Qing court, 187–88

Harvard East Asian Monographs (titles now in print) 7. 13. 31. 36. 38. 39. 40. 41. 46. 47. 48. 50. 51. 53. 55. 60.

61. 62. 63. 69. 73. 74. 75. 78. 80.

Chao Kuo-chün, Economic Planning and Organization in Mainland China: A Documentary Study, 1949–1957 S. M. Meng, The Tsungli Yamen: Its Organization and Functions Madeleine Chi, China Diplomacy, 1914–1918 Peter Frost, The Bakumatsu Currency Crisis Robert R. Campbell, James Duncan Campbell: A Memoir by His Son Jerome Alan Cohen, ed., The Dynamics of China’s Foreign Relations V. V. Vishnyakova-Akimova, Two Years in Revolutionary China, 1925–1927, trans. Steven L. Levine Meron Medzini, French Policy in Japan during the Closing Years of the Tokugawa Regime W. P. J. Hall, A Bibliographical Guide to Japanese Research on the Chinese Economy, 1958–1970 Jack J. Gerson, Horatio Nelson Lay and Sino-British Relations, 1854–1864 Paul Richard Bohr, Famine and the Missionary: Timothy Richard as Relief Administrator and Advocate of National Reform Britten Dean, China and Great Britain: The Diplomacy of Commercial Relations, 1860–1864 Ellsworth C. Carlson, The Foochow Missionaries, 1847–1880 Richard M. Pfeffer, Understanding Business Contracts in China, 1949–1963 Ranbir Vohra, Lao She and the Chinese Revolution Noriko Kamachi, John K. Fairbank, and Chūzō Ichiko, Japanese Studies of Modern China Since 1953: A Bibliographical Guide to Historical and Social-Science Research on the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Supplementary Volume for 1953–1969 Donald A. Gibbs and Yun-chen Li, A Bibliography of Studies and Translations of Modern Chinese Literature, 1918–1942 Robert H. Silin, Leadership and Values: The Organization of Large-Scale Taiwanese Enterprises David Pong, A Critical Guide to the Kwangtung Provincial Archives Deposited at the Public Record Office of London Eric Widmer, The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Peking during the Eighteenth Century Jon Sigurdson, Rural Industrialism in China Kang Chao, The Development of Cotton Textile Production in China Valentin Rabe, The Home Base of American China Missions, 1880–1920 Meishi Tsai, Contemporary Chinese Novels and Short Stories, 1949–1974: An Annotated Bibliography Endymion Wilkinson, Landlord and Labor in Late Imperial China: Case Studies from Shandong by Jing Su and Luo Lun

Harvard East Asian Monographs 84. 85. 86. 89. 92. 93.

94. 96. 97. 98. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 111. 117. 119. 121. 123.

J. W. Dower, Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878–1954 Martin Collcutt, Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan Kwang Suk Kim and Michael Roemer, Growth and Structural Transformation Sung Hwan Ban, Pal Yong Moon, and Dwight H. Perkins, Rural Development Edward S. Mason, Dwight H. Perkins, Kwang Suk Kim, David C. Cole, Mahn Je Kim et al., The Economic and Social Modernization of the Republic of Korea Robert Repetto, Tai Hwan Kwon, Son-Ung Kim, Dae Young Kim, John E. Sloboda, and Peter J. Donaldson, Economic Development, Population Policy, and Demographic Transition in the Republic of Korea Parks M. Coble, Jr., The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government, 1927–1937 Richard Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics: A Study of Political Change and Communication Lillian M. Li, China’s Silk Trade: Traditional Industry in the Modern World, 1842– 1937 R. David Arkush, Fei Xiaotong and Sociology in Revolutionary China James Reeve Pusey, China and Charles Darwin Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Utilitarian Confucianism: Chen Liang’s Challenge to Chu Hsi Thomas A. Stanley, Ōsugi Sakae, Anarchist in Taishō Japan: The Creativity of the Ego Jonathan K. Ocko, Bureaucratic Reform in Provincial China: Ting Jih-ch’ang in Restoration Kiangsu, 1867–1870 James Reed, The Missionary Mind and American East Asia Policy, 1911–1915 Neil L. Waters, Japan’s Local Pragmatists: The Transition from Bakumatsu to Meiji in the Kawasaki Region David C. Cole and Yung Chul Park, Financial Development in Korea, 1945–1978 Roy Bahl, Chuk Kyo Kim, and Chong Kee Park, Public Finances during the Korean Modernization Process William D. Wray, Mitsubishi and the N.Y.K., 1870–1914: Business Strategy in the Japanese Shipping Industry Ralph William Huenemann, The Dragon and the Iron Horse: The Economics of Railroads in China, 1876–1937 Jane Kate Leonard, Wei Yüan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World Andrew Gordon, The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan: Heavy Industry, 1853–1955 Christine Guth Kanda, Shinzō: Hachiman Imagery and Its Development Chang-tai Hung, Going to the People: Chinese Intellectual and Folk Literature, 1918–1937 Richard von Glahn, The Country of Streams and Grottoes: Expansion, Settlement, and the Civilizing of the Sichuan Frontier in Song Times

