小说·性别·历史文化——美国汉学家魏爱莲教授访谈录

赵红娟 [美] 魏爱莲

(1.浙江外国语学院 中文学院， 浙江 杭州 310023； 2.维斯理学院 东亚系， 马萨诸塞州 维斯理 02481)

小说·性别·历史文化
——美国汉学家魏爱莲教授访谈录

赵红娟1[美] 魏爱莲2

(1.浙江外国语学院 中文学院， 浙江 杭州 310023； 2.维斯理学院 东亚系， 马萨诸塞州 维斯理 02481)

《水浒后传》虽然不足以列入一流经典，但在探讨中国小说批评在金圣叹等人影响下是如何形成的这一问题时，此书无疑具有作为例证的价值。《水浒后传》被作者陈忱用来表达对政治的疏离和不满，书中引入了小说可以表达个人感情的观念，这使作者站在时代的前沿。中国妇女文化经历了明末清初以及18世纪末至19世纪末这两个时期的发展，在第二个时期，女性可以是读者、评论者甚至作者。女性读者推动了小说的发展，到《红楼梦》续书时表现尤为突出。各种《红楼梦》续书显示出女性可以是值得尊敬的小说批评家，续书的情节经常回应女性的关切。出版、传教和妇女之间有一定关联。出版文化与妇女文化在19世纪末以前有所发展，中西小说在19世纪都拥有了更多的读者。这一方面是因为中国读者不断增长的兴趣；另一方面是书商们敏锐地意识到小说能带来更多利润。就传教士而言，他们意识到小说能改变读者的观念。

魏爱莲； 小说； 性别； 《水浒后传》； 《红楼梦》续书； 出版

魏爱莲(Ellen Widmer)，美国学者。毕业于美国维斯理学院东亚语言与文化系，1974、1981年相继获哈佛大学硕士、博士学位。现为维斯理学院东亚语言与文化系宋美龄及汉学终身教授、哈佛大学费正清研究中心教授，曾任维斯理学院东亚语言与文化系主任。研究领域主要有中国明清文学及女性文学、东亚比较文学、家族史、书籍史、传教史等。著有《边缘的乌托邦：〈水浒后传〉与明逸民文学》(哈佛大学出版社1987年版)、《美人与书：19世纪中国的女性与小说》(哈佛大学出版社2006年版；北京大学出版社译本2015年版)等专著，与人合编《明清女作家》(与孙康宜)、《跨越闺门：明清女性作家论》(与方秀洁)、《中国基督教大学：跨文化的连接点(1900—1950)》(与裴士丹)等，并发表《17世纪中国才女的书信世界》《19世纪中国女性的文学关系网络》《〈红楼梦〉之续书与19世纪中国的女性读者》《19世纪70年代以降“精通媒体”的闺秀》《黄周星想象的花园》《杭州与苏州的还读斋：17 世纪的出版业研究》《缺乏机械化的现代性：鸦片战争前夕小说形态的改变》等诸多论文。笔者在哈佛大学访学期间(2014年9月—2015年8月)通过会面及邮件对魏爱莲教授进行了访谈。

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赵红娟:魏教授好!很高兴您能接受我的访谈。您的中国文学研究卓有成就，我久闻您的大名。记得数年前陪同波摩纳学院白亚仁教授(Allan Barr)参观湖州南浔时，我就和他谈起您研究南浔作家陈忱《水浒后传》的大著《边缘的乌托邦：〈水浒后传〉与明逸民文学》，后来白教授把他收藏的您的这一著作送给了我。所以，今天我就想从您的这一著作谈起。这本著作出版于1987年，它是在您1981年哈佛大学博士论文的基础上出版的。中国台湾地区2010年出版有赵淑美的《〈水浒后传〉研究》，它是在作者1978年东吴大学硕士论文基础上出版的*赵淑美《水浒后传研究》收入《古典文献研究辑刊》第10编第14册，(台北)花木兰文化出版社2010年版。此条信息由《浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版)》匿名评审专家提供，谨致谢忱。。你们在20世纪70年代末80年代初就已着手研究这部《水浒传》续书，而那时中国大陆还很少有人关注它，且迄今也没有专门研究这部小说的专著出版，2006年出版的陈会明《陈忱研究》主要是研究作家的*陈会明《陈忱研究》，(福州)福建人民出版社2006年版。主要研究陈忱生活的时代、生平事迹、交游、诗歌等，《水浒后传》研究只是其中一章。。能否谈谈您为什么会选择它做博士论文，您对它的文学成就有何评价？

魏爱莲:我选《水浒后传》做博士论文是因为这部小说里有作者陈忱的评点。当时我对金圣叹提出的一些评点术语很感兴趣，想看看一个作者会怎样使用它们。我认为，当讨论中国小说批评在金圣叹等人影响下是如何形成的时，这部小说具有作为例证的价值。西方人可能会把《水浒后传》当成一部小说，不过在我看来，陈忱关于如何结构小说的观点和西方的小说观很不一样。

关于这部小说的文学价值，我认为某种程度上是瑕瑜互见的。它可能尚不足以列入一流经典作品的行列，但又具有许多有趣的研究方向。尤其有趣的是，早在17世纪陈忱就认为小说可以用来表达政治上的疏离和不满。这种对小说形式的谨慎使用使他站在时代前沿，可以说他引入了小说可以表达个人感情的观念，这种观念在《红楼梦》中也有体现。

赵红娟:确如您所说，您一开始关注到的是《水浒后传》的评点，这从您博士论文题目《17世纪中国小说批评背景中的〈水浒后传〉》可以看出，但最后出版时书名成了《边缘的乌托邦：〈水浒后传〉与明逸民文学》，研究重点显然转向《水浒后传》与明逸民文学，能否谈谈其中的原因？《水浒后传》中英雄们创立的海外乾坤是一个乌托邦，您用了“边缘”两字加以修饰，有什么含义？

魏爱莲:当博士论文快要写完时，我在北京的国家图书馆里读到了陈忱的诗，是我的博导韩南教授告诉我这个馆藏信息。陈忱的这些诗给我的研究增添了一个新的维度，使我可以更加理解陈忱作为一个明逸民的一生，以及他与逸民友人们的关系。我发现明逸民的材料比陈忱小说里金圣叹的评点术语更有趣。尤其在小说里的诗歌(不过还有更抒情化的片段)中，我深深体会到明逸民的心态，特别是他们在清朝统治下生活的失意和想要去往异域的愿望。一些明逸民包括陈忱的某些朋友东渡日本并定居下来，因此小说的乌托邦片段就与陈忱同时代人的生活似乎有所关联。陈忱表达逸民感伤的载体由诗转为了小说，这是另一个有趣的地方。当他用小说来表达难以言表的情感时，似乎把这种形式引向了一个新的方向。

