''Ernü Yingxiong Zhuan'' (), sometimes translated into English as ''A Tale of Lovers and Heroes'' and ''A Tale of Heroic Lovers'', is a Chinese novel in 40 chapters first printed in 1878 during the late
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
. It is written by Yanbei Xianren (燕北闲人), the pen name of
Wen Kang (文康 fl. 1821-1850), a
Manchu
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and ...
of an
Eight Banner
The Eight Banners (in Manchu: ''jakūn gūsa'', ) were administrative and military divisions under the Later Jin and Qing dynasty, Qing dynasties of China into which all Manchu people, Manchu households were placed. In war, the Eight Banners ...
family. The novel is composed of vignettes that concern He Yufeng (何玉凤), also called "Thirteenth Sister" (十三妹). He Yufeng seeks revenge for her father, who died in prison because of persecution by a high official. She rescues a virtuous young woman, Ms. Zhang, and a heroic young scholar, An Ji (安骥) from cannibals. When An Ji becomes a high official, he marries both Hu and Zhang and when a new emperor ascends the throne, her father finally receives justice. Her actions are characterized by the traditional Confucian virtues, loyalty, piety, righteousness, love and heroism but the resolution of the novel comes through luck, or fate.
Place in the history of the Chinese novel
The outline of the plot seems to borrow from ''
Haoqiu zhuan'', a 17th-century scholar-beauty romance in which a well-educated young lady acts independently but within the confines of propriety. The novel brings together two separate genres,
chivalric fiction and
scholar-beauty romance novels, among the first to do so. The critic Lee Haiyan remarks that the novel is also "highly original in its efforts to incorporate the moral and aesthetic insights of the cult of ''qing'' into orthodox Confucianism," that is, the cult of "feeling."
The scholar Maram Epstein finds the novel "remarkable" for its "depiction of elite women who assume the roles of scholars, statesmen, and knights-errant." In contrast to ''
Dream of the Red Chamber
''Dream of the Red Chamber'' (''Honglou Meng'') or ''The Story of the Stone'' (''Shitou Ji'') is a novel composed by Cao Xueqin in the middle of the 18th century. One of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, it is known for ...
'', where the women were "ten times" better than the men but were confined to the
domestic sphere, the women in this novel displace men in their traditionally male roles, even in the Confucian roles of social engagement.
It opens with this observation:
Most people nowadays regard ''ernü ''and ''yingxiong'' as two different kinds of people... They mistakenly think that those who indulge in force and like fighting are "''yiongxiong''", while those who toy with rouge and powder or have a weakness for catamites are "''ernű''" ... What they don't realize is that only when one has the pure nature of a hero can one fully possess a loving heart, and only when one is a truly filial child can one perform heroic deeds....
Lee contrasts this with the homosocial world of chivalric fiction of earlier times, which displayed a hostile attitude toward women and their corrupting influence.
The novel was adapted a number of times into films and television.
References and further reading
*
* , esp Ch. 6"Masterful Women and Deficient Men in ''Jinghua yuan'' and ''Ernü Yingxiong zhuan''.
*
* , esp. "Ernü Yingxiong As Confucian Romantic," pp. 51–58.
Notes
External links
Ernü Yingxiong Zhuan - The Story of Hero Boys and Hero GirlsCultural China
(Text in Chinese).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ernu Yingxiong Zhuan
Qing dynasty novels
Wuxia novels
19th-century Chinese novels