MCLC: huaben xiaoshuo (8)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Timothy Wong <TIMOTHY.WONG at asu.edu>
Subject: huaben xiaoshuo (8)
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Since the one-sentence request for what I took was a translation of the
term 话本小说 has stimulated a much greater discussion of what such 小说 is,
may 
I draw attention to Vibeke Bordahl's excellent article on "Storytellers'
Scripts in the Yangzhou pinghua Tradition" in the journal Acta Orientalia,
2005:66, 227-296.  Professor Bordahl's examination of two actual scripts
handed down from master to student in Yangzhou comes to what I think are
important conclusions of what the tradition of oral storytelling was in
China, including the use of written scripts, as 话本 were thought to be.
Among her conclusions is the statement that "A script--in the sense of a
prompt-book used by a prompter . . . -- . . . is unthinkable in the
setting of Chinese storytelling. . . . The better part of the performance
had to be improvised according to style and mannerisms learned during
years of training since youth [p. 231]."

She does not say much directly about 话本, but does stress that "the varying
linguistic usage of patterns and markers constituting the framework of the
'manner' are nevertheless strong indicators of the interdependence between
spoken language and written representation during the centuries of
establishment of the vernacular style [p. 233]."  Such interdependence was
only minimal in 文言, the written language that was both dominant and
revered.  We still need to ask WHY 话本 was ever written down by someone
like Feng Menglong, and (most importantly) set in print for a reading
public, and evidently loved, not initially by "the masses," but by the
literate elite before printing and literacy became truly widespread in
China.    

Tim Wong