Pre-Texts and Narrative Strategies of Journey to the West Drama in the Qing Dynasty

Abstract

The narrative strategies employed in Journey to the West drama of the Qing Dynasty were shaped by three types of pre-texts. In a narrow sense, the one-hundred-chapter version of the Journey to the West served as the primary combination-aggregation pre-text. It not only provided dramatists with a reference framework for selecting and arranging events but also established the narrative norms for deity-and-demon stories. Moreover, its original text could be directly combined into scripts as entrance verses or character dialogues. Early scripts functioned as more direct combination pre-texts. Given its song-centered artistic nature, Qing-dynasty Journey to the West drama frequently borrowed and integrated previous song texts, and the arrangement of song suites had a direct influence on the narrative flow. In a broad sense, the public image of Journey to the West in the minds of the general public at the time—that is, the basic understanding of the novel’s import shaped by multimedia storytelling—also profoundly influenced the dramatists’ narrative strategies. Even literati authored Journey to the West drama had to cater to public expectations. Consequently, a distinct narrative trend emerged: framing the narrative as “a book of immortals,” thereby giving the story a manifest and discernible meaning. In essence, the narrative remained “a playful book.”

Keywords

pre-text / Journey to the West drama / Journey to the West / narrative strategies / narrative purport

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