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This study shows how Kong Shangren presented his alleged "transmitter" image. As Confucius' descendent, Kong Shangren has a lifelong conviction that his identity and historical mission are defined not only by his unique ancestral lineage but also by subscribing to his ancestor's injunction, including the famous "transmitting without authoring" motto. My study uses his Peach Blossom Fan (Taohua shan) as an illustrative case to explore an oft-neglected aspect of his innovation: his "editorial" redefinition of the chuanqi drama to lay out his authorship agenda. My observations surround his manipulations of different strata of the self-exegesis (prefatory essays, post-scene observations, and marginal comments) to fulfill his authorship agenda. This allows me to assess how his self-proclaimed editorship is used to establish his authority as a historian who judges history, and, how his practice of "transmitting without authoring" contributes to theatrical representation of historical narrative, and to his inquiry into meaning of history.
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The play Taohua shan (Peach Blossom Fan) is unique in the Chinese chuanqi tradition insofar as no chuanqi text has ever been composed in such a scholarly fashion, heavily furnished with different strata of textual and exegetical apparatus.1 There are two opening editorial prefaces (Taohua shan xiaoyin/xiaozhi ... followed by five editorial notes (kaoju ... evidential basis, gangling Щ ?K organizational chart, fanli ... editorial principles, benmo ... origin and formation of the play and qimo ... role-type and prop table), all penned under the playwright Kong Shangren's (1648-1718) name. On the textual plane, the script is densely surrounded by unsigned marginalia and interlinear comments, and each act is concluded with a postact overview.
Kong Shangren broaches the issue of his textual apparatus in his benmo note:
Those who read Taohua shan came up with prefatory dedications and postscripts, which I have appended to the beginning and end of the text. There are also critical and poetic comments. Now the marginalia are placed at the top of each page and the general observations on scenes at the end of each scene. These comments carefully ponder my original intentions, and have not missed even one part of a hundred, in every case I have availed my readers' trusted pens to write them, and they are found across the...