The oral tradition of bianwen: Its features and influence on Chinese narrative literature

This study explores the formal and literary features of the Tang "Transformation Texts" (bianwen): an oral-derived literature found within the Dunhuang corpus, discovered at the beginning of this century (1900), in the Buddhist caves in Gansu province of China. To understand the function of the prosimetric style and oral elements in bianwen, a schematic study of seven selected bianwen texts--defined by the narrowest definition--is conducted stressing their compositional styie and use of formulas. Parry-Lord's Oral-Formulaic Theory is applied to identify formulas, themes and story patterns found in bianwen. The variations, frequency of occurrence, language, and syntactical patterns of the bianwen formulas are examined to demonstrate their flexibility in composition and their relation to narrative mood. An in-depth study of "verse-introductory formulas," a distinguishing feature of the bianwen texts, illustrates how the syntactical patterns of these formulas changed through time, and how historical and Buddhist bianwen texts differed in their preference of formulaic elements. Two of the bianwen texts, Mulian Bianwen and Wang Ling Bian, are analyzed to demonstrate how formulas and thematic composition are manipulated to enhance meaning and expound thematic messages in a formulaic literature based on oral narration.; The compositional style and content of the selected bianwen texts are further compared with the later Chinese popular narratives baojuan, zhugongdiao, tanci and guci, so as to demonstrate the influence of bianwen on these genres. Textual evidence shows that many of the bianwen formulaic expressions, themes and story patterns are presenred in the later narratives, which have adapted a similar oral-formulaic style of composition.