The Scholars is a Chinese novel authored by Wu Jingzi

Wu Jingzi

Wu Jingzi was a Chinese scholar and writer who was born in the city now known as Chuzhou, Anhui and who died in Yangzhou, Jiangsu.-Biography:...

 (吳敬梓) and completed in 1750 during the Qing Dynasty

Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

.

Set in the Ming

Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...

 period, the novel describes and often satirizes Chinese scholars in a vernacular Chinese

Vernacular Chinese

Written Vernacular Chinese refers to forms of written Chinese based on the vernacular language, in contrast to Classical Chinese, the written standard used from the Spring and Autumn Period to the early twentieth century...

 idiom, although in a style that is more highbrow than the other famous vernacular novels. The first and last chapters portray recluses, but most of the loosely-connected stories that form the bulk of the novel are didactic and satiric stories, on the one hand holding up exemplary Confucian behavior, but on the other ridiculing over-ambitious scholars and criticizing the civil service examination system.

Promoting naturalistic attitudes over belief in the supernatural, the author rejects the popular belief in retribution: his bad characters suffer no punishment. The characters in these stories are intellectuals, perhaps based on the author's friends and contemporaries. Wu also portrays women sympathetically: the chief character Du treats his wife as a companion instead of as an inferior. Although it is a satiric novel, a major incident in the novel is Du's attempt to renovate his family's ancestral temple, suggesting the author shared with Du a belief in the importance of Confucianism

Confucianism

Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...

.

Structure

Chinese commentators have traditionally seen The Scholars as having a loose structure. The famous author Lu Xun

Lu Xun

Lu Xun or Lu Hsün , was the pen name of Zhou Shuren , one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the leading figure of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in baihua as well as classical Chinese...

 wrote that "the novel has no central linking element" and is more like "a group of short stories". Hu Shi echoed this view, writing that the novel "lacks a general structural basis". The same opinion has been put forth by Western scholars. James R. Hightower described the work as "amorphous and plotless". However, more recent scholarship by Zbigniew Slupski detects organization in The Scholars on three levels. The first is the anecdotal level, in which the work can be divided into various "units" centered around a comical fact or occurrence. The second level is that of biography, in which the author constructs a multifaceted view of main characters in the work. An example is the portrayal of Zhou Jin, the elderly examination candidate. The final level is that of autobiography, the author's attitude toward the events of the story. This is revealed in chapter titles, poems, and occasional narrative interludes.

Chapter 37

Chapter 37 of the novel depicts in great detail a Confucian ceremony honoring a Confucian sage of antiquity, Wu Taibo. Both modern and Qing Dynasty commentators have noted that this chapter constitutes the "high point" and "structural apex" of the novel. Shang Wei believes that the chapter points to Wu Jingzi's simultaneous desire to follow Confucian ritual and his need to critique it.

Editions

The earliest extant edition of The Scholars is the 1803 Wo Xian Caotang edition, commonly referred to as the "Wo" edition. This was followed in 1816 by the Qingjiang Pu Zhu Li Ge ("Qing") and Yi Gu Tang ("Yi") editions, which are both essentially copies of the Wo edition. The Suzhou

Suzhou

Suzhou , previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part...

 Fan Shi Chao ("Chao") edition was the personal reading edition of a Qing Dynasty

Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

 official. While this edition was quite rare, the following Suzhou Qun Yu Ji ("Su") edition was quite popular, and there are many extant versions of it in circulation. The first Shen Bao Guan ("Shen One") edition corrected the mistakes of previous editions, and the second Shen Bao Guan edition ("Shen Two") carried these corrections further.

In addition to further corrections, the Ji edition greatly shortened the text, by for example deleting characters' titles. The Zeng Bu Ji Sheng Tang ("Zeng Bu Ji") edition added four additional chapters of text to the novel. The Commercial Press

Commercial Press

-History:In 1897, 26-year-old Xia Ruifang and three of his friends founded The Commercial Press in Shanghai. The group soon received financial backing and began publishing books. In 1914, Xia attempted to buy out a Japanese company that had invested in the Commercial Press. Four days later he was...

 edition of The Scholars was arranged according to the Shen Two edition, and made further corrections to the text. The Yadong edition was first published in 1920, and reissued a number of times in subsequent years. The 16th edition was released in 1948. This version of the text has greatly influenced modern printings of the novel.

Translations

• The Scholars (tr. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang) HC ISBN 0-231-08153-7 PB ISBN 0-231-08153-7
• Wu Ching-Tzu. "The Scholars." tr. Yang Hsein-yi, Gladys Yang. Foreign Language Press, Beijing: 2004. ISBN 7-119-01213-4.

Further reading

• Paul S. Ropp, Dissent in Early Modern China : Ju-Lin Wai-Shih and Ch'ing Social Criticism (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981).

External links

• The Scholars - various formats available
• Bilingual (Chinese-English) version