Zhiyanzhai Quotes

Zhiyanzhai was the pseudonym of an early and mysterious commentator of the 18th-century Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber. This person was a contemporary of the author Cao Xueqin who knew the author intimately enough to be regarded as the chief commentator of his work while it was still unpublished. Most early hand-copied manuscripts of the novel contain red or black-inked commentaries by a few unknown commentators, considered authoritative enough to be transcribed by scribes into subsequent generations of copies. Zhiyanzhai was the most prominent of these commentators. Early copies of Dream were known as 脂硯齋重評石頭記 . These versions are known as 脂本, or "Rouge Versions", in Chinese. They are the manuscripts with the highest textual reliability.

Zhiyanzhai had clearly finished reading Cao's completed draft to reveal details which would otherwise be lost to later generations. It was mostly through Zhiyanzhai's comments that scholars learn about some passages and incidents in the now missing original ending. Zhiyanzhai also conclusively identified the work as Cao Xueqin's. Orthodox Redologists rely extensively on Zhiyanzhai's notes for research and scholarly conjectures, although the identity of Zhiyanzhai remains a mystery.

Redology scholar Zhou Ruchang speculated that Zhiyanzhai was a woman, the second wife and cousin of Cao Xueqin and the person on whom the character Shi Xiangyun was based. This hypothesis has not been universally accepted and Zhiyanzhai's identity continues to be shrouded in mystery. Wu Shichang dismissed Zhou's theory and the possibility of Zhiyanzhai's being a woman based on internal evidence in the commentary and argued that he was a younger brother of Cao's father; British Sinologist David Hawkes speculated Zhiyanzhai was Cao's "kinsman-collaborator". Maram Epstein hypothesizes the name "Zhiyanzhai" may be merely a "compilation of voices". Wikipedia  

Zhiyanzhai: 8   quotes 0   likes

Famous Zhiyanzhai Quotes

“Words on the paper mix with blood,
The extraordinary labor of ten years!”

(zh-TW) 字字看來皆是血,十年辛苦不尋常 。

Poem in the preface to Dream of the Red Chamber, present in its 1754 jiaxu manuscript (甲戌本), quoted in Zhou Ruchang's Between Noble and Humble, trans. Liangmei Bao (New York: Peter Lang, 2009), p. 181

“It is most likely that the author was the only one who owed and paid a debt of tears. I know something about this but not all the details.”

Note in the first chapter of an 1814 version of The Story of the Stone, as quoted by Liu Zaifu in Reflections on "Dream of the Red Chamber", trans. Shu Yunzhong (Cambria Press, 2008), p. 197

“To be enlightened is to obliterate all self-consciousness. What need is there to make others understand? This shows precisely that he has not yet attained real awakening and final enlightenment.”

As quoted in Enchantment and Disenchantment: Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature by Wai-yee Li (Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 221

“The best parts of this book grow out of poems and song lyrics.”

Comment on the scene in which Baoyu meets Hsiao-hung for the second time in chapter 25, as reported and quoted in Enchantment and Disenchantment: Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature by Wai-yee Li (Princeton University Press, 1993), footnote on p. 168

“By resorting to illusions, the supreme expression of love is attained. Nothing can compare to it.”

As quoted in Enchantment and Disenchantment: Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature by Wai-yee Li (Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 159

“Objects bring back their memories. You tear my heart!”

A commentary on an episode in Chapter 8 of the Dream of the Red Chamber, trans. David Hawkes in The Story of the Stone, Vol. I (Penguin, 1973), p. 34, quoted by Gideon Shelach-Lavi in "Memory, Amnesia and the Formation of Identity Symbols in China", published in Memory and Agency in Ancient China (Cambridge University Press, 2018)