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Jin Ping Mei

A Ming dynasty novel of manners with explicit sexuality and moral structure.

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Jin Ping Mei

via Wikipedia: Jin Yong · see source

The title comes from the names of three central female characters: Pan Jinlian, Li Ping'er, and Pang Chunmei.[1] The story centers on Ximen Qing, a corrupt merchant who marries six wives and concubines, and is set during the years 1111–1127.[2] Composed in vernacular Chinese during the latter half of the 16th century, the late Ming dynasty novel Jin Ping Mei contains one hundred chapters.[3]

Making and release

The novel was published under the pseudonym Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng, with the author hailing from Lanling County in present-day Shandong.[3] Arthur Waley suggested Xu Wei as a candidate, while other proposed authors include Wang Shizhen, Li Kaixian, and Tang Xianzu.[4][5] The novel is framed as a spin-off from Water Margin, with its beginning chapter based on an episode from that work.[2] A later translation by David Tod Roy was published from 1993 to 2013.[6]

By 1596, the novel was already being passed around in handwritten copies, and it might have been edited further before its initial print publication in 1610.[3] No one has definitively identified the author, yet the consistent style and balanced narrative structure suggest a single writer was responsible.[4] In 2011, Xu Yongming, a scholar from Zhejiang University, put forward Bai Yue as a possible author of the novel.[7] In Water Margin, Wu Song kills Ximen Qing, but in Jin Ping Mei, Jinlian gives Ximen Qing too many aphrodisiacs, causing his death.[2]

What the cited sources add

The early Qing critic Zhang Zhupo remarked that those who regard Jin Ping Mei as pornographic "read only the pornographic passages".[8] Lu Xun called it "the most famous of the novels of manners" of the Ming dynasty and reported Yuan Hongdao's opinion that it was "a classic second only to Shui Hu Zhuan".[8] Andrew H. Plaks ranks Jin Ping Mei as one of the "Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel" along with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, and Journey to the West.[9] The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature reports that Jin Ping Mei draws on vernacular tales, pornography, historical works, plays, popular songs, jokes, and prosimetric texts, plus non-literary materials like official gazettes, contracts, and menus.[10][11]

The work makes heavy use of borrowed and quoted material from other writers.[10][11] Ximen has 19 sexual partners, among them his six wives and a male servant, and the novel contains 72 explicit sexual encounters.[12][13] Although the novel exceeds one million words, sexually graphic passages make up under three percent of the whole.[12][13]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Jin Ping Mei" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lu (1923) p.408 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Jin Ping Mei" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Paul S. Ropp, "The Distinctive Art of Chinese Fiction," in Ropp, ed., The Heritage of China: Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese Civilization. (Berkeley; Oxfor (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Jin Ping Mei" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Michael Dillon, China: A Cultural and Historical Dictionary, Routledge, 1998, , pp.163–164; Lu (1923) p.408 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Jin Ping Mei" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Arthur Waley, "Introduction," to Shizhen Wang, translated from the German of Franz Kuhn by Bernard Miall, Chin P'ing Mei: The Adventurous History of Hsi Men and (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Jin Ping Mei" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Liu Wu-Chi. An Introduction to Chinese Literature. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Jin Ping Mei" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Wai-Yee Li, "Full-Length Vernacular Fiction," in V. Mair, (ed.), The Columbia History of Chinese Literature (NY: Columbia University Press, 2001). p. 640-642. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Jin Ping Mei" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Yongming, "A New Candidate for Authorship of the Jin Ping Mei: Bai Yue 白悦 (1499–1551)", Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, 2011, p. 55–74 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Jin Ping Mei" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Wai-Yee Li, "Full-Length Vernacular Fiction," in V. Mair, (ed.), The Columbia History of Chinese Literature (NY: Columbia University Press, 2001). p. 640-642.; Lu Xun. A Brief History of Chinese Fiction (1923; Foreign Languages Press, 1959). Translated by G. Yang and Yang Xianyi. p. 232, 235. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Jin Ping Mei" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Andrew H. Plaks, Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987), esp. pp. 497–98.; Doan, "The True-False Pattern in the Jin Ping Mei", Ming Studies, 1981-01-01, p. 35–54; Hightower, "Chinese Literature in the Context of World Literature", Comparative Literature, 1953, p. 117–124; Sun, "The Structure and Achievements of Jin Ping Mei", Renditions, Autumn 1985, p. 102–108 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Jin Ping Mei" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature", Cambridge University Press, 2010 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Open Library record, ISBN 9780521855587 ("The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
  12. Wikipedia, "Jin Ping Mei" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hinsch, "Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China", University of California Press, 1992, p. 135; Ruan, Matsumura (1991) p. 95; Ruan, "Sex in China: Studies in Sexology in Chinese Culture", Plenum Press, 1991, p. 101 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  13. Open Library record, ISBN 9780520078697 ("Passions of the Cut Sleeve"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Jin Ping Mei (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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