Literary criticism in translation

["The Story of Ying Ying"] is about the deep and melancholic personal bonds between a man and a woman. Their sublime passion, though deep, has no beginning and no end, as a single burst of love and affection creates endless despair and infinite sorrow. The romance emphasizes Scholar Zhang’s faithful character and irregular constancy; underscoring in every part how his captivation with Ying Ying is different from the ordinary philandering of a lecher. Ying Ying is able to turn Zhang upside down, which highlights how Ying Ying is different from other beauties. Ying Ying is an intelligent unflappable young lady. She loves Zhang’s talent and is moved by Zhang’s foolish passion (chiqing). That she arranged the private rendezvous with Zhang in the western chamber, yet scolded him once there, is perhaps a matter of changing her mind at the last minute, or perhaps she really only wanted to see him and speak with him. In any case her “speaking of principle sharply and defensively” (yan ze min bian) is believable.…If Yuan Zhen’s “The Story of Yingying” was really about Yuan’s own feelings, then Scholar Zhang’s restraint answers not only to the personality (gexing) of the character (renwu), but also the needs of the story. The old matron, knowing the boat has sailed, is not obstructing the marriage, so Zhang and Ying Ying can enjoy what they desire and don’t need to remain mired in melancholy. It is Zhang who restrains himself before the marriage can be completed. Zhang’s restraint is not what Yuan Zhen wants, but only a rule of the story, an internal requirement of it.…Neither Ying Ying’s meandering soliloquy, her sorrowful qin playing, nor her plaintive-without-complaining (yuan er bu nu) love letters can make Zhang bring his passion to a head. And even though she breaks up with Zhang in a poetic letter, still there is a lingering passion left unsevered (yu qing wei duan), a cavity of the heart filled with a deep depression that manages to win the reader’s empathy. Yuan Zhen’s “love ’em and leave ‘em” （shiluan zhongqi) story is clearly not meant to promote some grand moral involving “restraint,” but rather to write out a kind of infinite melancholia. This is not just a matter of failure between Zhang and Yingying, but also a statement about how common failure is in this world; moreover, it makes manifest the conflict between intellect (lizhi) and passion (qinggan). Knowledge from the intellect is a defect that can’t be patched; passion, though, is unwilling to submit, can never rest, and yet is also no guarantee of success. These feelings (qinggan) are the universal human experience (rensheng pubian de jingyan). It really proves a statement from western literary theory: “A particular fiction can lead towards a general truth.” That’s why this little story is so moving, and later generations never stopped praising it, and in Record of the Western Chamber, even gave it a happy ending.

--Yang Jiang, "Shishi, gushi, zhenshi" 实事、故事、真是 (Fact, Story, Reality)