Harvard East Asian Monographs 124. Steven D. Carter, The Road to Komatsubara: A Classical Reading of the Renga Hyakuin 126. Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in EarlyModern Japan: The “New Theses” of 1825 127. Atsuko Hirai, Individualism and Socialism: The Life and Thought of Kawai Eijirō (1891–1944) 129. R. Kent Guy, The Emperor’s Four Treasuries: Scholars and the State in the Late Chien-lung Era 130. Peter C. Perdue, Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan, 1500–1850 131. Susan Chan Egan, A Latterday Confucian: Reminiscences of William Hung (1893–1980) 132. James T. C. Liu, China Turning Inward: Intellectual-Political Changes in the Early Twelfth Century 134. Kate Wildman Nakai, Shogunal Politics: Arai Hakuseki and the Premises of Tokugawa Rule 137. Susan Downing Videen, Tales of Heichū 138. Heinz Morioka and Miyoko Sasaki, Rakugo: The Popular Narrative Art of Japan 139. Joshua A. Fogel, Nakae Ushikichi in China: The Mourning of Spirit 140. Alexander Barton Woodside, Vietnam and the Chinese Model: A Comparative Study of Vietnamese and Chinese Government in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century 141. George Elison, Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan 144. Marie Anchordoguy, Computers, Inc.: Japan’s Challenge to IBM 146. Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi 147. Laura E. Hein, Fueling Growth: The Energy Revolution and Economic Policy in Postwar Japan 148. Wen-hsin Yeh, The Alienated Academy: Culture and Politics in Republican China, 1919–1937 149. Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People’s Republic 150. Merle Goldman and Paul A. Cohen, eds., Ideas Across Cultures: Essays on Chinese Thought in Honor of Benjamin L Schwartz 151. James M. Polachek, The Inner Opium War 152. Gail Lee Bernstein, Japanese Marxist: A Portrait of Kawakami Hajime, 1879–1946 154. Mark Mason, American Multinationals and Japan: The Political Economy of Japanese Capital Controls, 1899–1980 155. Richard J. Smith, John K. Fairbank, and Katherine F. Bruner, Robert Hart and China’s Early Modernization: His Journals, 1863–1866 157. William Wayne Farris, Heavenly Warriors: The Evolution of Japan’s Military, 500–1300 159. James B. Palais, Politics and Policy in Traditional Korea 161. Roger R. Thompson, China’s Local Councils in the Age of Constitutional Reform, 1898–1911 162. William Johnston, The Modern Epidemic: History of Tuberculosis in Japan

