Reading the false attribution in 'Xiyou zhengdao shu' ('The Book to Enlightenment of the Journey to the West') (Wang Qi, Huang Zhouxing, China)

In 1663 the first major commentary to the sixteenth-century Chinese novel Xiyou ji (Journey to the west) was published by two men, Wang Qi and Huang Zhouxing. This commentary, Xiyou zhengdao shu (The book to enlightenment of the journey to the west) is the first of the seven extant commentaries of Xiyou ji during the traditional period (from the sixteenth century to 1923) to claim an attribution of the authorship of the novel and the first to claim a denominational interpretation as well. Within the current field of Xiyou ji studies this work of Wang Qi and Huang Zhouxing is usually considered to help identify some aspects of the interpretation of the novel, but most scholars view their interpretation and their editing as idiosyncratic at best, more declarative of their own views than in explicating the text. In this dissertation I consider how to analyze Xiyou zhengdao shu when we view it as purposefully seeking to convey the views of the commentators. This dissertation explores the historical context, including several possible motivations that could be ascribed to the commentators, based on the textual records of their biographies and their written work. There are indications of a Daoist denominational identification of both commentators, of a penchant for Ming loyalist affections at a critical time for Ming loyalist fortunes, hints that the commentary was made for profit, and suggestions of claiming high cultural value for the novel and its commentary. This paper explores the complex poetics of these values in the comments to the novel. In the end this dissertation suggests that attention to the commentators suggests that the commentary represents a contest of authority. Specifically, the focus on the commentators suggests that they may have claimed a challenge to more conventional or orthodox standards of authority through a different mode of authority, signaled by a false claim of attribution.