在所有研究里，我一直努力以小说为中心，然后注意补充性的证据。在陈忱小说的个案里，两个最有用的补充性证据是陈忱自己的诗和对他本人作品的批评。至于标题中使用的“边缘”(margins)一词，有两个含义。第一是指陈忱边缘性的批评，我将此作为17世纪中期小说形式形成方式的一个重要证据。第二个含义是与《水浒传》的一种英文译名“The Water Margin”的关联。使用“边缘”时，我想强调《水浒后传》作为续书的身份，它与其母本有联系，但又有许多新内容。

赵红娟:国图藏有清抄本《东池诗集》五卷，它是陈忱与友人汤有亮、张非仲、吴楚等人东池聚会的唱和集。我也曾抄阅，并作有《关于陈忱和〈东池诗集〉》一文(见《古典文献研究》2013年第16辑)。您所说的陈忱的诗是指收入这个唱和集的陈忱的诗吧。作为一部极具多面性和艺术性的小说，《水浒后传》及作者陈忱现在越来越受到中西学者的关注。中国以外有关这部小说的研究以乌托邦主题或思想的探索最为集中，而且往往长篇宏论。您的著作是这方面的代表，我一直盼望中国能翻译出版您的这一大著。许多年前，我从《安徽教育学院学报》1986年第3期孙宇知的一篇文章中了解到，春风文艺出版社好像曾打算翻译出版，但后来一直没有看到译本，您知道这一事情吗？

魏爱莲:是《东池诗集》。我还没有听说任何把我的书TheMarginsofUtopia翻译成中文的计划。

赵红娟:我关注到，您曾在2012年北京大学召开的“晚明至晚清：历史传承与文化创新”研讨会上提交《黄周星想象的花园》一文。我对黄周星很感兴趣，认为他是一个清微派道教徒，其沉水自尽是因逸民情结无法解脱且对道教“飞升”极度迷狂，而其想象的“将就园”如您所说，是通过传奇《人天乐》转化为一个天上的乌托邦乐园，沉水“飞升”正是将他本人超度到他梦里的花园。同为明代逸民，陈忱和黄周星的这种乌托邦思想是否有联系？而且据我所知，现在美国学界很多学者关注中国明清文人的这类幻想。明清文人这种乌托邦思想的源头是什么？是否与庄子无何有之乡及陶渊明桃花源思想有关？

魏爱莲:就像你能想到的，我在陈忱的乌托邦理想和黄周星的乌托邦理想之间看到了一种联系。陈忱与《水浒后传》研究是我的第一个课题，它为我研究黄周星做了准备。我对黄周星对小说(特别是《西游记》)的兴趣十分关注，黄周星的这种兴趣与陈忱对《水浒传》的兴趣相似。我相信在明逸民信仰与乌托邦理想间存在一种密切的关联，在黄、陈二人身上如此，在其他作者如董说身上可能也一样。我同时相信如果讨论其他作家，人们可以在以下三个方面找到深入的联系：明代逸民信仰、小说以及乌托邦理想。不过我的研究相对集中，不会尝试在这一问题上做宏大概括。

我认为陈忱小说中的乌托邦在某种程度上与庄子和陶渊明提出的概念是相关的，不过，似乎还有其他含义，或许是暗示郑成功在台湾的政权。但这也可能与《水浒传》本身架构指向的乌托邦主题有关。我曾写过一篇文章，探讨当乌托邦无法实现时，东亚其他地域的小说如何从《水浒传》转向海外远游主题。当时我想到的是16世纪韩国的《洪吉童传》和19世纪日本泷泽马琴的《椿说弓张月》，《椿说弓张月》直接受到《水浒后传》的影响。这三本小说都用了以《水浒传》为基础的材料，也都以建立中国境外的岛国结束。

赵红娟:您的研究视野很开阔。您谈到的《洪吉童传》《椿说弓张月》与《水浒后传》在中国境外建立岛国的相似情况及其与《水浒传》本身架构的关系，将对中国的《水浒传》及其续书研究有所启示。

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赵红娟:您的研究不仅重视文献考证、文本细读等，而且重视性别。比如，您将女性和明清小说联系起来，研究女性对小说的兴趣以及女性的关注对小说创作的影响等问题，有《明代的忠义与〈红楼梦〉之后小说中女性的声音》《〈红楼梦〉之续书与19世纪中国的女性读者》《女性读者眼中的〈镜花缘〉》《美人与书：19世纪中国的女性与小说》等论文、论著。能否谈谈您在这方面的研究及主要收获？

魏爱莲:1985年胡文楷的《历代妇女著作考》修订本问世后，我认为理解女性如何被纳入中国文学图景，会是一件有趣而有意义的事情。我读研究生时，没人谈论女性与明清小说界的关联，我想胡文楷的著作加上图书馆里能看到的女性写作的材料，会给我一个很好的机会去找到一些答案。当时，其他学者也开始关注这个问题，所以就可以组织座谈和会议请他们参加，并向他们学习。但关键在于我想实践韩南教授对我的训练，把它用在这个新方向里。

我和其他学者的研究引出了一种假设：中国妇女文化在特定时期里经历了急剧的发展。仅就江南来看，就会发现有明末清初以及18世纪末至19世纪末这两个时期的发展。其中第二个时期，在小说领域出现了一个分支，女性可以是读者(不仅是弹词，还包括章回小说)、评论者甚至作者。

我的《美人与书：19世纪中国的女性与小说》是以伊恩·瓦特(Ian Watt)有关英国小说的理论起步的，他的理论有助于考察女性读者的兴起及后来女性小说作者的兴起。尽管中国的情况很不一样，但我仍感到女性读者确实推动了小说的发展，到《红楼梦》续书时表现尤为突出。目前所知的第一部《红楼梦》女性续书是顾太清于1877年创作的《红楼梦影》，但早在将近一百年前就有女性阅读《红楼梦》并在诗中加以吟咏。各种《红楼梦》续书同样显示出女性可以是值得尊敬的小说批评家，续书的情节似乎经常回应女性的关切。我不能说这些续书一定都是伟大作品，但它们的确体现了女性对小说不断增长的兴趣和参与度。而且在这一续书链的尽头，真正的女性小说家出现了。这种发展完全独立于19世纪末开始的西方的影响，尽管后者表现在中国人生活中的很多方面。