Harvard East Asian Monographs 163. Constantine Nomikos Vaporis, Breaking Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan 164. Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Rituals of Self-Revelation: Shishōsetsu as Literary Genre and Socio-Cultural Phenomenon 165. James C. Baxter, The Meiji Unification through the Lens of Ishikawa Prefecture 166. Thomas R. H. Havens, Architects of Affluence: The Tsutsumi Family and the Seibu-Saison Enterprises in Twentieth-Century Japan 167. Anthony Hood Chambers, The Secret Window: Ideal Worlds in Tanizaki’s Fiction 168. Steven J. Ericson, The Sound of the Whistle: Railroads and the State in Meiji Japan 169. Andrew Edmund Goble, Kenmu: Go-Daigo’s Revolution 170. Denise Potrzeba Lett, In Pursuit of Status: The Making of South Korea’s “New” Urban Middle Class 171. Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan, Hiraizumi: Buddhist Art and Regional Politics in Twelfth-Century Japan 173. Aviad E. Raz, Riding the Black Ship: Japan and Tokyo Disneyland 174. Deborah J. Milly, Poverty, Equality, and Growth: The Politics of Economic Need in Postwar Japan 175. See Heng Teow, Japan’s Cultural Policy toward China, 1918–1931: A Comparative Perspective 176. Michael A. Fuller, An Introduction to Literary Chinese 177. Frederick R. Dickinson, War and National Reinvention: Japan in the Great War, 1914–1919 178. John Solt, Shredding the Tapestry of Meaning: The Poetry and Poetics of Kitasono Katue (1902–1978) 179. Edward Pratt, Japan’s Protoindustrial Elite: The Economic Foundations of the Gōnō 180. Atsuko Sakaki, Recontextualizing Texts: Narrative Performance in Modern Japanese Fiction 181. Soon-Won Park, Colonial Industrialization and Labor in Korea: The Onoda Cement Factory 182. JaHyun Kim Haboush and Martina Deuchler, Culture and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea 183. John W. Chaffee, Branches of Heaven: A History of the Imperial Clan of Sung China 184. Gi-Wook Shin and Michael Robinson, eds., Colonial Modernity in Korea 185. Nam-lin Hur, Prayer and Play in Late Tokugawa Japan: Asakusa Sensōji and Edo Society 186. Kristin Stapleton, Civilizing Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform, 1895–1937 187. Hyung Il Pai, Constructing “Korean” Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State-Formation Theories 188. Brian D. Ruppert, Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan 189. Susan Daruvala, Zhou Zuoren and an Alternative Chinese Response to Modernity

Harvard East Asian Monographs 191. Kerry Smith, A Time of Crisis: Japan, the Great Depression, and Rural Revitalization 192. Michael Lewis, Becoming Apart: National Power and Local Politics in Toyama, 1868–1945 193. William C. Kirby, Man-houng Lin, James Chin Shih, and David A. Pietz, eds., State and Economy in Republican China: A Handbook for Scholars 194. Timothy S. George, Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan 195. Billy K. L. So, Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China: The South Fukien Pattern, 946–1368 196. Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka, The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904–1932 197. Maram Epstein, Competing Discourses: Orthodoxy, Authenticity, and Engendered Meanings in Late Imperial Chinese Fiction 199. Haruo Iguchi, Unfinished Business: Ayukawa Yoshisuke and U.S.-Japan Relations, 1937–1952 200. Scott Pearce, Audrey Spiro, and Patricia Ebrey, Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200–600 201. Terry Kawashima, Writing Margins: The Textual Construction of Gender in Heian and Kamakura Japan 202. Martin W. Huang, Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China 203. Robert S. Ross and Jiang Changbin, eds., Re-examining the Cold War: U.S.-China Diplomacy, 1954–1973 204. Guanhua Wang, In Search of Justice: The 1905–1906 Chinese Anti-American Boycott 205. David Schaberg, A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography 206. Christine Yano, Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song 207. Milena Doleželová-Velingerová and Oldřich Král, with Graham Sanders, eds., The Appropriation of Cultural Capital: China’s May Fourth Project 208. Robert N. Huey, The Making of ‘Shinkokinshū’ 209. Lee Butler, Emperor and Aristocracy in Japan, 1467–1680: Resilience and Renewal 210. Suzanne Ogden, Inklings of Democracy in China 211. Kenneth J. Ruoff, The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945–1995 212. Haun Saussy, Great Walls of Discourse and Other Adventures in Cultural China 213. Aviad E. Raz, Emotions at Work: Normative Control, Organizations, and Culture in Japan and America 214. Rebecca E. Karl and Peter Zarrow, eds., Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China 215. Kevin O’Rourke, The Book of Korean Shijo 216. Ezra F. Vogel, ed., The Golden Age of the U.S.-China-Japan Triangle, 1972–1989 217. Thomas A. Wilson, ed., On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius

