Middle Vernacular Sinitic culture
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Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-fifty-third issue: "Speaking and Writing: Studies in Vernacular Aspects of Middle Period Chinese Culture" (pdf), edited by Victor H. Mair (August, 2024).
Foreword
The three papers in this collection were written for my seminar on Middle Vernacular Sinitic (MVS). They cover a wide variety of topics, from epistolary style to social mores, to philosophy and religion. They reveal how a vernacular ethos informs the thought and life of men and women from different social classes and distinguishes them from those who adhere to a more strictly classical outlook. Although they are on quite dissimilar subjects, this trio of papers harmonize in their delineation of the implications of vernacularity for belief and perception. Taken together, they compel one to consider seriously what causes some people to tilt more to the vernacular side and others to cling to classicism. While the authors of these papers do not aim to arrive at a common conclusion on the meaning of the vernacular-classical divide, the readers who probe beneath the surface of all three papers will undoubtedly find facets that refract and reflect themes that bind them into a unified body of inquiry.
In the first paper, Jack Lu examines an enigma that has long puzzled historians of art, since the individual who is generally considered to be the greatest calligrapher in Chinese history, Wang Xizhi (fourth c.), is also famous for having written countless notes and letters in vernacular language. Not only are the notes and letters in vernacular, they are also often about the most mundane of subjects, such as the minor ailments of himself, his family members, and friends. Lu plumbs Wang’s motives for this seemingly bizarre behavior and explains how it makes a certain kind of sense.
Xinyan Chen, in the second paper, delves into the elusive notion of yuàn 媛, which started out more than two thousand years ago with the meaning of “beautiful woman,” developed during the early middle ages into the idea of a woman who is both beautiful and admirable, but somehow during the modern period has taken on the rather negative nuance of a privileged, pampered woman. Chen focuses particularly on yuàn 媛 as portrayed in A New Account of Tales of the World (Shishuo xinyu 世說新語), a remarkable work of social anecdotes and commentary of the second-fourth centuries that was compiled and edited during the first half of the fifth century and is conspicuous for the large proportion of vernacular usages it has for that period.
The third paper, by Ming Sun, is about the core Chan / Zen concept of the negation of language, particularly written language. Of course, this presents a contradiction in terms, since the Chan masters who promoted this doctrine could not but talk and write about it. Sun investigates ineffability from a range of standpoints: philosophical, religious, literary, and so forth. Early on in the paper, the author introduces us to some of the means Chan masters adopted for dealing with the problem language in a system of thought that was skeptical of the efficacy of language in arriving at truth: Chan poetry (chanshi 禪詩), public cases (gong’an 公案), recorded sayings (yulu 語錄), incisive dialogue (jifeng 機鋒), beating and shouting (banghe 棒喝), and even silence.
Coming to grips with exquisite mundanity, virtuous beauty, and ultimate truth— all within the realm of linguistic vernacularity—ensures that readers of this collection will come away from it with the gray matter between their ears buzzing.
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All issues of Sino-Platonic Papers are available in full for no charge.
To view our catalog, visit http://www.sino-platonic.org/
Selected readings
- "The linguistic origins and affiliations of Zen" (11/13/21
- "The esthetics of East Asian writing" (4/7/12)
- "All-purpose word for 'glamorous woman'" (10/16/21)