赵红娟:您《本土和全球视野下的单士厘1903年的〈癸卯旅行记〉》一文揭示了晚清女性单士厘游记写作的历史和社会含义，受到学界广泛关注，收入胡晓真主编《世变与维新——晚明与晚清的文学艺术》、董玥主编《走出区域研究：西方中国近代史论集粹》等书。能否谈谈您为什么会对单士厘感兴趣，您这篇文章的独特之处是什么？

魏爱莲:在关于单士厘的论文里，我尝试做三件事。第一，1903年正是中国刚刚开始经历世界现代化巨大冲击的一年，当时的中国也意识到不得不对政策进行巨大的改变，我想把这重要的一点置于中心。第二，我还想把一些人的想法考虑进去，那些想法聚焦于女性，认为女性对社会变革有巨大作用。即便我确信中国妇女在19世纪末以前经历了变化和发展，1900年前后开始的变化仍和之前不同，尤其是在她们与世界其他部分的联系上。第三，单士厘是一个特别有趣的研究案例。她与受到众多关注的秋瑾非常不同，不过仍有非常现代的观念，并以她自己的方式表现出来。她对旧式闺秀文化的执着，特别是对增补恽珠的《国朝闺秀正始集》的兴趣，也十分吸引我。我确信，就像许多其他妇女一样，单士厘试图变得现代，但同时又保留着保守的趣味。

赵红娟:您从跨学科的角度和比较研究的视野解读这本女性游记，确实让人耳目一新。关于您的女性文学活动研究，我有个疑问：据您发表于《清华大学学报(哲学社会科学版)》2008年第3期的《19世纪中国女性的文学关系网络》一文，18 世纪中国女性文学活动是萧条的，而据您发表于《中山大学学报(社会科学版)》2009年第3期的《18世纪的广东才女》一文，您似乎又是以18世纪广东女性文学活动没有衰落(例证方面似乎仅提到八个广东女作家的名字)，来证明前一观点的不正确。这是我理解有误，还是您对此前观点进行了修正？或是这两篇文章都是翻译的，都没有非常准确地表达您的观点？

魏爱莲:这是一个非常好的问题。我相信与只专注于江南相比，如果把目光放至江南以外，就能找到更多的形态。我还没有深入研究广东，但我希望将来有机会这么做。当然广东并不完全与江南隔绝，不过它似乎自有风格。所以，是的，我确实相信广东妇女文化在18世纪可能没有经历和江南一样的衰落，或者至少它的衰落是以一种不同的形式出现的。我认为这不是与自己之前的其他研究矛盾，而更像是对我们研究明清的学者加以提醒，应该尝试将研究更多地拓展至中国的其他地域。

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赵红娟:您的研究领域其实非常广，除了明清文学与性别问题，您还关注书籍出版传播史、传教史、晚清家族史等。目前我正在研究晚明江南望族的编刊活动与传播，我发现您的《杭州与苏州的还读斋：17 世纪的出版业研究》《缺乏机械化的现代性：鸦片战争前夕小说形态的改变》等书籍史论文在学界也很有影响。能否谈谈您这些论文关注的主要是哪些问题，主要观点是什么。

魏爱莲:出版、传教和妇女这三个话题间是有关联的。关于还读斋的文章是我在学术生涯相当早的时候写的，那时我刚刚开始对妇女话题感兴趣(这也与我早些时候对黄周星的关注有密切关系)。这篇论文中间部分引用的汪淇《尺牍新语》里收录了许多妇女作品。多少由于这部文集，我开始注意到明末清初的一些著名女作家。你提到的另一篇文章不是着重关注妇女，但它探讨了太平天国时期前后的书籍出版类型，也反映了传教士和中国出版者在传布书籍的手段与动机上的相似。这项研究帮助我更好地理解了19世纪出版、读者及女性与书籍文化关系的问题，这些问题我在《美人与书》中进行了更集中的研究。书籍文化与妇女文化在19世纪末以前有所发展，这在《美人与书》中是我另一个重新提及的观点。

这两篇文章都与小说如何生产与传播有关，但重点仍然是小说。关于还读斋的文章特别关注了这家书坊推出的一种《西游记》版本，这似乎是第一个包含第九回的版本。我对某一类型的出版机构除小说外还出版哪类书籍也很感兴趣，在还读斋的个案里，还出版医药、商业和其他主题的书籍。我尝试揭示出一种背景，在这种背景下一家出版小说的书坊开展全方位的出版。《缺乏机械化的现代性》一文比起印刷本身更关心传播。我将《镜花缘》与19世纪中国的传教士小说联系起来，一个结论是传教士利用了正在中国发展的(传播)网络，但他们并不创建网络。中西小说在19世纪都拥有了更多的读者，这一方面是因为中国读者不断增长的兴趣，另一方面是书商们敏锐地意识到小说能带来更多利润。就传教士而言，他们意识到小说能改变读者的观念。

赵红娟:我关注到，2009年您还与裴士丹(Daniel H. Bays)合编了《中国基督教大学：跨文化的连接点(1900—1950)》一书，该书收录了您《美国七姐妹女校联盟与中国》一文。能否谈谈该书的编撰目的和您论文的主要观点？

魏爱莲:裴教授和我开过两次会。一次是关于大学档案里的传教活动材料。其中有很多海外传教士的通信，我们想让它们更容易被读者接触到。另一次会议是现在这本书的基础。我们想强调传教活动不仅对中国，而且对美国、英国和其他文化也有影响。我关于七姐妹学院的论文意在展现推动美国大学生赴华的力量以及他们的海外经历对母校的影响。在维斯理学院的个案中，学院的东亚研究与传教活动就有紧密的联系。

赵红娟:近些年，您对晚清詹氏家族似乎感兴趣，不仅发表了数篇论文，还去其浙江衢州老家考察，是否有这方面的大作将要出版？能否介绍下您这方面的研究情况和主要收获？

魏爱莲:是的，我有一本书写的就是詹氏家族，它马上就要由哈佛东亚中心出版了，我相信秋天就可以问世。它的标题是Fiction’sFamily:ZhanXi，ZhanKaiandtheBusinessofWomeninLateQingChina。在这本书里我聚焦于一个家庭里的四个人。母亲王庆棣和父亲詹嗣曾是19世纪后半叶的作家。他们有四个儿子，其中的两个即詹熙和詹垲在清末写作改良小说。我的研究集中于这四人身上，讨论几个问题。首先，这两代作者间有一个比较。差异的一个主要原因是报刊新闻的出现，尤其是在上海。另一个问题是这位母亲对失意情绪的表达与部分女性对失意情绪新式表达间的关系，这些新式表达(大致)开始于1872年的《申报》。实际上母亲的一些作品出现在了这份报刊上，但表现出母亲个人痛苦的诗是私下流传的，而非她在报刊这种新媒体上公开发表的。这种痛苦一直发展，直到她生命最后感到被抛弃的时候。与之相关，我探讨她的被抛弃感是否对两个儿子决定写作改良小说产生了影响。最后，我详细考察兄弟俩的生平，以求弄清小说写作在他们的余生中扮演了何种角色。女性就业与交际花的优缺点等论题也受到了关注，尤其是与詹垲作品相联系时。这一研究的整体重点在于从一个家庭的小范围出发，对更大范围的晚清内部变化力量进行解读。

