SOURCE: Roddy, Stephen J. “The Philological Musings of Jinghua yuan.” In Literati Identity and Its Fictional Representations in Late Imperial China, pp. 171‐206. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998.

In the following excerpt, Roddy examines gender role reversals in Li Ju‐chen's novel in the context of its overall image of the literati.

Much better known as an example of scholarly fiction than Yesou puyan is Jinghua yuan by Li Ruzhen,¹ written in the first decades of the nineteenth century. This work also bears the strong imprint of the scholarly interests of its author, who unlike the obscure Xia Jingqu seems to have achieved some limited renown in learned circles of his day. It also betrays an analogous preoccupation with literati concerns, preeminent among them the achievement of recognition through public service, or what I have called yu. But while Confucian in conception Jinghua yuan exhibits a much greater catholicity...