Tang Studies 26 (2008) A STRUCTURAL STUDY OF NINTH-CENTURY ANECDOTES ON "ORIGINAL EVENTS" YUEHONG Harvard Universi ty Beginning in the ninth century, as interest in the circumstances of poetic composition increased, anecdotes on the subject of benshi *$ (original events) became popular. Two contemporary collections, Meng Qi's ~~ (fl. 841-886) Benshi shi *$~ and Fan Shu's ill:tJi: (fl. 875-888) Yunxi youyi ~1~~~~, include many such anecdotes. 1 In his preface to Benshi shi, Meng Qi argues that understanding the circumstances of a poem's composition is essential to understanding its meaning. "If the circumstances [of a poem's composition] are not revealed," he writes, "who will comprehend its significance?" (/f~~:t~, $A~Jj ~). 2 In other words, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the specific connection between a poet, his poem, and the compositional circumstances, with individual poems widely understood to represent a poet's emotional response to a particular event. Traditionally, Chinese scholars have viewed anecdotes on "original events" as valuable historical documents from which to learn important details of the lives and work of individual poets.3 As such, much scholarly effort has focused on I would like to thank Stephen Owen and Xiaofei Tian for reading and commenting on various drafts of this paper. I am grateful to Tim Chan for his meticulous reading and many constructive comments. Thanks also to Ding Xiang Warner for her suggestions on the final version. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Paul Kroll for showing me the beauty of classical Chinese poetry. 1 Benshi shi (preface dated 866) is a collection of anecdotes on the subject of poetic composition. Two English translations of Benshi shi are available: Howard S. Levy, "The Original Incidents of Poems," Sinologica 10 (1969): 6-54, and Graham Sanders, "Poetry in Narrative: Meng Ch'i (fl. 841-886) and True Stories of Poems (Pen-shih shih)" (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1996). 2 Wang Meng'ou I:&=~~, Tangrenxiaoshuo yanjiu sanji: Benshi shijiaobu kaoshi mA/J\~1:iJf~= ~: *~~1'X*~~~ (Taipei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 1974; hereafter Benshi shijiaobu kaoshi), 29. 3 This approach is prevalent throughout traditional Chinese poetic criticism. By way of example, consider that in Tiaoxi Yuyin conghua houji 131~~~ltl~31~~, Hu Zi iijHf (fl. 1147-1167) suggests that an anecdote featuring Wei Yingwu's *ff!~m (737-ca. 792) composition of a romantic poem at a party illustrates Wei's "gallant and unrestrained" (haozong buji ~~~fi) personality. See Hu Zi, Tiaoxi yuyin conghua houji (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1962), 9.64. Another approach to ninth-century anecdotes on "original events" in modern scholarship addresses their relationship to shihua ~~3, or "remarks on poetry." See Luo Ligang *liLIlifJU, "Lun Tang Wudai 65 Hong: A Structural Study of Ninth Century Anecdotes verifying the authenticity of anecdotes: those that can be proven inaccurate are dismissed as false, while those that cannot be disproven are trusted.4 In this paper, I propose to study ninth-century anecdotes on "original events" as narratives structured around a limited number of tropes, motifs, and character types common in ninth-century story telling, and not as putative records of actual events. Compilers of anecdote collections often claim to have recorded the stories after hearing them in oral form first. In his preface to Yunxi youyi, for example, Fan Shu writes, "I recorded that which I heard" (It9PJT~~C).5 Likewise, Meng Qi describes how he happened to hear several of the stories included in Benshi shi.6 Like other texts preserved from oral tradition, "original event" anecdotes exhibit certain stable elements in combination with a diversity of variable elements.? An understanding of such elements will serve as the foundation on which to base a determination of the meaning and significance of individual works. This paper is a case study of the structural characteristics (Le., common formulae and variations) of a group of similarly themed anecdotes on the subject of the "erotic triangle." I have chosen the "erotic triangle" trope both because it is well represented in ninth-century "original event" anecdotes and because relatively many anecdotes of this type have been preserved. In fact, seven of the twelve anecdotes in the qinggan t~ ~ (feelings) section of...