Slavery and Genre in The Plum in the Golden Vase

abstract:In this article, I argue for a reading of the long fiction Plum in the Golden Vase that does not simply excavate the text for facts but instead considers the genres of Ming imaginative literature as theories of social hierarchy. The novel’s sui generis form can be understood, I argue, as a socially symbolic act, particularly relating to the trafficking of human beings and especially of women. The Plum in the Golden Vase places at the very core of society the radical transactability of women. Finally, I interpret seventeenth- century debates about the text—namely, how to rehabilitate the text from its sexual content by reading these debates as relating not merely to aesthetics but also to social theory.摘要:本文以《金瓶梅》為例,論述明代想像性文學的各種文體体現了社會等級 制度的理論。《金瓶梅》自成一體的形式可被理解為與販賣人口,特別是販賣女 性相關的一種社會象徵行為。而十七世紀關於《金瓶梅》的辯論⸺即如何將其從 性愛內容中超拔,而讀作一个報應故事⸺不僅是一种美學探討,而且與社會理論 相關。