四

赵红娟:韩南先生是学界公认的美国最有成就的中国古典小说研究专家之一，在漫长的教学生涯中，培养了许多风格各异的弟子。您是韩南先生的大弟子，我有幸在哈佛举办的纪念韩南先生的活动上认识您。能否谈谈他指导学生的一些情况？

魏爱莲:韩南教授总是希望学生们能追随他们自己的研究兴趣。他不打算控制我们，所以我们每个人后来的发展很不一样。在我和他相处的这段时间里，他自己也有很多变化。他起先主要是研究文学史，但在学术生涯的最后，他对翻译产生了极大的兴趣。

赵红娟:韩南先生治学精于考证，是朴学一路。您的中国文学研究是否受到他的影响？能否谈谈您的学术背景和治学理念？

魏爱莲:韩南教授无疑对我产生了巨大的影响，他是我在整个明清小说方面的启蒙老师。1972年秋季，当我开始在哈佛攻读研究生时，我对明清小说一无所知。我听说过《红楼梦》，不过其他小说就不知道了。除此之外，他向我传授了考证的方法，在我写作论文时告诉我如何使用那些对美国人开放的图书馆(当时我们是不能前往中国大陆的)，后来又帮助我在1982年取得赴华的奖学金，使我得以在北京读到陈忱的诗。在我写作论文的时候，他也为我提供了指导。正是通过韩南教授，我开始懂得，如果了解各个图书馆的馆藏情况，以一种科学精神对待稀见资料，就可能在中国文学领域发现新的兴趣点。而且，在他的有生之年，我们一直保持联系。他始终知道我正在研究的内容，而我也始终知道他的。确实可以说，我们成了朋友。

本科时我学政治学专业，对中国实际上一无所知。但我对中国与美国的敌对关系以及中国大不相同的执政理念产生了兴趣。成为研究生后，我想或许可以攻读考古学，不过后来我遇到了韩南教授，并且想和他一起工作。我的观点是，中国小说是小说这种形式非常有趣的一种变体。当一个人研究在中国谁写小说，谁来阅读，谁来传播，以及如何结构作品时，他就能了解中国小说在西方的影响到来之前是如何发展的。

赵红娟:从明清小说与逸民到明清小说与女性，从明清小说的出版到传教史、家族史，您的研究兴趣围绕小说而又不断变化，能否简单谈谈您学术兴趣的这一变化过程及其原因？

魏爱莲:我对西方影响来临前的中国小说有极大兴趣，这可以举《红楼梦》为例。《红楼梦》显示了一种不受西方影响的写作风格，以视角来塑造人物的方式、某些次要人物只是用来联结其他人物的写法、伏脉千里的叙事手法——这些都展现了西方小说里没有的特征。在学术兴趣变化这件事上，我受同行们的研究影响很大。参加学术会议时，我聆听发言，并从中得出自己的观点。我学术兴趣中唯一不太符合这点的就是传教士研究。传教活动及其对中国和西方的意义，长期以来我都很感兴趣。

赵红娟:今天和您对话非常愉快，我也获益匪浅。您在研究中表现出来的文献学功底、开阔的视野、跨学科的研究方法以及研究的创新性等，都令我肃然起敬。再次感谢您拨冗接受我的访谈。我曾经在湖州工作近二十年，对钱恂、单士厘所在的湖州长兴、陈忱所在的湖州南浔十分熟悉，欢迎您以后有机会去考察。

魏爱莲:也感谢你最后的评论。我一直想去你所说的地方，目前为止我还没到过那里。也许将来我们会有机会一起游览考察。

(本文魏爱莲先生的回答以及英文摘要均由浙江外国语学院中文学院边茜老师帮助翻译，谨致谢忱。)

(本文英文全文请参见《浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版网络版)》，http://www.zjujournals.com/soc/CN/abstract/abstract11439.shtml)

DOI： 10.3785/j.issn.1008-942X.CN33-6000/C.2016.01.122

Received date： 2016-01-12

Website： http：//www.journals.zju.edu.cn/soc

Online first date： 2016-09-30

Author profile： 1.Zhao Hongjuan(http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4512-3165), is a professor at the Institute of Humanities of Zhejiang International Studies University, and the focus of her research is on ancient Chinese novels; 2.Ellen Widmer(http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1559-1950), is a professor at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of Wellesley College, and the focus of her research is on Chinese Ming-Qing literary.

Fiction， Gender， History and Culture: An Interview of Professor Ellen Widmer，a Famous American Sinologist

Zhao Hongjuan Ellen Widmer

(1.InstituteofHumanities，ZhejiangInternationalStudiesUniversity，Hangzhou310023，China；2.DepartmentofEastAsianLanguagesandCultures，WellesleyCollege，Wellesley,MA02481,USA)

□ translated by Bian Qian

Ellen Widmer, American. B.A. of Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of Wellesley College; M.A. of Harvard University in 1974, Ph. D. of Harvard University in 1981. She is Mayling Soong Professor of Chinese Studies and Professor of East Asian Studies at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of Wellesley College, and professor at Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. She was Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of Wellesley College. Her research mainly covers Chinese Ming-Qing literature, women’s literature, East Asian comparative literature, family history, the history of books and the history of Christian missions. She is the author ofTheMarginsofUtopia:Shui-huHou-chuanandtheLiteratureofMingLoyalism(Cambridge: Harvard University Press1987) andTheBeautyandtheBook:WomenandFictioninNineteenth-CenturyChina(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006; Beijing: Peking University Press, 2015), and a co-editor ofWritingWomeninLateImperialChina(with Kang-i Sun Chang),TheInnerQuartersandBeyond:WomenWritersfromMingthroughQing(with Grace S. Fong) andChina’sChristianColleges:Cross-CulturalConnections, 1900-1950 (with Daniel H. Bays). She also published many essays including ″The Epistolary World of Female Talent in Seventeenth-Century China,″ ″The Literary Network Among Chinese Women in the Nineteenth Century,″ ″HongloumengSequels and Their Female Readers in Nineteenth-Century China,″ ″The Huanduzhai of Hangzhou and Suzhou: A Study in Seventeenth-century Publishing,″ ″Modernization without Mechanization: The Changing Shape of Fiction on the Eve of the Opium War.″ The authors interviewed Professor Widmer face-to-face and by e-mails from September 2014 to August 2015.

