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情變

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Text ID
KR4k0207
Date
1906–1910
Dynasty
清

Qíng Biàn 情變

Vicissitudes of Passion by 吳沃堯

About the work

Qíng Biàn 情變 is an unfinished social-romantic novel by 吳沃堯 Wú Wòyáo (1866–1910), preserved as a fragment of 8 huí plus a xiézǐ 楔子 (prologue). It was serialized in a newspaper during the final years of Wú Wòyáo’s life and left incomplete at his death in 1910 — the postface appended to the Kanripo text (quoting the phrase 留此斷筒殘篇, “leaving behind this broken tube and fragmentary text”) makes clear that the novel could not be completed. The story follows the dissolute son of a wandering martial performer and his entanglement with courtesans and changing social mores in the late Qīng era.

Tiyao

No tiyao found in source.

Abstract

Qíng Biàn is one of 吳沃堯’s minor works, composed in the last years of his life and serialized in a newspaper (bào 報, identified in the postface as “本報” — “this newspaper”). The novel opens with a self-reflexive xiézǐ in which the narrator, a self-described “teller of stories who has seen through the barriers of passion,” invokes the figure of Pǔ Sōnglíng 蒲松齡 and his dictum “情至極處即為恝” (Dispassion is the apex of passion) from Liáozhāi zhìyì 聊齋志異, chapter 8 (“Huā Gūzǐ” 花姑子), as the philosophical premise for writing about “情” (passion/feeling).

The eight extant chapters introduce Kòu Sìyé 寇四爺, a wandering martial performer (jiānghú 走江湖) and erstwhile martial artist, and his son Kòu Ānán 寇阿男, who grows up in the entertainment milieu and becomes involved with courtesans and theater people in a changing urban society. The narrative engages with themes of social mobility, the dissolution of traditional family values, and the contradictions of modernity in the late Qīng treaty-port world — concerns consistent with Wú Wòyáo’s other major works. The postface notes that Qíng Biàn and Huájī tán 滑稽談 were received warmly by readers of the newspaper even though Wú Wòyáo himself did not consider them among his best efforts.

Wú Wòyáo died suddenly after a brief illness in 1910 (Xuāntǒng 2), and his unfinished manuscripts were collected and published posthumously. The novel therefore exists only as a truncated 8-huí fragment and cannot be evaluated as a complete literary work.

The CBDB records Wú Wòyáo with birth 1866 and death 1910 (CBDB id 78399), consistent with the life implied by the postface. Wilkinson (Chinese History: A New Manual) cites him as “Wu Woyao 吳沃堯 (1867–1910)” — the birth year discrepancy is minor and the CBDB figure (1866) is followed here.

Translations and research

  • Wú Wòyáo 吳沃堯 (Wu Jianren), The Sea of Regret: Two Turn-of-the-Century Chinese Romantic Novels. Patrick Hanan, tr. University of Hawai’i Press, 1995. [Translates Héns Hǎi 恨海, not Qíng Biàn, but essential context for Wú’s romantic fiction.]
  • David Der-wei Wang, Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849–1911. Stanford University Press, 1997. — Situates Wú Wòyáo’s oeuvre in the late Qīng literary landscape.
  • A-ying (Qián Xìngcūn 錢杏邨), Wǎnqīng xiǎoshuō shǐ 晚清小說史. Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1937 (repr. 1955). — Standard survey including Wú Wòyáo’s works.

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