Orthodox Passions

Recent scholarship on emotions in late imperial China focuses heavily on the romantic connection between individuals and neglects the affective bond between parents and children. In Orthodox Passions: Narrating Filial Love during the High Qing, Maram Epstein hones in on the parent-child relationship, demonstrating how filiality (xiao) played a prominent role in establishing personhood in imperial times. The book weaves filial narratives from local gazetteers, vernacular fiction, and auto/biographies into a tapestry of filial sentiments. The author demonstrates how fruitful it is to do away with the May Fourth discourse of modernity and to (re)examine Chinese materials within their historical contexts. As she points out, May Fourth intellectuals treated Confucian filial piety as a regressive custom that suppressed individuality and prevented China from becoming a modern nation-state. Those reformers' views hinder us from identifying filiality as a central theme in late imperial narratives. It is time to go beyond the prism of modernity and objectively examine filial piety and its functions in premodern society.The book provides a thick description of filial acts, presenting xiao as a fundamental value and emotion in premodern China. The author's nuanced readings of primary sources reveal the complexity and multivalent meanings of xiao. Chapter 1, “Taking Filial Love Seriously,” places the culture of xiao in a comparative and theoretical framework, arguing that unlike the Western individualized self, a premodern Chinese person's identity was established within familial and communal networks. Because filial piety undergirds the emotional and ethical self, it is necessary to examine the vertical bond between parents and children in addition to looking at the horizontal bond between lovers.Chapter 2, “Toward a New Paradigm of Emotions,” depicts a rich history of xiao. The author shows how its meanings varied in different historical periods. The notion of xiao was intertwined with state and lineage rites before Confucianism was founded. The Analects and Mencius linked xiao with individuals' interiority and their service to their parents. In the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), individuals expressed devotion to high-ranking officials in the same way that they served their parents. In the Six Dynasties (220–589), unrestrained emotions toward the loss of parents were encouraged, as indicated in the records from that period. Following a decline of interest in promoting filial piety in the Tang (618–907), Neo-Confucian philosophers in the Song (960–1279) revived filial rituals and created strict ritual rules.In the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398) emphasized the importance of expressing natural emotions during the mourning process. Then, late Ming Xinxue (School of the Mind) philosophers portrayed xiao as intrinsic to moral cultivation and a generative force in the universe. In the High Qing (1683–1839), when Manchu rulers relied on xiao to morally transform their subjects, people in the Han ethnic group utilized xiao to maintain their ethnic identity and protest against the Manchu rulers.Chapter 3, “Changing Constructions of Filial Virtue in Local Gazetteers,” examines local gazetteers produced in Shandong and Jiangsu from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Combining textual and quantitative analyses, Epstein exposes the differences between the materials from the two regions in portraying filial sons. As she reveals, records from Shandong focus on mourning rites and bear minimal details, whereas records from Jiangsu have graphic accounts and show strong emotions. Readers are reminded that filial narratives in local gazetteers may not be factual and that those accounts instead reveal what xiao meant to local elites.Chapter 4, “Filial Piety and the Empowering of Daughters during the Qing,” adopts the same methodologies used in chapter 3 and concentrates on the portrayal of filial daughters in local gazetteers. According to Epstein, records from pre-nineteenth-century Shandong depict how women diligently served their parents-in-law instead of their natal parents, as male biographers had little interest in representing women's emotional bonds with their natal families. On the contrary, in nineteenth-century Jiangnan and Huizhou gazetteers, there exists a noticeable increase in filial daughters' stories, which emphasize women's attachments and devotion to their natal homes. In fact, in some texts filial daughters achieve agency and function as social males by performing filial piety.The focus of chapter 5, “Rereading the Sentimental World of Story of the Stone,” shifts to late imperial vernacular fiction. The author argues that the representation of filial love is the norm of High Qing fiction. However, The Story of the Stone is unconventional due to a lack of interest in filiality. She then presents how filial piety is foregrounded in contemporary novels such as Rulin waishi (The Scholars), Qilu deng (The Light at the Crossroads), Yesou puyan (A Country Codger's Words of Exposure), and Hou Honglou meng (The Later Dream of the Red Chamber). The author does not explain in detail why Stone evades the theme of xiao, only briefly mentioning that it is partially due to the influence of the Ming novel The Plum in the Golden Vase, which also “minimizes the place of the filial child-parent bond” (230).Chapter 6, “Rethinking Interiority: Mourning Rites and the Construction of the Affective and Ethical Self in Auto/Biographical Writings,” employs the concepts of gong (communal) and si (private) to theorize the relationship between the mourner and deceased, which indicates a linkage between emotion and space. As per Epstein, if a man's relationship with his parents is gong, then his connections with his wives and children belong to the sphere of si. The gong affection is ritually acceptable, whereas the si love should be concealed. Epstein's analyses of the mourning accounts of Li Zhi (1527–1602), Yan Yuan (1635–1704), Li Gong (1659–1733), and Lin Shu (1852–1924) guide readers into these men's psychological realms, showing their struggles in mourning. Although they could freely exhibit psychosomatic reactions to their deceased parents, these men had to lament the deaths of their wives and children through another's voice or via a “negotiation of ritual protocol” (310).The book serves as a great model and inspiration for scholars who hope to rewrite the history of emotions in China. For too long, the notion of qing has been narrowly defined as romantic love by historians and literary scholars. Epstein broadens the scope of qing by adding filial sentiments to the picture, arguing that a premodern individual's identity was first and foremost derived from his or her emotional connection with family. Commonly, when we look at late imperial literary texts, we tend to focus on the representation of sexual desire and romantic relationships and overlook how other types of emotions are described. As a result, Tang Xianzu's (1550–1616) play The Peony Pavilion is treated solely as a celebration of romantic love. Epstein's study inspires us to look at Tang's play differently, and more particularly, it draws our attention to the second half of the play. We realize that the female protagonist Du Liniang's identity is restored not only by romantic love but also through reconnecting with her parents. After being resurrected, she reunites with her parents and seeks their approval before tying the knot with Liu Mengmei, indicating that her personhood is largely based on her familial obligations. Only when we realize the pivotal role of filiality in traditional Chinese culture can we perceive this substantial layer of emotion in the play.In the book Epstein reminds us that filiality is a plural concept, as different religions assimilated it and created their own versions of xiao. The notion was integrated into the Buddhist discourse of salvation. By becoming a monk, a son could help rid his parents of the painful cycle of death and rebirth. As Epstein mentions, Buddhists emphasized an intense affective bond between mothers and sons, which created an emotional turn in the history of filial piety. As we know, xiao was also celebrated in the religion of Daoism. Starting from the late Southern Song (1127–1279) through the Ming and Qing (1644–1911), the School of Jingming Zhongxiao Dao (The Pure and Clear Way of Loyalty and Piety) inherited the Lingbao liturgical tradition and advocated filial piety as vital to achieving immortality. Naturally, xiao acquired a different connotation in the Daoist context. The multireligious aspect of xiao merits further investigation.Orthodox Passions presents us with a valuable paradigm to approach the history of emotions. Readers who are interested in interiority and the construction of personhood in premodern China should delve into this book. It is a must-read for scholars and students who hope to understand the changing meanings of filial piety in Chinese history

Art · Citation · Icon · Library science · Literature · Passions · Chinese history and philosophy · Computer Science · History · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies