Disruption Restoration: Illustration and Plot in the 17th Century Chinese Short Story

Alexander C. Wille, postdoctoral fellow, Washington University

EALC Forum presents

Is there a basic plot structure that unifies the forty short stories that make up Feng Menglong’s 馮夢龍 ca. 1620 short story collection Illustrious Words to Instruct the World (Yushi mingyan 喻世明⾔言)? What could such a structure tell us about the internal narrative logic and cultural assumptions that inform the collection? Did this structure and logic influence the eighty illustrations that accompanied the collection? This talk will outline a “minimum complete plot” common to most entries in the collection and describe how it can lead to more nuanced and complex readings of stories and illustrations alike.