Who am 'I' in the Ming and Qing? First-person Dynamics in Modern Prose (時文 shiwen) Examination Essays and Classical Prose (古文 guwen) Prefaces

• 영문명: Who am 'I' in the Ming and Qing? First-person Dynamics in Modern Prose (時文 shiwen) Examination Essays and Classical Prose (古文 guwen) Prefaces
• 발행기관: 고려대학교 한자한문연구소
• 저자명: Alexander Des Forges
• 간행물 정보: 『동아한학연구』제15호, 9~46쪽, 전체 38쪽
• 주제분류: 어문학 > 언어학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2021.03.30

국문 초록

The ideal dynamic of preface composition in the Ming and Qing constitutes the inverse of the civil service examination regime: instead of an evaluation of texts whose authors are temporarily anonymous, prefaces to literary collections should result from face-to-face acquaintance and ensuing friendship, followed eventually by an exchange of texts. Increasingly over the course of the Ming and Qing, prefaces make use of the first-person pronoun yu to draw the reader into the intimate friendships that serve as context for the sharing of writings. On looking more closely into the new popularity of first-person usages, however, we find that the apparent contrast with civil service examination writing is neither trivial nor simple: yu serves to indicate that the individual voice has emerged as a newly pressing problem in this period. Indeed, in other prefaces, the first-person wu begins to index a more abstract, even hypothetical mood, reminding the reader of the complicated dynamics of abstraction and reflexivity characteristic of the “representative speech” thought to define modern prose examination essays (shiwen) as a genre. Classical prose (guwen) of the Ming and Qing makes itself a comfortable home in opposition to examination essays as a genre and consistently represents itself as a privileged expression of the author’s inner state. Yet insofar as classical prose was produced and consumed through social practice, this distinction between writing for oneself and writing for another turns out to be difficult to maintain. The particular emphasis some Qing preface writers place on concrete accounts of personal relationships is symptomatic of a broader unease with this alienated literary sociality: prefaces to collected writings tend to become more careful about distinguishing between individuals that the preface writer knows personally and those he does not. It should come as no surprise that in the seventeenth century, once “speaking for others” had become the conventional standard for examination writing, and writing prefaces for their social exchange value had come to dominate the literary market, authors’ choice of first-person pronoun becomes increasingly fraught.

목차

1. Introduction

2. Two First-Person Pronouns: Yu and Wu

3. The First Person in the Examination System

4. The First Person in the Literary Market

5. Anxieties about Authenticity

Bibliography

키워드

preface eight-legged essay paratext gift exchange cultural capital