Harvard East Asian Monographs 218. Donald S. Sutton, Steps of Perfection: Exorcistic Performers and Chinese Religion in Twentieth-Century Taiwan 219. Daqing Yang, Technology of Empire: Telecommunications and Japanese Expansionism in Asia, 1883–1945 220. Qianshen Bai, Fu Shan’s World: The Transformation of Chinese Calligraphy in the Seventeenth Century 221. Paul Jakov Smith and Richard von Glahn, eds., The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History 222. Rania Huntington, Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative 223. Jordan Sand, House and Home in Modern Japan: Architecture, Domestic Space, and Bourgeois Culture, 1880–1930 224. Karl Gerth, China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation 225. Xiaoshan Yang, Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere: Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry 226. Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for China? Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai’s News Media, 1872–1912 227. Joyce A. Madancy, The Troublesome Legacy of Commissioner Lin: The Opium Trade and Opium Suppression in Fujian Province, 1820s to 1920s 228. John Makeham, Transmitters and Creators: Chinese Commentators and Commentaries on the Analects 229. Elisabeth Köll, From Cotton Mill to Business Empire: The Emergence of Regional Enterprises in Modern China 230. Emma Teng, Taiwan’s Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683–1895 231. Wilt Idema and Beata Grant, The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China 232. Eric C. Rath, The Ethos of Noh: Actors and Their Art 233. Elizabeth Remick, Building Local States: China during the Republican and PostMao Eras 234. Lynn Struve, ed., The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time 235. D. Max Moerman, Localizing Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern Japan 236. Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 1550–1850 237. Brian Platt, Burning and Building: Schooling and State Formation in Japan, 1750– 1890 238. Gail Bernstein, Andrew Gordon, and Kate Wildman Nakai, eds., Public Spheres, Private Lives in Modern Japan, 1600–1950: Essays in Honor of Albert Craig 239. Wu Hung and Katherine R. Tsiang, Body and Face in Chinese Visual Culture 240. Stephen Dodd, Writing Home: Representations of the Native Place in Modern Japanese Literature 241. David Anthony Bello, Opium and the Limits of Empire: Drug Prohibition in the Chinese Interior, 1729–1850 242. Hosea Hirata, Discourses of Seduction: History, Evil, Desire, and Modern Japanese Literature

Harvard East Asian Monographs 243. Kyung Moon Hwang, Beyond Birth: Social Status in the Emergence of Modern Korea 244. Brian R. Dott, Identity Reflections: Pilgrimages to Mount Tai in Late Imperial China 245. Mark McNally, Proving the Way: Conflict and Practice in the History of Japanese Nativism 246. Yongping Wu, A Political Explanation of Economic Growth: State Survival, Bureaucratic Politics, and Private Enterprises in the Making of Taiwan’s Economy, 1950–1985 247. Kyu Hyun Kim, The Age of Visions and Arguments: Parliamentarianism and the National Public Sphere in Early Meiji Japan 248. Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China 249. David Der-wei Wang and Shang Wei, eds., Dynastic Crisis and Cultural Innovation: From the Late Ming to the Late Qing and Beyond 250. Wilt L. Idema, Wai-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer, eds., Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature 251. Barbara Molony and Kathleen Uno, eds., Gendering Modern Japanese History 252. Hiroshi Aoyagi, Islands of Eight Million Smiles: Idol Performance and Symbolic Production in Contemporary Japan 253. Wai-yee Li, The Readability of the Past in Early Chinese Historiography 254. William C. Kirby, Robert S. Ross, and Gong Li, eds., Normalization of U.S.-China Relations: An International History 255. Ellen Gardner Nakamura, Practical Pursuits: Takano Chōei, Takahashi Keisaku, and Western Medicine in Nineteenth-Century Japan 256. Jonathan W. Best, A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi 257. Liang Pan, The United Nations in Japan’s Foreign and Security Policymaking, 1945–1992: National Security, Party Politics, and International Status 258. Richard Belsky, Localities at the Center: Native Place, Space, and Power in Late Imperial Beijing 259. Zwia Lipkin, “Useless to the State”: “Social Problems” and Social Engineering in Nationalist Nanjing, 1927–1937 260. William O. Gardner, Advertising Tower: Japanese Modernism and Modernity in the 1920s 261. Stephen Owen, The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry 262. Martin J. Powers, Pattern and Person: Ornament, Society, and Self in Classical China 263. Anna M. Shields, Crafting a Collection: The Cultural Contexts and Poetic Practice of the Huajian ji 花間集 (Collection from among the Flowers) 264. Stephen Owen, The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827– 860) 265. Sara L. Friedman, Intimate Politics: Marriage, the Market, and State Power in Southeastern China

