Shí’èr Lóu 十二樓
The Twelve Towers by 李漁 (撰)
About the work
Shí’èr Lóu 十二樓 (The Twelve Towers) is a collection of twelve vernacular novellas by the major late-Míng/early-Qīng writer Lǐ Yú 李漁 (1611–1680), hào Lìwēng 笠翁. Each novella takes its title from a building (lóu 樓) which serves as the central setting or symbolic focus of the story. The collection is one of the two principal surviving prose fiction works by Lǐ Yú, the other being Wúshēng Xì 無聲戲 KR4k0070.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
The source file opens with a preface (序) by an unnamed writer who identifies himself through the colophon as Zhōnglí Ruìshuǐ 鍾離睿水, written at the Chá’ēn Gé 茶恩閣. The preface praises Lǐ Yú — identified here by his Buddhist-style pen name Juédào Rén 覺道人 and Lì Dàorén 笠道人 — for compiling tales of buildings (lóu) from antiquity and expanding them into a morally edifying collection. The preface-writer argues that Lǐ Yú’s approach is superior to the two dominant modes of fiction: the salacious mode that harms public morals, and the tedious moralistic mode that sends readers to sleep. By “preaching the classics in vernacular language and bringing the foolish and obstinate to understanding through laughter and tears,” Lǐ Yú has achieved something the great storytellers Shī Nài’ān 施耐庵 and Luó Guànzhōng 羅貫中 never attained. The preface declares that Lǐ Yú’s small talk should be called “great eloquence,” since it transmits the Way while entertaining.
Abstract
Shí’èr Lóu was compiled and published by Lǐ Yú 李漁 (1611–1680), the most versatile literary figure of the early Qīng period, who operated the Jiè Zǐ Yuán 芥子園 publishing house in Nanjing. The collection is conventionally dated to the 1650s–1660s, during the period when Lǐ Yú was most active as a fiction writer; Wilkinson (§31.2) lists the Ròu Pútúan 肉蒲團 under the date 1657, and the fiction collections appear to belong to the same creative period. No dated colophon in the source text fixes the exact date of composition or first publication.
The twelve novellas are:
- Héyǐng Lóu 合影樓 (The Tower of Merged Reflections) — 3 huí. A tale of lovers who catch glimpses of each other reflected in a pond.
- Duójǐn Lóu 奪錦樓 (The Tower of Snatched Brocade) — 1 huí. A father with two daughters navigates competing marriage proposals.
- Sān Yǔ Lóu 三與樓 (The Tower of Three Givings) — 3 huí. A story of a garden estate repeatedly given away and recovered.
- Xià Yí Lóu 夏宜樓 (The Summer Suitable Tower) — 3 huí. A romance involving a telescope and long-distance courtship.
- Guīzhèng Lóu 歸正樓 (The Tower of Return to Rectitude) — 4 huí. A former thief redeems himself.
- Cuì Yǎ Lóu 萃雅樓 (The Tower of Refined Elegance) — 3 huí. A flower-seller and a corrupt official.
- Fú Yún Lóu 拂雲樓 (The Tower That Brushes the Clouds) — 6 huí. A comedy of marital misidentification.
- Shí Jǐn Lóu 十巹樓 (The Tower of Ten Wedding-Cups) — 2 huí. A bridegroom uses a ruse to consummate his marriage with a reluctant bride.
- Hè Guī Lóu 鶴歸樓 (The Tower to Which the Crane Returns) — 4 huí. An official retires but is dragged back by imperial favour; a tale of conjugal loyalty.
- Fèng Xiān Lóu 奉先樓 (The Tower of Honouring Ancestors) — 2 huí. A filial tale of a woman who preserves her orphaned child at the cost of her own honour.
- Shēng Wǒ Lóu 生我樓 (The Tower That Gave Me Life) — 4 huí. A tale of filial piety and the purchase of a concubine.
- Wén Guò Lóu 聞過樓 (The Tower of Accepting Correction) — 3 huí. A retired official builds a tower for hearing reproofs; a comedy of friends and correction.
Each novella combines moral instruction (quàn shàn chéng è 勸善懲惡) with Lǐ Yú’s characteristic playful wit and structural ingenuity. The collection exemplifies his theory of fiction — outlined in Xián Qíng Ǒujì 閒情偶寄 — that popular narrative should instruct through entertainment and that cleverly constructed plots are themselves a form of moral argument.
Wilkinson (§27.842) and the standard scholarship treat Shí’èr Lóu as part of Lǐ Yú’s major prose fiction output, alongside Wúshēng Xì KR4k0070 and Ròu Pútúan 肉蒲團. The CBDB entry for Lǐ Yú (id 65737) gives his dates as 1611–1680, consistent with the dating adopted here.
Translations and research
- Hanan, Patrick. The Invention of Li Yu. Harvard University Press, 1988. The standard English-language monograph on Lǐ Yú’s life and works, covering Shí’èr Lóu in detail.
- Lǐ Yú 李漁; Hé Héling 何鶴齡, ed. Shí’èr Lóu 十二樓. Rénmín Wénxué Chūbǎnshè, 1986. Critical edition.
- Ōtsuka Hidetaka 大塚秀高. Studies on Lǐ Yú’s fiction in Shūkan Tōyōgaku 集刊東洋学.
- Idema, Wilt, and Lloyd Haft. A Guide to Chinese Literature. University of Michigan, 1997, pp. 246–248. Survey treatment.
Other points of interest
The novella Xià Yí Lóu 夏宜樓 is particularly celebrated for its use of a telescope (qiānjǐngjìng 千鏡鏡, lit. “thousand-mile glass”) as the central plot device — one of the earliest depictions of a telescope in Chinese vernacular fiction. The telescope had been introduced to China by Jesuit missionaries in the early seventeenth century, and Lǐ Yú’s fictional use of it reflects the curiosity of educated Chinese about Western optical instruments.