Chinese legend scholarship started in the first two decades of the 20th century and developed over the next hundred years. There is no overview of Chinese legend scholarship, except for 毕旭玲 (Bi Xuling)’s (2008) doctoral dissertation concerning those who wrote before 1949. Legend did not gain the same attention as myth and folktale in Chinese folkloristics until recent years. I separate Chinese legend
scholarship into four phases: (1) emergence (1910-1923); (2) development in the field of literature studies, history, folkloristics, ethnology and anthropology (1923-1949); (3) halted period; (4) development from the early1980s. In the early two decades of the 20th century, historians and literati identified legend as an independent genre. Historians, literati, folklorists, anthropologists and ethnologists developed legend study further mainly through numerous case studies: researches on ancient myths and legends that have been recorded in official history, collection of myths and legends
from minor ethnic groups, and examinations on well-known legendary figures, such as lady Mengjiang and Zhu Yingtai. Academic study on legend halted from 1949 to the early 1980s because of the stagnation of humanities and social science for political reasons10, but collection, as a branch of people’s literature, was an important
achievement. More folklorists have begun to pay attention to legend and to research it from various perspectives since the early 1980s. Legend has now gained an
independent position in folklore studies and undergoes rapid development.
The emergence of 传说学 (Chuanshuo xue, legend study) started in the early 20thcentury on the basis of the advancement of history, and under foreign influence.
Scholars from history and literature first participated, and those from anthropology, and sociology joined in the late 1920s. Suspicion of ancient Chinese history caused the historians to seek to separate myth and legend from history. Translations of Western and Japanese scholarly works, “learning from the west,” including history, anthropology, literature and folklore, made great contributions to the emergence of Chinese legend study. The works translated, including myths and legends from Greece, Rome, Northern Europe, India and so forth, and related studies, influenced Chinese legend scholarship in two ways: firstly, their theories and methods were borrowed by Chinese scholars; secondly, their efforts motivated and stimulated Chinese scholars to pay attention to our own myths and legends (Bi 2008, 91).
In 1910s and 1920s, a few literati who had studied abroad such as 鲁迅 (Lu Xun), 周作人(Zhou Zuoren), and 矛盾(Mao Dun) began to differentiate legend as a
10 Many disciplines in humanities and social science had been defined as capitalistic
genre independent from myth and folktale (Bi 2008, 30; Hu 1999, 29, 39). The first definition of “legend” was made by literati. As a modern academic term, it was first used by 单世厘 (Shan Shili) when she introduced Greek myth in 1910 (Bi 2008, 27; Shan 1994, 37). 周作人(Zhou Zuoren), in articles published in 1913, used “传说 (Chuanshuo)” and “世说 (Shishuo)” to refer to sagas and define them as a genre believed by the people in which the time, the location and the personages were considered accurate (Bi 2008, 30; Zhou 1994, 44-48, 71-74). According to 鲁迅 (Lu Xun), myths evolved into legends and the personages in legends changed to
semi-gods/goddesses or heroes (Lu 1925, 16), as he argued in his 中国小说史略 (Zhongguo xiaoshuoshi lue, The Brief History of Chinese Novels), first published in 1923. In the above articles and books, the literati differentiated legend from myth and folktale, which clarified legend as a genre and tried to define it.
Legend study entered the second phase with the early development of Chinese folkloristics during which intellectuals paid attention to folklore and began to collect and study. Collections of folk legends and studies on them have flourished since the early 1920s. Generally, 顾颉刚 (Gu Jiegang)’s “孟姜女故事的转变 (Mengjiangnv gushi de zhuanbian, The Development of the Stories of Lady Mengjiang)” in 1924 is regarded as the beginning of legend study (Zhong 1986, 3; Ye 1987, 113; Bi 2006, 107 ) , which “came to serve as a model for other studies” (Huang 1985, 81; Hu 2003, 23). During this period, the studies on legends of 徐文长 (Xu Wenchang) and 祝英 台 (ZhuYingtai) were also well-known. Gu Jiegang’s study on Lady Mengjiang is the first climax of Chinese legend scholarship.
