| Tanci sk30, or Suzhou storysinging, is a form of popular entertainment in southern China. It has a history of several hundred years and survives to the present. Although it is primarily a form of oral literature, a body of several hundred texts is associated with it. The tests are of two kinds: written-to-be-read "simulated" tanci and "performance-related" tanci. Most of the scholarship to date on tanci (of which there is very little) concerns the first kind of text. The subject of the present study is the second kind.;Chapter I is an introduction to storysinging and provides background information for the rest of the study. Chapter II surveys Chinese scholarship on tanci through three periods of history. Chapter III traces the origins and evolution of the songstory that is the focus of this study: the "Three Smiles Romance" (Sanxiao yinyuan sk55), which tells the tale of the Ming dynasty painter Tang Yin's sk20 pursuit of the maidservant Qiuxiang. Chapters IV and V examine closely two versions of the "Three Smiles" songstory. In both cases, the features discussed and illustrated through translations of excerpts include authorship, structure, characterization, language, and narrative technique. The two versions are compared in light of their respective "degree of literariness.";The final chapter discusses the relationship between performance and text and concludes that the performance-related Suzhou songstory text in its fully developed form is quite close to the classic Chinese novel and has considerable literary merit. The suggestion is made that the genre deserves more scholarly attention than it has heretofore been given, and that future investigation into the subject should be collaborative and interdisciplinary. |