Harvard East Asian Monographs 266. Patricia Buckley Ebrey and Maggie Bickford, Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China: The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics 267. Sophie Volpp, Worldly Stage: Theatricality in Seventeenth-Century China 268. Ellen Widmer, The Beauty and the Book: Women and Fiction in NineteenthCentury China 269. Steven B. Miles, The Sea of Learning: Mobility and Identity in NineteenthCentury Guangzhou 270. Man-houng Lin, China Upside Down: Currency, Society, and Ideologies, 1808– 1856 271. Ronald Egan, The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China 272. Mark Halperin, Out of the Cloister: Literati Perspectives on Buddhism in Sung China, 960–1279 273. Helen Dunstan, State or Merchant? Political Economy and Political Process in 1740s China 274. Sabina Knight, The Heart of Time: Moral Agency in Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction 275. Timothy J. Van Compernolle, The Uses of Memory: The Critique of Modernity in the Fiction of Higuchi Ichiyō 276. Paul Rouzer, A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese 277. Jonathan Zwicker, Practices of the Sentimental Imagination: Melodrama, the Novel, and the Social Imaginary in Nineteenth-Century Japan 278. Franziska Seraphim, War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945–2005 280. Cynthia J. Brokaw, Commerce in Culture: The Sibao Book Trade in the Qing and Republican Periods 281. Eugene Y. Park, Between Dreams and Reality: The Military Examination in Late Chosŏn Korea, 1600–1894 282. Nam-lin Hur, Death and Social Order in Tokugawa Japan: Buddhism, AntiChristianity, and the Danka System 283. Patricia M. Thornton, Disciplining the State: Virtue, Violence, and State-Making in Modern China 284. Vincent Goossaert, The Taoists of Peking, 1800–1949: A Social History of Urban Clerics 286. Charo B. D’Etcheverry, Love after The Tale of Genji: Rewriting the World of the Shining Prince 287. Michael G. Chang, A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring & the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785 288. Carol Richmond Tsang, War and Faith: Ikkō Ikki in Late Muromachi Japan 289. Hilde De Weerdt, Competition over Content: Negotiating Standards for the Civil Service Examinations in Imperial China (1127 –1279) 290. Eve Zimmerman, Out of the Alleyway: Nakagami Kenji and the Poetics of Outcaste Fiction 291. Robert Culp, Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912–1940

Harvard East Asian Monographs 292. Richard J. Smethurst, From Foot Soldier to Finance Minister: Takahashi Korekiyo, Japan’s Keynes 293. John E. Herman, Amid the Clouds and Mist: China’s Colonization of Guizhou, 1200–1700 294. Tomoko Shiroyama, China during the Great Depression: Market, State, and the World Economy, 1929–1937 295. Kirk W. Larsen, Tradition, Treaties and Trade: Qing Imperialism and Chosŏn Korea, 1850–1910 296. Gregory Golley, When Our Eyes No Longer See: Realism, Science, and Ecology in Japanese Literary Modernism 297. Barbara Ambros, Emplacing a Pilgrimage: The Ōyama Cult and Regional Religion in Early Modern Japan 298. Rebecca Suter, The Japanization of Modernity: Murakami Haruki between Japan and the United States 299. Yuma Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II 301. David M. Robinson, ed., Culture, Courtiers, and Competition: The Ming Court (1368–1644) 302. Calvin Chen, Some Assembly Required: Work, Community, and Politics in China’s Rural Enterprises 303. Sem Vermeersch, The Power of the Buddhas: The Politics of Buddhism During the Koryŏ Dynasty (918–1392) 304. Tina Lu, Accidental Incest, Filial Cannibalism, and Other Peculiar Encounters in Late Imperial Chinese Literature 305. Chang Woei Ong, Men of Letters Within the Passes: Guanzhong Literati in Chinese History, 907–1911 306. Wendy Swartz, Reading Tao Yuanming: Shifting Paradigms of Historical Reception (427–1900) 307. Peter K. Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History 308. Carlos Rojas, The Naked Gaze: Reflections on Chinese Modernity 309. Kelly H. Chong, Deliverance and Submission: Evangelical Women and the Negotiation of Patriarchy in South Korea 310. Rachel DiNitto, Uchida Hyakken: A Critique of Modernity and Militarism in Prewar Japan 311. Jeffrey Snyder-Reinke, Dry Spells: State Rainmaking and Local Governance in Late Imperial China 312. Jay Dautcher, Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China 313. Xun Liu, Daoist Modern: Innovation, Lay Practice, and the Community of Inner Alchemy in Republican Shanghai 314. Jacob Eyferth, Eating Rice from Bamboo Roots: The Social History of a Community of Handicraft Papermakers in Rural Sichuan, 1920–2000 315. David Johnson, Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China

