SOURCE: Roy, David T. “Chang Chu-p'o's Commentary on the Chin p'ing mei.” In Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, edited by Andrew H. Plaks, pp. 115-23. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977.

In this essay, Roy suggests that Chang Chu-p'o's commentary on Chin p'ing mei (The Golden Lotus) represents an early Chinese poetics of the novel. Chang Chu-p'o's assessment of the novel focuses on the style, structure, and technique of the work and de-emphasizes the issues of allegory and morality for which The Golden Lotus was notorious.

In 1644 Chin Sheng-t'an (d. 1661) published an edition of the Shui-hu chuan, the text of which was accompanied by his own critical commentary.¹ Although rudimentary commentaries on works of vernacular fiction had appeared as early as the second half of the sixteenth century, this work of Chin Sheng-t'an eclipsed all its predecessors in popularity and established a vogue that resulted in the...