Ⅰ

Zhao Hongjuan: Hello, Professor Widmer! I am glad that you can accept my interview. I heard so much about your excellence in the studies of Chinese literature. I remember that several years ago I talked with Professor Allan Barr aboutTheMarginsofUtopia:ShuihuHouchuanandtheLiteratureofMingLoyalism, your book on Chen Chen, a writer of Nanxun, and later Professor Barr gave me the book from his collection. Therefore, today I want to start from this book. It was published in 1987 on the basis of your doctoral dissertation of Harvard University in 1981. In Taiwan, Zhao Shumei’s A Study of Shuihu houzhuan was published in 2010 on the basis of the author’s master’s thesis of Soochow University in 1978*Zhao Shumei, ″The Studies of Shuihu houzhuan″, Collection of Classical Literature Research, Book 14, Volume 10, Huamulan Culture Publishing Company, 2010. Sincere thanks for anonymous Professor’s offering the information.. In late-1970s-early-1980s period, you and Professor Barr set about studying the sequels ofShuihuzhuan(TheWaterMargin) while in Chinese mainland few people paid attention to it at that time and no monograph on it has been published until now. Chen Huiming’sTheStudiesofChenChenpublished in 2006 mainly studies the author*Chen Huiming, The Studies of Chen Chen, Fujian People’s Publishing House, 2006. It maily studies Chen Chen’s time he was living in, his life story, company, poems, etc. The study of Shuihu houzhuan is just one chapter in the book.. Could you talk about why you chose it for your doctoral dissertation, and how would you evaluate its literary achievements?

Ellen Widmer: I picked the topic ofShuihuhouzhuan(《水浒后传》) for my thesis because the novel was accompanied by critical comments by the author. I was interested in the critical terms introduced by Jin Shengtan(金圣叹), and I wanted to see how an individual author would apply them. It was only at the end of the thesis that I found out about the poems by Chen Chen(陈忱) in the National Library in Beijing. Those added a whole new dimension to the project and allowed me to understand more about Chen’s life as a Ming loyalist and his relationships with loyalist friends.

Zhao Hongjuan: Indeed as you say, at the very start you focused on the comments ofShuihuhouzhuan, which can be seen from your dissertation title ″shui-hu hou-chuan in the Context of Seventeenth Century Chinese Fiction Criticism,″ but when the book was published the title became ″The Margins of Utopia:Shui-huHou-chuanand the Literature of Ming Loyalism,″ in which the research emphasis clearly turned toShuihuhouzhuanand the literature of Ming loyalism. Could you talk about the reason of that? The overseas world created by the heros inShuihuhouzhuanis a Utopia, and you picked the word ″margin″ to modify it. What is the meaning of it?

Ellen Widmer: In the end I found the material on Ming loyalism to be more interesting than the relationship of Jin Shengtan’s critical terms to Chen’s novel. Through the poems, especially, but also through some of the more lyrical moments in the novel, I gained a good sense of the mind-set of Ming loyalists, especially their frustration with life under the Qing Dynasty and their wish to set sail for another land. Since some Ming loyalists, including some of Chen’s friends, actually did sail to Japan and set up life there, there seemed to be a correlation between the novel;s utopian moments and the lives of people in Chen’s own time. The fact that Chen turned from poetry to fiction to express loyalist sentiments was another point of interest. Chen seemed to be taking the novel form in a new direction when he used it to express difficult emotions.

In all of my work I have always tried to put the novel at the center and then to look at supplementary evidence. In the case of Chen Chen’s novel, my two most useful supplements were Chen’s own poems and his critical comments about his own work, as found in the marginal commentary. My use of the word ″margins″ in my title has two meanings. The first is Chen’s marginal commentary, which I regard as important evidence of how the novel form was taking shape in the mid-seventeenth century. The second meaning is a reference to one of the English titles forShuihu, ″The Water Margin.″ When I said ″margins″ I intended to emphasize Chen’s novel’s role as a sequel. It is connected to the ″parent novel″ but takes many new steps on its own.

Zhao Hongjuan: National Library of China preserves the Qing five-volume transcription ofDongchiShiji, which is the responsory collection of the meet at Dongchi among Chen Chen and his friends including Tang Youliang, Zhang Feizhong and Wu Chu. I also read and transcribed it, and wrote an essay ″On Chen Chen andDongchiShiji.″ The poems written by Chen Chen as you mentioned I guess means the poems of his in the collection. As an extremely multi-faceted and artistic fiction,Shuihuhouzhuanand its author, Chen Chen, has caught more and more attention of Chinese and Western scholars. Outside Chinese Mainland, the researches on the novel mostly concentrate on exploring the ″Utopian″ topic or thought, and are often very long. Your book is the representative of them. I have been looking for the translation and publication of it in Chinese mainland. Many years ago, I learnt from an article written by Sun Yuzhi in Journal of Anhui Institute of Education (No.3, 1986) thatChunfengLiteratureandArtPublishingHouseintended to translate and publish it, but afterward I have never seen the translation. Do you know this thing?

Ellen Widmer: It isDongchiShiji. I have not heard of any plans to translate my book The Margins of Utopia into Chinese.

Zhao Hongjuan: I notice that you submitted ″The Garden Imagined by Huang Zhouxing″ to ″The Late Ming and the Late Qing: Historical Dynamics and Cultural Innovations″ workshop held by Peking University in 2012. I am interested in Huang Zhouxing. I think he was a Taoist of Qingwei School, and he submerged himself because of inextricable loyalism together with extremely ecstasy over Taoist ″fly upward;″ the ″Jiangjiu Garden″ he imagined, as you said, is a heavenly utopian paradise embodied by thechuanqi,Rentianle. The submergence and ″flying upward″ was just releasing Huang himself from purgatory into his dream garden. Being a Ming loyalist as well, is Chen Chen related to Huang Zhouxing’s such utopian thought? And as far as I know, many American scholars are paying close attention to such fantasy of Chinese Ming-Qing literati. What is the source of Ming-Qing literati’s such Utopian thought? Is it linked with Zhuangzi’s ″wuheyouzhixiang″(a world where nothing really exists) thought and Tao Yuanming’s ″taohuayuan″(the Peach Garden) thought?

Ellen Widmer: As you can imagine, I saw a connection between Chen Chen’s utopianism and that of Huang Zhouxing(黄周星). It was the first project that prepared me to do the second. I was also interested in Huang Zhouxing’s interest in fiction (especiallyXiyouji), an interest that ran parallel to Chen’s interest inShuihuzhuan. I believe there is an intimate connection between Ming loyalism and utopianism in these two writers and perhaps in other writers, such as Dong Yue (董说). I also believe one could find a deep connection between all three interests: in Ming loyalism, in fiction, and in utopianism if one brought in other writers; but mine was a rather narrow study and I did not attempt to draw a large conclusion on this matter.

