Chair: Eric P. Henry, University of North Carolina

The proposed panel seeks to explore aspects of dynastic organization in three major epics of East Asia, The Tale of the Heike, Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi yanyi), and The Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan). Each of the three epics focuses on a defining moment of national significance in Chinese/Japanese history, when a political crisis forces to the surface latent problems in the political order, and their solution leads into a new era.

In the case of Japan, the Heike details the events stemming from the insidious usurpation of imperial authority by the Taira clan and pursues the consequences down to the defeat of the Taira at the hands of the Genji clan and the creation of the new Shogunal rule in Kamakura (1180–1185). Professor Michael Watson, a long-time student of the text, will track the two clans’ shifting claims regarding dynastic legitimacy and rebellion. The events mark the transition from the Heian to the Kamakura periods.

In the case of China, Three Kingdoms follows the events of the last reign of the Han dynasty (189–220) and the transition to the subsequent three kingdoms era of divided rule. The uprising of the Yellow Scarves against Han rule leads to a break-down in the imperial house. The crisis at the center quickly spreads to other key regions of the empire. Professor Roberts’ presentation tries to show how the geographic issues tie into institutional issues as the novel implicitly questions the conventional form of transmitting power, from father to son, and even the family itself as the proper instrument of imperial rule.

In contrast to Three Kingdoms, which looks downward on the empire from the highest levels of political power, The Water Margin looks upward toward the seat of imperial authority from the vantage of local rebels. By focusing first on a few critical characters in the early chapters of the novel, Professor Chi-hung Yim shows how regional autonomy and central authority are balanced and the negotiations between ruler and rebel are conducted. The Water Margin depicts some of the key events in the last years of the northern Song dynasty, just before the ruling house surrenders the north and moves south (in 1127), ushering in a new phase of Chinese history.

Michael G. Watson, Meiji Gakuin School of International Studies

The medieval prose The Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari) is an account in nearly two hundred episodes of a war that permanently changed the political landscape of Japan. The twelfth-century struggle for power between the two military clans is narrated in a remarkably balanced manner, with criticism and sympathy in due measure for victors and vanquished. The Genji begin as rebels against imperial authority and the Heike under Kiyomori as the loyal defenders of the court. After the Heike fail to prevent the "northern rebels" from taking the capital in 1183, their positions reverse, and the Heike are branded as rebels. The battle of Ichi-no-tani in the following year is a turning point in the war, which ends in 1185 with the Heike defeat at Dan-no-ura.

The earliest extant text of the work ends with praise for the Genji victor and first shogun, Yoritomo. The account for oral performance dictated by the reciter Kakuichi in 1371 choose instead to leave audiences with the Heike view of events, the recollections of Kiyomori’s daughter Kenreimon’in of the Heike’s fall from power. Much admired for giving shape to the work as a whole, the final episodes in the Kakuichi version also illustrate many of the narrative features of Heike monogatari, notably its use of multiple voices and views. This paper will examine how the mimetic devices of speech representation and focalization are used in this episode and elsewhere to create different perspectives on events.

Moss Roberts, New York University

The novel Three Kingdoms begins with the formation of a brotherhood of three whose purpose is to organize a militia and rescue the imperial house from peasant rebel armies known as the Yellow Scarves. Liu Bei is the elder brother and leader. He is also a scion of the royal house. The forces that the brothers command acquit themselves and contribute to the stabilization of the Han house. The brotherhood however is based on a contradiction that will ultimately undermine the Han cause—the binding oath which obligates each to die for the other, an oath that supersedes every other loyalty. Compliance with this oath eventually causes the hero Liu Bei, the presumptive bearer of Han imperial authority, to sacrifice his imperial quest and avenge his brother.

In the novel, the tension between Liu Bei’s opposing roles as elder brother and prospective restorer of the Han dynasty, between the opposing organizational forms of fraternity and dynasty (guojia, based on filial succession), between the values of loyalty to the guojia and to one’s sworn brothers, and finally between Liu Bei’s famed adviser Zhuge Liang (Kongming) and the brothers, charges both narrative and characters with thematic force and drives the tale to its tragic conclusion. In this way, the concept of dynastic organization of China’s government is subjected to extensive scrutiny, its manifold weaknesses revealed, even as the virtual impossibility of its reform or replacement is implicitly acknowledged.

Chi-hung Yim, New York University

It has been observed that the narrative of The Water Margin proceeds in cycles of stories involving different heroes. The first story cycle unfolds in Chapter 3. Between the novel’s opening section (which consists of the prologue and Chapter 1) and the emergence of this story, two intriguing figures enter: Wang Jin and Shi Jin, who withdraw from the arena shortly after their appearances, although Shi returns as one of the thirty-six "heavenly stars," the thirty-six major heroes of the Liangshan band.

On the surface, Wang Jin simply ushers in Shi Jin, who in turn sets the stage for Lu Zhishen, the lead in the first story cycle. Yet Wang himself exhibits almost all of the qualities of the big thirty-six. The first victim of Gao Qiu’s evil machinations, Wang excels in martial arts—he is the arms instructor of the Mighty Imperial Guards with whom Shi perfects his skills in "The Eighteen Weapons." Wang is righteous, filial, and single. It disappoints the reader that Wang does not play a more important role in the Liangshan saga. And why is not Shi, who has already burnt down his manor and embarked on adventure, allowed to join the Lu Zhishen story cycle?