Epic and Romance in Traditional Chinese Culture

Living oral tradition has transmitted the saga of the hero Wu Song for more than 700 years, making it a cultural touchstone down to the present day. This collection provides an enjoyable sample of the wide range of genres in which this famous hero’s story circulated across the centuries—novels, plays, ballads, and oral performances of many kinds. It is fascinating to note that the vast majority of oral performances and even performance-related texts are not “adaptations” that depend on the novel or earlier plays, but independent creations that retell the legend in the manner of their specific genre. Some portray Wu Song as the embodiment of a peerless hero of strength and virtue; others question those qualities. As a famous heroic tale, the story of Wu Song provides an important point of comparison with Western epics. However, no Indigenous term for “epic” exists in Chinese. Instead, long, heroic, oral performance art existed in Han Chinese culture for centuries in the form of storytelling (shuoshu) and some ballads. Thus, the Wu Song tales contribute to our understanding of the meaning of epic in a global context. This collection gives readers, scholars, and students a first-hand feel for the vibrant variation evident in the Wu Song story and the intricate interplay between the oral and written traditions.