I think it is very possible that the utopia in Chen Chen’s novel refers in part to concepts developed earlier by Zhuangzi and Tao Yuanming. However, there seems to be something else going on, perhaps a reference to Zheng Chenggong’s brief rule on Taiwan. But it may also be something about the wayShuihuzhuanitself is constructed that led to the utopian theme. I have written an article on how novels elsewhere in East Asia move fromShuihuto the theme of travel abroad when things don’t go well to utopian settings. The novels I had in mind were The Story of Hong Giltong from Korea (sixteenth century) and Takizawa Bakin’s Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki of the nineteenth century. The Japanese example was directly influenced byShuihuhouzhuan. All three novels usedShuihu-based materials but end up in island kingdoms off the coast of China.

Zhao Hongjuan: You have a wide research vision! The similarity of island kingdoms off the coast of China in The Story of Hong Giltong, Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki andShuihuhouzhuan, and its relationship with the original framework ofShuihuzhuan, as you said, will be inspiring to the studies ofShuihuzhuanand its sequels in Chinese mainland.

Ⅱ

Zhao Hongjuan: Your research pays attention to not only things like textual research of literature and close reading of text, but also gender. For example, you connect women with Ming-Qing fiction, studying issues like women’s interest in fiction, and the impact of women’s attention to fiction writing. You are the author of monographs including ″Ming Loyalism and the?Women’s Voice inHongloumengSequels,″ ″HongloumengSequels and Their Female Readers in Nineteenth-Century China,″ ″Jinghuayuanin female readers’ eyes″ andTheBeautyandtheBook:WomenandFictioninNineteenth-CenturyChina. Could you say something about your studies and main achievements?

Ellen Widmer: My studyTheBeautyandtheBookbegins with theory developed by Ian Watt about the novel in England, which has to do with the rise of women readers and then writers of novels. Although the situation in China is very different, it seems to me that women readers did help to shape the development of this form, particularly when it comes to sequels toHongloumeng(TheDreamofRedMansion). Although the first known sequel to be authored by a woman is Gu Taiqing’sHongloumengyingof 1877, almost one hundred years before that one starts to see signs that women were readingHongloumengand responding to it in their poems. The various sequels toHongloumengalso give evidence that women could be respected critics of fiction; and the plots often seem to be responsive to women’s concerns. I do not want to claim that the sequels were necessarily great literature, but they are signs of a growing interest among women in the novel and growing involvement with the form. And at the very end of the chain of sequels an actual woman novelist emerges. This development is completely independent of the influence of the West on so many aspects of Chinese life that begins at the end of the nineteenth century.

After 1985, when Hu Wenkai’s (胡文楷) revisedLidaifunüzhuzuokao(《历代妇女著作考》)，came out, I thought it would be interesting better to understand how women fit into the picture of Chinese literature. No one talked about women in connection with the Ming-Qing fiction field when I was in graduate school, and I thought that Hu Wenkai’s book, plus all the material by women available in libraries, would give me a good chance to discover some answers. Also, at the same time, other scholars were getting interested in this problem, so it was possible to organize panels and conferences with them and to learn more that way. But the main point was that I wanted to take the training I acquired under Professor Han Nan and turn it in this new direction. One hypothesis that emerged from my own and others’ research is that Chinese women underwent waves of development in certain eras. If one looks only at Jiangnan, one can see development at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing, and also from the late-eighteenth to the late-nineteenth centuries. The second of these two periods, but not the first, had ramifications in the field of fiction, where women could be readers (not just oftanci, but also ofzhanghuixiaoshuo) and even writers.

Zhao Hongjuan: Your article ″Foreign Travel through a Woman’s Eyes: Shan Shili’sGuimaolüxingji(《癸卯旅行记》) in Local and Global Perspective″ reveals the historical and social meaning of the travel notes writing of Shan Shili(单士厘), a woman in the late Qing, and widely catches attention of academia. It is included in books like Transformation and Reformation — Literature and Arts in the Late Ming and the Late Qing edited by Hu Xiaozhen, and Beyond Area Studies: Selected Western Scholarship on Modern Chinese History edited by Dong Yue. Could you tell us why you would become interested in Shan Shili, and what is the distinctiveness of this article?

Ellen Widmer: In the essay on Shan Shili I was trying to do three things. First, the year 1903 was a time that China was just beginning to experience the full shock of world modernization and to realize that vast policy changes would have to be made. I wanted to put this big point in the center. I also wanted to consider the implications of the idea that some people focused on women as a way of bringing about significant change. Even though I do believe that Chinese women experienced change and development before the end of the nineteenth century, the kind of changes that began around 1900 were different from those found earlier, especially in their connection to other parts of the world. Shan Shili is a particularly interesting case study. She is very different from Qiu Jin(秋瑾), who has attracted so much attention, and yet in her own way she had very modern ideas. I was also interested in her tie to old-fashionedguixiu(闺秀) culture, particularly her interest in extending Yun Zhu’s(恽珠)Guochaoguixiuzhengshiji(《国朝闺秀正始集》). I’m sure like many other women, Shan tried to be modern, but she retained conservative interests at the same time.

Zhao Hongjuan: It is really refreshing of you to interpret the women travel notes in a cross-disciplinary perspective and a comparative-study vision. I have a doubt about your research on women’s literary activities. According to your article ″The Literary Network Among Chinese Women in the Nineteenth Century″ in theJournalofTsinghuaUniversity(No.3, 2008), Chinese women’s literary activity in the eighteenth century is bleak, while as you wrote in ″Guangdong’s Talented Women of the Eighteenth Century″ in theJournalofSunYat-SenUniversity(No.3, 2009), it seems that you prove the former view wrong by the fact that women’s literary activity in Guangdong in the eighteenth century did not decline (as to the examples, there seem to be only eight names of female writers in Guangdong). Is it my misunderstanding, or your adjustment to the former point of view, or inaccuracy of your ideas because both articles are translated?

Ellen Widmer: This is a particularly good question. I believe that if one looks outside of Jiangnan one can find different patterns than if Jiangnan is the sole focus. I have not yet studied Guangdong deeply, but I hope to have a chance do so. It is of course true that Guangdong is not completely disconnected from Jiangnan, but it seems to have rhythms of its own. So, yes, I do believe that Guangdong’s women’s culture may not have undergone the same retraction in the eighteenth century that one finds in Jiangnan, or at least that the retraction might have taken a different form. I do not see this as a contradiction with other research I have done but rather as a reminder that we who do research on the Ming and Qing should try and branch out more to other parts of China.

