Fènghuáng Chí 鳳凰池
Phoenix Pool by 煙霞散人 (編)
About the work
Fènghuáng Chí 鳳凰池 (Phoenix Pool) is a Qīng vernacular novel in 16 chapters (huí 回). It belongs to the talent-beauty (cáizǐ jiārén 才子佳人) romance subgenre, featuring male and female protagonists of unusual gifts who encounter misunderstandings, reversals of fortune, gender disguise, and literary competitions before being united in the end. The title alludes to the “Phoenix Pool” (鳳凰池), a literary metaphor for the Secretariat (中書省), seat of the most illustrious literary officials, suggesting the hero’s eventual rise to high office.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
The novel is attributed to Yānxiá Sǎnrén 煙霞散人 (“the Scattered Person of Mist and Glow”), a pseudonym found in several Qīng cáizǐ jiārén novels. The text opens with a poem (Làng táo shā 浪淘沙 tune) and a story set in “the former dynasty” (前朝), featuring a talented young man named Yún Jiàn 雲劍, whose father, a Vice-Minister of War, was persecuted by a corrupt Minister and forced to retire. The novel follows Yún Jiàn as he grows up under difficult circumstances and encounters a series of talented women in disguise. Gender-bending and mistaken identity are central devices: the novel features a woman who masquerades as a man, passes the examinations, and takes a male friend, while the hero is similarly suspected to be a woman. Resolution comes through imperial intervention, which also supplies marriages and official appointments.
The 16-chapter structure, the poetic prologue to each chapter, the motif of the hero as a “star of civil talent” (文曲星) obstructed by villains, and the happy-ending triple marriage pattern are all hallmarks of the Qīng cáizǐ jiārén subgenre flourishing in the Kangxi–Qianlong period (roughly 1662–1795). A precise composition date cannot be established. The catalog compiler’s attribution to Yānxiá Sǎnrén (煙霞散人) matches attributions known from at least two other Qīng novels; whether these share a single author is uncertain.
Wilkinson (Chinese History: A New Manual) does not list this title individually but discusses the cáizǐ jiārén novel genre at length.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- Ctext.org: no dedicated entry located.