Taming the Monkey

Abstract

This article challenges common assumptions about the history and function of the classic Chinese novel the Xiyou ji, arguing that it served an important ritual and liturgical function before and after it was reconceived as a work of secular literature. The novel is considered from two related perspectives. The first is the early history of its European and North American translations. Arthur Waley’s celebrated abridgment marked an important turning point in a long tradition of interpreting the novel for a Western audience. Prior to Waley, most translators remarked – with either curiosity or exasperation – on the novel’s influence on popular religious practice and belief. Following Waley, however, the novel was consistently portrayed as a work of fiction, and its religious imagery was downplayed or dismissed as inconsequential. The second perspective explored here is that of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Chinese reformers who sought to enlist the Xiyou ji in their vision of a new, modern, and secular China. The efforts of these intellectuals and officials, influenced to a degree by Western missionaries and scholars, effectively transformed the Xiyou ji into work of secular, entertaining fiction.