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雪鴻淚史

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Text ID
KR4k0265
Date
1915–1915
Dynasty
清

Xuě Hóng Lèi Shǐ 雪鴻淚史

Tearful History of the Snow Swan by 徐枕亞 (writing as Lǐ Xiūxíng 李修行)

About the work

Xuě Hóng Lèi Shǐ 雪鴻淚史 is a late Qīng / early Republican sentimental novel (yánqíng xiǎoshuō 言情小說) attributed in the Kanripo catalog to “Lǐ Xiūxíng 李修行 zhuàn 撰,” but identifiable from its prefaces as the work of 徐枕亞 (Xú Zhěnyà, 1889–1937), writing under the pen name “Dōnghǎi Sānláng 東海三郎” (Third Son of the East Sea). The self-preface is dated Yǐmǎo 乙卯 [1915], the twelfth month, the twentieth day, written “at Shànghǎi’s Wàng-hóng Lóu 望鴻樓.” The novel is presented as the autobiographical diary of the scholar Hé Mèngxiá 何夢霞, the male protagonist of Xú Zhěnyà’s earlier celebrated novel Yù Lí Hún 玉梨魂. “Lǐ Xiūxíng 李修行” appears to be an alternative pen name used by Xú Zhěnyà for this companion work.

Tiyao

No tiyao found in source.

Prefaces

The text contains a self-preface (自序) by the author, signed “Dōnghǎi Sānláng 東海三郎,” dated 乙卯年十二月二十日 (20th day of the 12th month, 乙卯 = 1915), written at the Wànghóng Lóu 望鴻樓 in Shànghǎi. The author distinguishes his work from conventional sentimental fiction: he claims to be writing not to please the popular market but to record his own authentic emotional experience (xiànshēn shuōfǎ 現身說法, “personal testimony”). He explicitly rejects the label “romance novel” (yánqíng xiǎoshuō).

Four other prefaces follow (序一 through 序四), written by literary associates including “Hǎiyú Xú Tiānxiāo 海虞徐天嘯” (Preface One, dated Tóngzhì 4 [recte: year 4 of a Republican-era period], written at Xúnzhōu 潯州, Guǎngxī) and “Liáng-xī Qín Qiūqiū 梁谿秦蛩秋” (Preface Three, dated Yǐmǎo). All prefaces describe the book as a companion to Yù Lí Hún and as the first-person self-testimony of Hé Mèngxiá, “proven” by Xú Zhěnyà. There are also three postfaces (跋一, 跋二, 跋三) at the end.

Abstract

Xuě Hóng Lèi Shǐ belongs to the “Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies” school (Yuānyang húdié pài 鴛鴦蝴蝶派) of early-twentieth-century Chinese sentimental fiction. Its companion work Yù Lí Hún 玉梨魂, serialized from 1912, was one of the best-selling novels of the Republican era; Xuě Hóng Lèi Shǐ is presented as its autobiographical sequel — the diary of the same hero Hé Mèngxiá who experienced those events, recounting his own inner life in a style of ornate parallel prose (piànwén 駢文). The title alludes to the ancient metaphor of the snow goose (雪鴻) as a figure for ephemeral traces left in the world, combined with the weeping (lèi 淚) motif pervasive in this school of fiction.

The Kanripo text appears to be divided into two major parts with fourteen chapters each, prefaced by a tíyào 提要 (summary) and a jīnlǚ qū 金縷曲 (a ci lyric in the Jīn-lǚ Qū pattern), followed by lìyán 例言 (editorial notes) and supplementary dedicatory verses. Three postfaces by other hands follow the main text. This structure — layered paratexts and multiple endorsing prefaces — is characteristic of the literary commercialism of the Shanghai print culture of the 1910s.

The work was influential enough that the novel Lěng Hóng Rìjì 冷紅日記 by Wú Qǐyuán 吳啟源, serialized in the Xiǎoshuō Rìbào 小說日報, was acknowledged as an imitation of Xuě Hóng Lèi Shǐ.

Translations and research

  • Hanan, Patrick. Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. ColUP, 2004. (Contextualizes the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies school.)
  • Link, E. Perry. Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Cities. UCP, 1981. (The standard study of the genre; discusses Xú Zhěnyà and Yù Lí Hún.)

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