THE DISCOVERY OF CHINESE CHANTEFABLE NARRATIVES FROM THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY: A REASSESSMENT OF THEIR LIKELY AUDIENCE

Abstract

In 1972, famed Chinese scholar Zhao Jingshen reported on the discovery of narrative texts in chantefable form (shuochang cihua) which were published in the late fifteenth century and placed as funerary objects in the tomb of a member of the Xuan family of Jiading county outside modern Shanghai. The discovery of these unique examples of a vernacular narrative genre based on oral storytelling aroused considerable interest. In a one-page report published in WENWU, a local team of archaeologists asserted that the texts, which consisted of twelve volumes of the shuochana cihua genre and one early nanxi-style drama, were probably placed in the tomb of a woman who may well have been the wife of a vice-prefect known as Xuan Chang. Gail King interviewed the archaeological team who investigated the find and subsequently published a much more detailed description of the discovery in MING STUDIES. In recent western scholarship, the chantefable texts have come to be described as expensive deluxe editions designed to be read by women of the leisured elite class.