Ⅲ

Zhao Hongjuan: Your field of study is actually very extensive. Besides the issue of Ming-Qing literature and gender, your interest is attracted by history of books, missionary and families in the late Qing. Now I am studying the editing and publishing activities of distinguished families in late-Ming Jiangnan area. I find your theses on the history of books, such like ″The Huanduzhai of Hangzhou and Suzhou: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Publishing″ and ″Modernization without Mechanization: The Changing Shape of Fiction on the Eve of the Opium War,″ have much influence in academia. Could you talk about what questions are mostly focused in these theses and what is the main point?

Ellen Widmer: There are ties between the topics of publishing and missionaries and the topic of women. The article on Huanduzhai(还读斋)was written much earlier in my career, when I was only just becoming interested in women. (It also has a strong tie to my earlier interest in Huang Zhouxing.) The collection at the center of this piece, Wang Qi’s (汪淇)Chiduxinyu(《尺牍新语》), does contain quite a few writings women’s writings. It was partly because of this collection that I began to find out about some of the famous women writers of the late-Ming and early-Qing. The other article you talk about is less specifically about women, but it explores patterns in book publication from around the time of the Taiping rebellion. It also brings in parallels between the ways missionaries and Chinese publishers distributed books and what they wanted to accomplish in doing so. This research helped me better to understand questions about publishing, audiences, and women’s relationship to book culture during the nineteenth century, questions that I took up more centrally inTheBeautyandtheBook. The idea that book culture and women’s culture saw development before the end of the nineteenth century is another that I return to inTheBeautyandtheBook.

These two articles are about how fiction was produced and distributed, but the emphasis is still on fiction. The Huanduzhai article is especially interested in a version ofXiyoujithat was turned out by the firm. It appears to be the first version to contain the ninth chapter. I was also interested in what besides novels a certain kind of publishing house would turn out. In Huanduzhai’s case these included works on medicine, business, and other topics. I was trying to build up a sense of the context in which a firm that published novels conducted its full range of operations. The article on modernization without mechanization is more interested in distribution than in printing per se. There I look atJinghuayuanin conjunction with the novels in Chinese that were turned out by missionaries in the nineteenth century. One conclusion is that missionaries took advantage of networks that were developing in China but they did not create those networks. Both Chinese and Western works of fiction reached more readers in the nineteenth century because of growing interest among Chinese readers and sensitivity of booksellers to profits that could be made from fiction, or, in the case of missionaries, of the power of fiction to change readers’ minds.

Zhao Hongjuan: I notice that you editedChina’sChristianColleges:Cross-culturalConnections, 1900-1950 with Daniel H. Bays, and this book is referred in your article ″The Seven Sisters and China, 1900-1950.″ Could you talk about the objective of editing this book and the main idea of your thesis?

Ellen Widmer: Professor Bays and I ran two conferences. One was about the materials on missionary experience that can be found in college archives. There is a lot of correspondence from missionaries abroad that can be found in such places, and we wanted to make it more accessible to readers. The other conference was the basis for the volume that emerged. We wanted to emphasize that missionary experience had an effect not just on China but on American, British, and other cultures as well. My essay on the Seven Sisters starts out by showing what drew American undergraduates to China and what effects their experience abroad had on their home schools. In the case of Wellesley College, the study of East Asia on campus was closely connected to missionary experience.

Zhao Hongjuan: In recent years, you seem to be interested in Zhan family in the late Qing. Not only publishing several thesis but also going to its home, Qu zhou in Zhejiang Province, for an investigation, will you publish a book soon in this field? Could you introduce your studies and main harvest in this field?

Ellen Widmer: Yes, I have a book on the Zhan family. It is about to come out from Harvard East Asia Center. I believe it will be out in the fall. Its title is Fiction’s Family: Zhan Xi, Zhan Kai and the Business of Women in Late Qing China. Here I focus on a family of four. The mother, Wang Qingdi (王庆棣), and the father, Zhan Sizeng (詹嗣增), were writers during the second half of the nineteenth century. Two of their four sons, Zhan Xi (詹熙) and Zhan Kai (詹垲), wrote reformist novels at the end of the Qing. Concentrating on these people, I discuss several questions. First, there is a comparison between these two generations of writers. One major reason for difference is the advent of print journalism, especially in Shanghai. Another question is about the mother’s relationship to the new expressions of feminine frustration, which begin (more or less) withShenbao(《申报》) in 1872. In fact a few writings by the mother do appear in this periodical. However, it is the mother’s old-fashioned poems, not her short pieces inShenbao, that indicate personal unhappiness. This unhappiness developed toward the end of her life, when she felt abandoned. Relatedly, I ask whether her sense of abandonment played any role in the decisions of two of her sons to write reformist novels. Lastly, I go into detail about each of the two brothers’ careers in order better to understand how novel writing fit into the rest of their lives. Issues such as female employment and the merits and demerits of courtesans receive attention, particularly in connection with Zhan Kai’s writings. The overall point of the project is to use the small compass of one family to understand more about the larger dynamics of the late Qing.

Ⅳ

Zhao Hongjuan: Acknowledged by academia, Mr Han Nan is one of the most scholars in Classical Chinese fiction. In a very long teaching career, he trained many students of different style. You are the senior student of Mr Han Nan, and I had the opportunity to acquaint with you in the memorial to him held by Harvard University. Could you say something about his research and the feature of his studies?

Ellen Widmer: I valued his teaching because he wanted students to follow their own interests. He did not try to control us, and we have all turned out very differently. He himself changed quite a bit during the time I knew him. At the beginning he was primarily a scholar of literary history, but at the end of his career he became very interested in translation.

Zhao Hongjuan: Mr Han Nan’s studies are skilled in textual research and goes in a way of Puxue. Are you influenced by him in the studies of Chinese literature? Could you talk about your academic background and philosophy of study?

Ellen Widmer: Of course Professor Han Nan had a huge influence on me. He basically introduced me to the whole field of Ming-Qing fiction. I knew nothing about it when I started graduate school at Harvard in the fall of 1972. I had heard ofHongloumeng, but not of any other novel. Beyond that, he introduced me tokaozheng(考证) methodology, told me how to use the libraries that were open to Americans when I wrote my thesis (we could not go to mainland China at the time), then later helped me to get a scholarship to go to China in 1982 so I could read Chen Chen’s poems in Beijing. He also advised me as I wrote my thesis. It was through Professor Han Nan that I began to understand that if one knew what was in which library, and if one approached rare materials in a scientific spirit, one could discover new points of interest in Chinese literature. Furthermore we stayed in regular touch for the rest of his life. He always knew what I was working on, and I always knew what he was working on. One could really say that we became friends.