Studies on minority peoples were launched from 1928 to the 1940s. A few scholars who had been trained in anthropology, sociology and ethnology abroad returned to China and carried on their fieldwork and studies in aboriginal areas, particularly the south-west, to which the capital and cultural center moved after the break-out of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937. They began to collect myths and legends from minority people and included them in their studies, which were ignored by Han-Chinese scholars before and are now regarded as a necessary part of Chinese folk literature study.
In the period 1949 to 1976, legend study did not advance in theory, but the collections in different areas and from minorities were noticeable (Liu 2006, 606, 613). Legend study revived and achieved its second climax in the 1980s. Articles, books, and conferences about 四大传说 (Sida chuanshuo, the Four Great Legends)11
developed very much further. 罗永麟 (Luo Yonglin) (Luo, 1983) and 贺学君 (He Xuejun) (He, 1986) compiled or wrote books centering on them. Research on Lady Mengjiang was still a hotspot. Gu Jiegang’s series of articles on this woman was compiled and published under the title 孟姜女故事研究集 (Mengjiangnv gushi
yanjiuji, The Collection of Study on Stories of Lady Mengjiang) (1984). Case studies
extended to other well known legendary personages, such as 董永 (Dong Yong), 王
11 The four great legends are 孟姜女 (Lady Mengjiang), 白蛇传 (Baishezhuan,
White Snake), 梁山伯与祝英台( Liangshanbo he Zhuyingtai, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai), and 牛郎织女(Niulang he Zhin, The Cowherd Boy and the Weaving
Maiden). These four legends have a very long history, they emerged before hundreds or even two thousand years ago. They were transmitted through oral tradition,
classical literature, mass and popular culture and have became well-known among Han-Chinese.
昭君 (Wang Zhaojun), 鲁班 (Lu Ban), 钟馗 (Zhong Kui). 程蔷 (Cheng Qiang)’s and 张紫辰 (Zhang Zichen) did some preliminary study on legend typology (Cheng 1986; Zhang 1986).
In the 1990s, the theory of legend moved further. Japanese folklorist 柳田国男 (Yanagita Kunio)’s 传说论 (Chuanshuo lun; The Legends) has made a great impact on Chinese legend study since its translation and publication in 1988. 程蔷(Cheng Qiang) (1995) , 谭达先 (Tan Daxian) (1993) and 黄景春 (Huang Jingchun) (2008) wrote books about the general theoretical problems of legend as an independent genre. From the late 1970s, Chinese professional folklorists introduced foreign theories and methods, applied them for research, developed and modified them. 乌丙安 (Wu Bing’an) was interested in Yanagita Kunioi’s “legend cycle” and applied it to local legends (1995, 15-30) 邹明华 (Zou Minghua) (2003, 89-93) introduced Linda Dégh’s discussion about legend and belief (2003, 175-179). 李杨 (Li Yang), 张敦福 (Zhang Dunfu) , 魏泉 (Wei Quan), 王杰文 (Wang Jiewen), and 刘文江 (Liu Wenjiang) introduced U.S. contemporary legend studies to China (Liu Wenjiang 2012), particularly Brunvand’s study on“The Vanishing Hitchhiker” (Wang 2005; Zhang 2005), and carried on research on Chinese versions (Li and Wang: 2000; Wei 2011; Wei and Zhang 2006; Zhang 2006). 施爱东 (Shi Aidong) involved rumor in folkloristics, but he did not notice studies by the Western folklorists (Shi 2012, 2013, 2015). Except for a few, most Chinese folklorists did not identify rumor and
contemporary legend as folk literature.
in synchronic and diachronical dimensions, to trace the process of development, the route of dissemination and the factors motivating the variations normally from social and cultural perspectives. Such methodologies are suitable for a broad and macro study or a survey of the life history of a legend around China, a country with a vast territory and an integrated culture.