Harvard East Asian Monographs 316. James Robson, Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue 南嶽) in Medieval China 317. Lori Watt, When Empire Comes Home: Repatriation and Reintegration in Postwar Japan 318. James Dorsey, Critical Aesthetics: Kobayashi Hideo, Modernity, and Wartime Japan 319. Christopher Bolton, Sublime Voices: The Fictional Science and Scientific Fiction of Abe Kōbō 320. Si-yen Fei, Negotiating Urban Space: Urbanization and Late Ming Nanjing 321. Christopher Gerteis, Gender Struggles: Wage-Earning Women and MaleDominated Unions in Postwar Japan 322. Rebecca Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity 323. Lucien Bianco, Wretched Rebels: Rural Disturbances on the Eve of the Chinese Revolution 324. Cathryn H. Clayton, Sovereignty at the Edge: Macau and the Question of Chineseness 325. Micah S. Muscolino, Fishing Wars and Environmental Change in Late Imperial and Modern China 326. Robert I. Hellyer, Defining Engagement: Japan and Global Contexts, 1750–1868 327. Robert Ashmore, The Transport of Reading: Text and Understanding in the World of Tao Qian (365–427) 328. Mark A. Jones, Children as Treasures: Childhood and the Middle Class in Early Twentieth Century Japan 329. Miryam Sas, Experimental Arts in Postwar Japan: Moments of Encounter, Engagement, and Imagined Return 330. H. Mack Horton, Traversing the Frontier: The Man’yōshū Account of a Japanese Mission to Silla in 736–737 331. Dennis J. Frost, Seeing Stars: Sports Celebrity, Identity, and Body Culture in Modern Japan 332. Marnie S. Anderson, A Place in Public: Women’s Rights in Meiji Japan 333. Peter Mauch, Sailor Diplomat: Nomura Kichisaburō and the Japanese-American War 334. Ethan Isaac Segal, Coins, Trade, and the State: Economic Growth in Early Medieval Japan 335. David B. Lurie, Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing 336. Lillian Lan-ying Tseng, Picturing Heaven in Early China 337. Jun Uchida, Brokers of Empire: Japanese Settler Colonialism in Korea, 1876–1945 338. Patricia L. Maclachlan, The People’s Post Office: The History and Politics of the Japanese Postal System, 1871–2010 339. Michael Schiltz, The Money Doctors from Japan: Finance, Imperialism, and the Building of the Yen Bloc, 1895–1937 340. Daqing Yang, Jie Liu, Hiroshi Mitani, and Andrew Gordon, eds., Toward a History beyond Borders: Contentious Issues in Sino-Japanese Relations