As an undergraduate I majored in political science and knew virtually nothing about China. But I became interested in China’s rather hostile view of the US and its very different sense of how to govern. When I went to graduate school I thought I might major in archaeology, but then I met Professor Han Nan and wanted to work with him. The theory behind my studies is only that the Chinese novel is a very interesting variant on the novel form. When one studies who wrote novels in China, who read them, who distributed them, and how they were constructed one gets a picture of how they evolved before Western influence set in.

Zhao Hongjuan: From Ming-Qing fiction and loyalists to Ming-Qing fiction and women, from Ming-Qing fiction to history of missionary and family, could you briefly introduce your transformation of academic interest and the reason of that?

Ellen Widmer: On the question about my interest in novels before the influence of the West became so strong, an example can be seen inHongloumeng. There one finds evidence of a style of writing fiction that has nothing to do with Western influence. The way point of view is used to develop characters, the fact that some characters only connect other characters but are not important themselves, and the way events are predicted long before they actually take place — these are examples of features not found in the same way in Western fiction. On the evolution of my interests, I am much influenced by what colleagues are studying. When I go to conferences I listen to presentations and from them get ideas of my own. The only one of my interests that doesn’t quite fit this pattern is the one on missionaries. I have long been fascinated by the missionary experience and what it meant for both the Chinese and the Western sides.

Zhao Hongjuan: It gives me great pleasure and benefit to talk with you. Your philological foundation, extensive vision, inter-disciplinary method and innovation in research fill me with admiration. Thank you again for taking the time to accept my interview. Having worked in Huzhou for nearly twenty years, I am very familiar with Changxing and Nanxun in the city. Qian Xun and Shan Shili lived in Changxing, and Chen Chen lived in Nanxun. I welcome you to go there and conduct an investigation in the future.

Ellen Widmer: And thank you for your final comment. I always wanted to get to the places you mention and have never been there. Perhaps we will be able to visit them together some day.

Innovation: Professor Ellen Widmer has abundant research achievements and a great influence on Chinese and American sinology. Late last year Peking University Press published her bookTheBeautyandtheBook, which raised attention in mainland China; the sixth issue of theFudanJournal(SocialSciencesEdition) in 2015 published Yuan Jin’s ″The Host’s Words″ and Professor Widmer’s ″Beauties and Books: Chinese Women and Novels in 19th Century.″ However, there has not been an interview about her in Chinese academia until now. This interview focuses on her researches into fiction and loyalists, women’s literature, publication and missionary, and families. It reveals the features of Professor Widmer’s research: wide interest and vision around fiction, emphasis on textual research of literature and close reading of text, and focus on the perspective of gender. From this interview, one can not only have a more comprehensive understanding of the academic achievements, philosophy and background of Professor Widmer, but also can see overseas scholars’ vision and methods different to Chinese peers in their studies.

Fiction， Gender， History and Culture: An Interview of Professor Ellen Widmer，a Famous American Sinologist

Zhao Hongjuan Ellen Widmer

(1.InstituteofHumanities，ZhejiangInternationalStudiesUniversity，Hangzhou310023，China；2.DepartmentofEastAsianLanguagesandCultures，WellesleyCollege，Wellesley,MA02481,USA)

Ellen Widmer is professor of East Asian Studies and Mayling Soong Professor of Chinese Studies at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of Wellesley College; she is also professor at Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. She has contributed distinctive researches on issues including Ming-Qing fiction and Ming loyalism, Ming-Qing fiction and women, Ming-Qing fiction and publication, the history of books and the history of Christian mission. She thinks thatShuihuHouzhuanprobably does not deserve to be ranked as a first-rate classic, but its value as a manifestation of how the novel form took shape in China under the influence of Jin Shengtan and others is remarkable. The novel was used by its author, Chen Chen, to express political alienation and dissent; introducing the idea of fiction’s capability of expressing personal emotion put Chen ahead of his time. Chen Chen’s loyalism may be related to the utopia in his novel, and such utopia perhaps is a reference to Zheng Chenggong’ s rule in Taiwan while referring in part to concepts developed earlier by Zhuangzi and Tao Yuanming; it may also be something about the wayTheWaterMarginitself is constructed that led to the Utopian theme.TheStoryofHongGiltongfrom Korea (the sixteenth century) and Takizawa Bakin’sChinsetsuYumiharizukiof the nineteenth century usedTheWaterMargin-based materials but end up with the establishing of island kingdoms off the coast of China. Chinese women underwent waves of development in certain eras. If one looks only at Jiangnan area, one can see development at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing, and also from the late-eighteenth to the late-nineteenth centuries. The latter of these two periods had ramifications in the field of fiction, where women could be readers, critics, and even writers. Women readers help to shape the development of fiction, particularly when it comes to sequels toTheDreamofRedMansion. The various sequels toTheDreamofRedMansiongive evidence that women could be respected critics of fiction; and the plots often seem to be responsive to women’s concerns. Although the sequels were not necessarily great literature, they are signs of a growing interest among women in the novel and growing involvement with the form. And at the very end of the chain of sequels an actual woman novelist emerged — Gu Taiqing, who wroteHongloumengyingin 1877. This development is completely independent of the influence of the West, which affects so many aspects of Chinese life since the end of the nineteenth century. There are ties between the topics of publishing and missionaries and the topic of women. Publication culture and women’s culture developed before the end of the nineteenth century, and both Chinese and Western works of fiction gained more readers in the nineteenth century because of growing interest among Chinese readers and sensitivity of booksellers to profits that could be made from fiction, or, in the case of missionaries, of awareness of the power of fiction to change readers’ minds. When one studies who wrote novels in China, who read them, who distributed them, and how they were constructed one gets a picture of how the form of novel evolved before Western influence set in.

Ellen Widmer; fiction; gender;ShuihuHouzhuan; sequels toTheDreamofRedMansion； publication

10.3785/j.issn.1008-942X.CN33-6000/C.2016.01.122

2016-01-12

[本刊网址·在线杂志] http://www.journals.zju.edu.cn/soc

[在线优先出版日期] 2016-09-30 [网络连续型出版物号] CN33-6000/C

国家社科基金一般项目(10BZW050)

1.赵红娟(http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4512-3165)，女，浙江外国语学院中文学院教授，文学博士，主要从事中国古代小说研究； 2.魏爱莲(http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1559-1950)，女，美国维斯理学院东亚系教授，文学博士，主要从事中国明清文学研究。