Chinese legend scholarship is undergoing a paradigmatic shift from text-centered to contextual studies. Early studies were based on texts from various channels, such as history, classical literature, local history and biography, popular and mass culture, as well as oral tradition, sometimes with a few considerations of localization. Few scholars did fieldwork themselves, including those who studied legends from oral tradition that had been collected by amateur folklorists. In the past decade scholars became apart from “text” and closer to “field” where they collected, observed and thought. They extended legend study to the discussion and examination of the relations between community and legend (Shi 2006, 213; 2007, 231), religion or belief and legend, custom and legend (Liu 2002, 246; Liu and Li 2003, 214), cultural tourism and legend (Xiao and Wang, 2004, 216), the development of society and legend (Xiao and Wang, 2004, 216; Shi 2006, 218) and so forth. Fieldwork has become a necessary part in legend study that was previously almost solely text-centered, not only collecting materials in fieldwork, but also examining the relationships between tellers, legends and communities.
In her study of legend scholarship, Bi Xuling identified four main perspectives for early legend study before 1949: historical, literary, folkloric and
socio-anthropological. Historical studies try to separate legend and history, while literary studies focused on the development of a legend in classical literature, both of which are text-centered. Folklorists began to involve materials from fieldwork in their studies from the 1930s, which was a big change. The greatest contribution is Gu Jiegang’s study on the legends of Lady Mengjiang, in which he investigated the two thousand years development history of this legend, the routes of diffusion around the country, and the cycles of distribution. Anthropologists and ethnologists collected legends and used them as historical material to study the history of the minority ethnic tribes.
At present, a strong trend toward a mixture of various methods has emerged. The above four methods are still applicable and are always applied together in legend study. Among them, the folkloristic perspective that tried to provide a systematic frame with historical development and geographical distribution, has been the main one. Fieldwork is now believed a necessary part of legend study. Folklorists have moved from comprehensive and nation-wide examinations of a legend to systematic, in-depth research in a community or a limited location; for example Naqin (2004) and Chen Yongchao (2010) studied the members, the religion and the legends in a
community in their studies, though they focused on religion, rather than the legends.
Legend Scholarship in the West
Legend scholarship in the West could be traced back to the Brothers Grimm who, motivated by rising nationalism, began to collect, publish and study German folklore, particularly mythology, Märchen and Sage. They tried to define and characterize
legend as an independent genre in comparison with Märchen (Tangherlini 1990, 371; Lindahl 1996, xi; Dégh 2001, 35). Their successful work inspired folklorists to collect legends in Germany and other European countries, such as Nilolaos Politis in Greece, de Keyser and Peeters in Belgium, Ó Súilleabháin in Ireland, as well as scholars in Hungary, Bulgaria and America (Hand 1965, 440), where scholars attempted to define and theorize folk legend from the early 1890s, such as Wehrhan, von der Leyen, Höttges, Ranke, von Sydow, Peuckert (Hand 1965, 439). Preliminary studies had emerged with the rising amount of collections since the early 1890s: Wehrhan’s first scholarly survey of legendry in 1908, the handbooks of von der Leyen 1920-1924, of von der Leyen and Höttges in 1933, the theoretical writings of Ranke in 1926 and 1934, of von Sydow in 1948, Christiansen’s The Migratory Legends in 1958, as well as Peuckert’s Handwörterbuch der Sage in 1961 (Hand 1965, 439). German and Nordic folklorists, Lüthi, Ranke, Panyer, Röhrich, also made efforts to define legend, mainly following the Brothers Grimm’s literary perspective to distinguish between two genres, märchen and sage (Dégh 2001, 36-42).
Numerous collections and preliminary theoretical exploitations called for classification and indexing that were in discussion in the first meeting of the
International Society for Folk-Narrative Research. A planning committee composed of Christiansen, Sinninghe, Allen Woods, Peuckert and Hand was appointed to work on national index of legends, as a prelude to an international one, like the Aarne index for folktales (Hand 1965, 339-440). Legend scholars extended their focus from legend motifs to legend types in later conferences and seminars in Valdres, Norway and
Berlin, DDR in 1961, and Antwerp in 1963 in which they proposed “plans to produce national legend indices, and ultimately a usable international index of legend types” (Hand 1965, 442). For the purpose of further work, legend scholars made a tentative classification: Aetiological and Eschatological Legends, Historical Legends and Legends of the History of Civilization (with six sub-categories), Supernatural Beings and Forces / Mythical Legends (with thirteen sub-categories), and Religious Legends / Mythos of Gods and Heroes (Hand 1965, 444). Besides texts of legends, European scholars extended their study to legend tellers, and to legend and belief.
