Bibliography: "The Making of the Pearl-Sewn Shirt and The Courtesan's Jewel Box"

Hanan, Patrick. "The Making of the Pearl-Sewn Shirt and The Courtesan's Jewel Box." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 33 (1973): 124-53. I've already used Hanan's translation of the classical tale upon which "The Pearl-Sewn Shirt" is based to teach the differences between classical tale and vernacular story in my freshman seminar. Today I draw on it again, for the close reading of "Pearl-Sewn Shirt" and its antecedent tale, pp. 134-8, especially the term simulated context:

In all the critical concern with "point of view" in fiction one aspect of narrative method has generally been overlooked, perhaps because it is not very important in modern European fiction. This is the search for a plausible context of situation in which the fiction may be conveyed from author to reader. The series of letters, the diary,the psychiatrist's notes -- these are merely the most glaring examples of contexts which have been used at one time or another in European fiction.The context is, of course, a pretence, but it is a pretence in which both author and readers acquiesce in order that the fiction may be communicated effectively. Let us call it a simulated context and note that it may include not only the identity of the narrator and the identity of his audience, but also the precise situation in which one addresses the other. Thus,if we adopt a common definition of literary style as governed by just such factorsas these,[6] the context will determine the "voice" or style in which the work is couched, and, in a wider sphere,will affect practically all of its technique.

I put the definition in bold. Note six gives as further reading on the "contextual" definition of style,see, for example,Nils Erik Enkvist, John Spencer,and Michael J. Gregory,Linguistics and Style (Oxford,1964). I'm fascinated by the investigation of the simulated context of "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg" and how this makes the story quite different from "The Three Brothers."

Simulated Context of the Chinese Vernacular Story