| Benshi shi (Poems in Their Actual Occasions ) is the single extant work by a minor official named Meng Qi (fl. 841-886) in the late Tang, whose existence can be traced and verified by nothing else but the preface and some pieces of comment in Benshi shi. Unlike its obscure compiler, Benshi shi has received broad reception and significant status in the study of Tang poetry. Also, it has been the subject of much study recently. For example, Graham Sanders has dedicated two works, his Ph.D. dissertation "Poetry in Narrative: Meng Ch'i (fl. 841-886) and True Stories of Poems ( Pen-shih shih)," and his book Words Well Put on this subject.;However, as Paul Kroll points out, Sanders' study on Meng Qi's Benshi shi has opened us promising lines for further research. 1 I think there is more to be discussed about Benshi shi and from a different approach than has recently been taken. In his review, Kroll also suggests that one should be able to reverse the focus and consider the anecdotes not so much as poems within their stories but as stories with poems; also, the "mingled claims and quirks of poetry, fiction, and history in mixed genres" of Tang literature remain to be further explored. 2 I take both clues as the approach of my argument of this thesis to examine the nature of Benshi shi and its historical reception.;In the first chapter of my thesis, a phenomenon of Benshi shi 's reception will be reviewed in details; that is, since its emergence, certain entries in Benshi shi have been accepted by both the camp of critics and that of readers who are reliable experts on Tang poems. Then a question to the point of my argument is raised: Why was Benshi shi selected to be a collection of authentic records among numerous collections of poetry-bearing stories?;To answer the question above, I scrutinize the research on Benshi shi's nature and feature from both traditional Chinese studies and modern scholars in Chapter Two. Following the reasoning line of those who took Benshi shi as a collection of xiaoshuo, and based on a brief study on Shi tong, I tend to classify Benshi shi as a supplementary history for its evident historical writing mode.;This study is not limited to the single collection Benshi shi . In Chapter Three, I will focus on how the historical narrative mode processes. Also I will examine Tang chuanqi tales to reveal the absolute priority of official history as a narrative form and the mixed nature of narrative in medieval China; that is, the genre classification cannot determine whether a text is true or not: official histories even hold allowance for inventiveness, and some information from xiaoshuo is accepted as authentic and can even be selected into the compilation of historical writings.;1See Kroll's review of Words Well Put in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 69.1(2009), p. 250. 2Ibid. |