Early scholars followed the Brothers Grimm’s literary approach and gained many achievements, collections, classifications and preliminary theoretical studies. Their efforts peaked when they attempted to make an international index of legends but this proved to be extremely difficult and impractical. Their methodology was constructed “with disregard for social context, performance and psychological motivations” (Tangherlini 1990, 372). Legend scholarship entered a turning period in the 1950s and 1960s. The unsuccessful international index proved that the definitions,
characterizations, the extent of texts, and methods based on literary perspectives were not suitable for legend studies any longer, and “a synthetic view…[which] considered legend from literary, anthropological and psychological viewpoints” was needed.
American folklorists showed interest in a new field, mass media, and they began to search for new approaches to understand the process and formation of legend (Dégh 2001, 42). The Germany literary approach and the European ambition to create national classifications still had their followers in the 1960s (Dégh 2001, 42). The
publication of American Folk Legend: A Symposium in 1971 “revealed both the German dominance of legend study and the rising tide of American scholarship” (Lindahl 1996, xii). British legend scholar Gillian Bennett identified three influential contributions in this symposium: Dégh’s “The ‘Belief Legend’ in Modern Society” that “inspired and informed the contextual, interpretative and ‘sociological’ approach to the study of contemporary legend,” Dundes’s “The Psychology of Legend” that raised the question “why it is that legends continue to be used and
transmitted? ”(Dundes 1971, 21), and Georges’ “The General Concepts of Legend” that attacked each proposition of the usual formulation of legend definition, all of which “laid the ground for a period of revaluation in legend study, in particular an accelerating shift away from text-based to process- and context-based approaches” (Bennett and Smith 1996, xxx-xxxi) . Bennett, Smith and Dégh highly praised this symposium:
[It] opened a new perspective for both American and European legend study. It called attention to the ethnography of the legend, the legend that lives in our time….This landmark meeting opened the door to the discovery of new sources of legendry, leading to the new classifications, definitions, and
terminologies….The meeting was the overture to contemporary legend study (Dégh 2001,102).
Three waves have contributed to the shift: Dégh’s and her students’ collections and studies on belief legend, as well as legend-telling, legend tellers and “ostension,”; Brunvand’s successful collections and publications that popularized contemporary legend among common people and inspired European colleagues; and Smith’s and
Bennett’s effort to initiate conferences on Contemporary Legend from 1982, to found the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (ISCLR) in 1988, and to compile another significant anthology Contemporary Legend: A Reader in 1996. The shift in legend scholarship corresponds with the shift from item-based to
process-based, from “ ‘the folk’ as a class or regional group to communicating
groups,” and from text to field, in folkloristics in the west in the 1960s (Lindahl 1996, xxxiii).
Bennett and Smith’s anthology “consolidates a gradual shift which has taken place over the last two decades, in which English-language scholarship has taken the lead in the study of…contemporary legend” (Bennett and Smith 1996, xii).
Contemporary legend has attracted attention from sociologists, psychologists, anthropologist, folklorists and scholars of literature who brought new approaches to this field and showed interest in mass media and popular culture, which resulted in “a paradigmatic shift which has led to highly contentious social and political issues” (Bennett and Smith 1996, xxxvi). The paradigmatic shifts heightened the contrasts with conventional definitions and characterizations of legend and created more disputes, in particular whether text (narrative) or belief is the “appropriate qualifier” for legend (Bennett and Smith 1996, xxxvii-xxxviii).
Timothy R. Tangherlini provided a historical survey of earlier legend scholarship and developed a characterization of the legend genre based on a synthesis of previous scholarship in a manner that explains the basic characteristics of the folk legend in his article “A Survey of Legend Theory and Characterization” (1990, 371). He reviewed
both the literary approaches and considerations of context and performance (372). The characteristics of this genre were summarized through comparison with other related genres such as folktale and rumor. He investigated the essential aspects of legend scholarship—legend and folktale, history, and psychology, legend style, form, and structure, legend, folk belief and rumor, as well as subgenres, classification of legend and contemporary legend (1990, 372-384; 1994, 3-22). This article was modified and located in the first chapter of his book, “Legends and legend scholarship” (Tangherlini 1994).