Introduction: Special Issue Honoring David L. Rolston

Abstract

Given his publication record, one might assume that David L. Rolston is a scholar of narrative fiction. For his first major publication, David served as editor of How to Read the Chinese Novel, a milestone in providing English-language readers a glimpse of reading practices and practical criticism contemporaneous with Ming and Qing novels themselves. Not merely the compiler of the translations that comprise six of the book’s seven chapters, David’s work can be seen throughout the volume, from adding innumerable notes and explanations to the “How to Read” (dufa讀法) translations; to writing essays on the sources, history, and formal aspects of traditional fiction criticism; to compiling explanatory appendices and an extensive bibliography for each of the masterworks covered. This project was completed before David finished his Chicago doctorate. His 1988 dissertation, well over 1000 pages long, fills four binders; its nominal topic is the eighteenth-century Rulin waishi 儒林外史 (The Scholars in its English translation). But in contrast to other dissertations of that period, David’s concerns were in no way limited to this one great novel. That is, as with so many of his other projects, the dissertation explored not only the text but also, in considerable detail, its social and literary contexts. In effect, this doctoral work provided the foundation for two of his later major publications in this field. A prime example is its multifaceted exploration of traditional fiction criticism: although it concentrates on commentaries on Shuihu zhuan 水滸傳 (Water Margin) and Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅 (The Plum in the Golden Vase), his original observations on the rise and development of fiction criticism in his dissertation would contribute substantially to a later, major publication. David’s second publication in the field of vernacular literature studies (both fiction and drama) was his nearly monograph-length “Oral Performing Literature in Traditional Chinese Fiction: Nonrealistic Usages in the Jin Ping Mei cihua and Their Influence.” This is a study of how popular songs and drama are incorporated into the late-Ming novel (subsequently translated by David’s Chicago mentor David T. Roy in five volumes). It filled the entire 1994 issue of CHINOPERL Papers 17. In this work, David brought together his extensive knowledge of that great Ming novel and other “oral performing literature” of its time—oral storytelling in prose, prosimetric storytelling, qu (songs曲), yuanben (farcical skits 院本), and full-blown drama (zaju [northern plays 雜劇]), and chuanqi [southern plays 傳奇])—especially songs and drama. He does not confine himself to Jin Ping Mei cihua, but devotes later segments of the article both to subsequent novels that imitated Jin Ping Mei in its nonrealistic uses of oral performing literature and to novels that abandoned these innovations by the Jin Ping Mei author. CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 41.1 (July 2022): 1–6