Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants
A Cave Collapses into a Mountain: The Farcical and the Nonsensical in the Ming Vernacular Novel Xiyou ji
Department
Modern Languages & Literatures
College
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Date Range
2010-2011
Abstract
The farcical aspects of the Ming vernacular novel Xiyou ji have not been the topic of many academic studies. Literary scholars often promote the novel as a worthy work of literature by focusing on the religious and allegorical messages in the text. However, with this critical approach, there are important aspects of the novel left unexplored. This paper is a study of two cases in Xiyou ji where the narratives comically blend the refined with the crude, and the profound with the nonsensical in both language and content. One case is a doggerel, inserted in the narrative to describe a mountain scene, in which several interesting onomatopoeic phrases are used; the other is a burlesque on the Taoist concept of Immortal Embryo where Tripitaka and Pig become pregnant in the Nation of Women. The paper offers an analysis on how the novelist borrows from the popular and the crude to tease and challenge the Ming literary and cultural conventions in these two cases.
Conference Name
Annual Meeting of the American Oriental Society, Western Branch
Conference Location
Boulder, Colorado
ScholarWorks Citation
Liang, Yan, "A Cave Collapses into a Mountain: The Farcical and the Nonsensical in the Ming Vernacular Novel Xiyou ji" (2010). Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants. 143.
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/fsdg/143