Harvard East Asian Monographs 341. Sonia Ryang, Reading North Korea: An Ethnological Inquiry 342. Susan Huang, Picturing the True Form: Daoist Visual Culture in Traditional China 343. Barbara Mittler, A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture 344. Hwansoo Ilmee Kim, Empire of the Dharma: Korean and Japanese Buddhism, 1877–1912 345. Satoru Saito, Detective Fiction and the Rise of the Japanese Novel, 1880–1930 346. Jung-Sun N. Han, An Imperial Path to Modernity: Yoshino Sakuzō and a New Liberal Order in East Asia, 1905–1937 347. Atsuko Hirai, Government by Mourning: Death and Political Integration in Japan, 1603–1912 348. Darryl E. Flaherty, Public Law, Private Practice: Politics, Profit, and the Legal Profession in Nineteenth-Century Japan 349. Jeffrey Paul Bayliss, On the Margins of Empire: Buraku and Korean Identity in Prewar and Wartime Japan 350. Barry Eichengreen, Dwight H. Perkins, and Kwanho Shin, From Miracle to Maturity: The Growth of the Korean Economy 351. Michel Mohr, Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality 352. J. Keith Vincent, Two-Timing Modernity: Homosocial Narrative in Modern Japanese Fiction 354. Chong-Bum An and Barry Bosworth, Income Inequality in Korea: An Analysis of Trends, Causes, and Answers 355. Jamie L. Newhard, Knowing the Amorous Man: A History of Scholarship on Tales of Ise 356. Sho Konishi, Anarchist Modernity: Cooperatism and Japanese-Russian Intellectual Relations in Modern Japan 357. Christopher P. Hanscom, The Real Modern: Literary Modernism and the Crisis of Representation in Colonial Korea 358. Michael Wert, Meiji Restoration Losers: Memory and Tokugawa Supporters in Modern Japan 359. Garret P. S. Olberding, ed., Facing the Monarch: Modes of Advice in the Early Chinese Court 360. Xiaojue Wang, Modernity with a Cold War Face: Reimagining the Nation in Chinese Literature Across the 1949 Divide 361. David Spafford, A Sense of Place: The Political Landscape in Late Medieval Japan 362. Jongryn Mo and Barry Weingast, Korean Political and Economic Development: Crisis, Security, and Economic Rebalancing 363. Melek Ortabasi, The Undiscovered Country: Text, Translation, and Modernity in the Work of Yanagita Kunio 364. Hiraku Shimoda, Lost and Found: Recovering Regional Identity in Imperial Japan 365. Trent E. Maxey, The “Greatest Problem”: Religion and State Formation in Meiji Japan

Harvard East Asian Monographs 366. Gina Cogan, The Princess Nun: Bunchi, Buddhist Reform, and Gender in Early Edo Japan 367. Eric C. Han, Rise of a Japanese Chinatown: Yokohama, 1894–1972 368. Natasha Heller, Illusory Abiding: The Cultural Construction of the Chan Monk Zhongfeng Mingben 中峰明本 (1263–1323) 369. Paize Keulemans, Sound Rising from the Paper: Nineteenth-Century Martial Arts Fiction and the Chinese Acoustic Imagination 370. Simon James Bytheway, Investing Japan: Foreign Capital, Monetary Standards, and Economic Development, 1859–2011 371. Sukhee Lee, Negotiated Power: The State, Elites, and Local Governance in TwelfthFourteenth China 372. Ping Foong, The Efficacious Landscape: On the Authorities of Painting at the Northern Song Court 373. Catherine L. Phipps, Empires on the Waterfront: Japan’s Ports and Power, 1858– 1899 374. Sunyoung Park, The Proletarian Wave: Literature and Leftist Culture in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945 375. Barry Eichengreen, Wonhyuk Lim, Yung Chul Park, and Dwight H. Perkins, The Korean Economy: From a Miraculous Past to a Sustainable Future 376. Heather Blair, Real and Imagined: The Peak of Gold in Heian Japan 377. Emer O’Dwyer, Significant Soil: Settler Colonialism and Japan’s Urban Empire in Manchuria 378. Martina Deuchler, Under the Ancestors’ Eyes: Kinship, Status, and Locality in Premodern Korea 379. Joseph R. Dennis, Writing, Publishing, and Reading Local Gazetteers in Imperial China, 1100–1700 380. Catherine Vance Yeh, The Chinese Political Novel: Migration of a World Genre 381. Noell Wilson, Defensive Positions: The Politics of Maritime Security in Tokugawa Japan 382. Miri Nakamura, Monstrous Bodies: The Rise of the Uncanny in Modern Japan 383. Nara Dillon, Radical Inequalities: China’s Revolutionary Welfare State in Comparative Perspective