What Is Eighteenth-Century Xiaoshuo?

Authors

Jessica Dvorak Moyer, Smith CollegeFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2025

Publication Title

Eighteenth-Century Fiction

Abstract

This article responds to the question, “What is eighteenth-century fiction?” with a focus on Chinese fiction. It begins with an overview of eighteenth-century Chinese fiction and a deeper reading of the explicit metafictionality of China’s most famous eighteenth-century novel, Story of the Stone (also known as Dream of the Red Chamber). Then it critically interrogates the assumed equivalency between the English term fiction and the Chinese term xiaoshuo through a historical overview of the unequal literary and linguistic engagements between Europe and China. The article concludes that “we can neither reduce Stone to fiction nor deny it the status of fiction” and calls for a way of reading Chinese literary works in translation without essentializing either sameness or difference, one that acknowledges the dangers and distinctions involved yet insists on communicability across differences—one based first in the pleasure of reading for its own sake.

Volume

37

Issue

1

DOI

10.3138/ecf.2023-0054

Rights

Copyright 2025 by Eighteenth-Century Fiction, McMaster University

Comments

Archived as published.

Recommended Citation

Moyer, Jessica Dvorak, "What Is Eighteenth-Century Xiaoshuo?" (2025). East Asian Languages & Cultures: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/eas_facpubs/22