The novel Ju-lin Wai-shih has been praised for its skillful use of realism and satire. A great deal of confusion, however, has been generated by the use of these terms, each of which allows for considerable range in meaning. Critics may understand realism either from an extrinsic or an intrinsic point of view. Marxists and nineteenth century European realists both take a mimetic view of realism and are thus extrinsic critics. This paper argues for the intrinsic approach of objective criticism with realism understood as a technique. The realism of the Ju-lin Wai-shih is presented in terms of the narrative techniques and choice of subject matter of its author, Wu Ching-tzü. The Ju-lin Wai-shih is also filled with large amounts of satire through which attacks are made on the examination system of China and the sterile conventions of neo-Confucian propriety. This paper raises the question of how Wu Ching-tzü could combine successfully both realism and Satire in one work, given the fact that the purposes of the satirist are quite different form the purposes of the realist. Most satires in the literature of East and West are based on distortions of reality and are not intended to be taken realistically. Here Robert Scholes’ concept of the spectrum of fiction is used to show how it is possible for Wu Ching-tzü to operate successfully between the conflicting demands of realism and satire. We frequently pushes hard up against the limits imposed by his realism and satire. His narrative is successful when his satiric distortion does not violate the demands of his realism and his realism is not so demanding as to preclude the desired satiric distortion.

This article examines the Ch’an symbolism found in the novel, Hsi-yu Pu by Tung Yueh (1260-86). The main argument presented is that the symbolism in the novel combines to form a unique Ch’an progression to enlightenment. In this systen, instead of avoiding situations which could arouse desire, the adherent purposely indulges his desires. By doing so, he is then able to see the emptiness of all desire, and thereby eliminate it from his mind. The author of this essay demonstrates this first, by explaining the three key symbols used throughout the novel; second, by discussing Sun Wu-k’ung’s spiritual progress through an analysis of the plot line; and finally, by showing that the structure of the symbols utilized in the novel creates a progression to enlightenment according to Ch’ anist principles. The author also provides considerable information concerning the Tung Yueh’s biography, editions of the novel, and basic Ch’an tenets.

This essay, while conceding that Li Ju-chen’s late Ch’ing novel Flowers in the Mirror is too diffuse in structure to be one of the great classical novels, shows that this openness of structure stems from the ambitious attempt to embody in the text, in considerable breadth and depth, the religio-philosophical traditions of Confucianism and Taoism. While the satirical and social-reformist aspects of the work (e.g. attacks on male subjugation of women ) are clear enough, and although this is to some degree a satire of conventional Ch’ing (Confucian) society, there is greater emphasis on the positive qualities of Confucianism--on social harmony through genuinely virtuous behavior. But stronger still is the "Taoist" side of the novel, with its playful and fantastic yet also sincere and powerful exploration of the “immortal” world(s) of hsien-spirits and fairies, suggesting the possibility not just of an “eternal” and "perfectly happy" life but of a life free from social convention and the restrictions of official positions and the pursuit of fame and wealth. Of course, Confucius too cautions against selfish material pursuits: this is just the point. Li’s novel is therefore "an imperfect Taoist tale because his deeply entrenched Confucianism kept tugging at him."

Across language, time and culture, man’s vision of the underworld has been remarkably consistent. Though the catabatic journeys in Virgil’s and Dante’s works have often been examined, they have never been compared with the Chinese journey to the Underworld Kingdom Feng-tu. The latter is described from Chapter eighty-six to ninety-three of Lo Mou-teng’s book The Voyage. My paper is a comparative study of the role of the guide in the above works. It is remarkable that each of the three authors has created a guide in their imaginary journeys to the underworld. In addition, the role of each of the three guides as they have created in these classical works in question, are surprisingly identical. Besides the physical guidance to the unknown underworld, the guide plays an important role in the trip as a Divine messenger and spiritual leader. Similar to Sibyl in the Aeneid and Virgil in Dante’s work, the Chinese guide, P’an-kuan, knows the purpose of the catabatic journey and leads the travellers through an education by viewing the placement of ghosts in this underworld set up by Confucian moral codes. Despite the differences in philosophies, religions and beliefs, the basic principle of rewarding the good and punishing the evil amazingly resembles its western counterparts. I will argue that it is the archetype from the collective unconsciousness that determines the parallel creation of the guide in each of these three divergent works.

This essay discusses the image of China in 19th-century England, seen as a function of the changing values and emphases in Victorian historiography. The dominant image of China, perhaps of all Asia, is one of stagnation and “ahistory"--an image based at least in part on ignorance, and one which can have both positive and negative meanings, depending on the point of view of the beholder. Thinkers like Carlyle and Mill were influenced by St.-Simon’s theory that history alternates between "critical" and “organic” periods: Carlyle, longing for the final "golden age" of an organic society in England, admired China for its rule by intellectual elite, a sign of the rational, government—imposed order and harmony of the organic stage; Mill, on the other hand, valued individual liberty above social order, and thought history may not be after all progressing (as in Carlyle’s Hegelian thinking) toward a final goal. In Ruskin’s (pro-Western) negative view of Chinese popular art and Wilde’s (anti-conventional) attraction to Taoist "inaction," we find again that the British images of China are really self-images, conditioned by the changing social, philosophical and historiographical ideas and values of 19th-century British Society.

Placing the theories of Joyce’s epiphany, Hopkins’ inscape and instress, and Tsung-ping’s (375-443). ying-mu hui-hsin together, we can see that. art essentially drives from apprehension of an object or scene for esthetic contemplation, goes through appreciation of the harmonious relation of each part with the others and these parts with the whole, and finally reaches a.quasi-mystic understanding of some poetic truth. The media of these artists’ artistic expressions--fiction, poetry, and painting--are different, but they share the common concern for presenting “authentic” something that transcends what Heidegger calls the "thingly element." Joyce’s epiphany is often taken light of or grossly misunderstood, and Hopkins’ inscape and instress is frequently confused with his strong sense of Jesuit duty. A reexamination of Stephen’s esthetic theory in Joyce’s Stephen Hero and Portrait of the Artist and Hopkins’ prose writings and "Windhover" serves to illuminate their theories. Moreover, what Tsung-ping, a Chinese shan-shui (or mountainscape) painter, says on the same subject not only provides a further illumination but also points to the unified, spiritual nature of Chinese artistic endeavors.