POLITICAL LOYALTY AND FILIAL PIETY: A CASE STUDY IN THE RELATIONAL DYNAMICS OF TEXT, COMMENTARY, AND ILLUSTRATION IN PIPA JI

• Published in: Ming studies 2003-01, Vol.2003 (1), p.9-64
• Main Author: Hsiao, Li-ling
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0147-037X; 1759-7595
• DOI: 10.1179/014703703788762917

In recent years academic interest in late Ming drama publications has tended to focus on textural issues (like determining the authenticity of a commentary), economic issues (like estimating production costs), and technical issues (like tracing the evolution of engraving methods). All of these approaches tend to isolate text, commentary, illustration, production, and so forth, as if the publication were a coincidental amalgam of discrete elements. It is my premise that the elements of late Ming drama publications are not separable, but inseparable, and, more than this, can be understood only in relation to each other. The late Ming drama publication, in other words, is not an amalgam of discrete elements, but a carefully orchestrated unity in which author, commentator, illustrator, and publisher collaborate to achieve a coherent meaning.