5 Appropriating Genius: Jin Shengtan’s Construction of Textual Authority and Authorship in His Commented Edition of Shuihu Zhuan (The Water Margin Saga)

Abstract

Jin Shengtan is a great name in traditional Chinese literary criticism. His commentary edition of Shuihu zhuan , which he entitled Di-wu caizi shu Shi Nai'an Shuihu zhuan ( The Fifth Book of Genius: Shi Nai'an's Water Margin Saga , latest preface 1641), stands out as a monument in his critical oeuvre, and in the history of editions of Chinese literature. This chapter suggests that the edited and commented text that he published some twenty-five years later was the result of this early stage of juvenile enthusiasm. Although Jin Shengtan's commented Water Margin edition is considered as a milestone in the history of Chinese fiction publishing and literary criticism, the circumstances of the original production of this edition have remained largely unstudied. As one point on which there is some confusion in modern research on Jin Shengtan, Guanhuatang has long been assumed to have been the studio name of a friend of Jin's. Keywords: Chinese literature; Guanhuatang; Jin Shengtan; juvenile enthusiasm; Shuihu zhuan; traditional Chinese literary criticism