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Pavilion, 24–26), while Yingying 鶯鶯 in “The Romance of the West Chamber” is seduced by the poems of the student Zhang. We can also find weakness of will and temptations owing to the feeling of loneliness, or in the presence of sensory stimuli described in this kind of literature, for example scenes of lovemaking, even between animals (See McMahon, “Eroticism in Late Ming, Early Qing Fiction,” 250). For themes concerning seduction and involving moral freedom and responsibility, see Santangelo and Boros, The Culture of Love, 252–307.

183. Xingshi Yinyuan Zhuan, 44: 651.

184. Ibid., 59: 850, cited and translated by Martin Huang, Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial, 153.

185. Yenna Wu, Marriage Destinies to Awaken the World, 93, 95. See also Chu Kwang-tsien, Psychology of Tragedy, 207.

186. Plaks, “After the Fall,” 543–580. For other fundamental aspects concerning the challenges both to narrative conventions and to the popular Confucian sense of moral order through the parody of earlier standards as well as a paradoxical or subversive attitude, see Hegel, “Unpredictability and Meaning in Ming-Qing Literati Novels,” 147–166.

187. Plaks (“After the Fall,” 576) quotes this meaningful passage from chapter 27: “If later generations are made to go on suffering harsh retribution for the sins of their fathers, regardless of whether they are good or evil in their own right, then the whole idea of retribution is unfair 若因他父祖作惡不論他子孫為人好歹一味惡報這報應又不分明也。” See also Plaks, “After the Fall,” 577.

188. Cheng Wenlin 程文林 (d. 1562), quoted and translated by Yingzhi Zhao, “Catching Shadows,” 42. Other examples are given in the same article, from the Buddhist perspective (44–45). The Wang Yangming poem is “Guan kuilei ciyun” 觀傀儡次韻 (Watching a puppet play, matching the rhymes of a companion piece), (Ibidem, 43). The main part of the article is dedicated to Wang Fuzhi’s poems, where Zhao Yingzhi highlights his despondency after the Ming dynasty’s collapse, the sense of futility of heroic achievements when adverse circumstances dominate the world.

189. Jinghuayuan, 10:39, and 90:454. See Elvin, “The Inner World of 1830,” 37.

190. Jinghuayuan, 12:46.

191. Jinghuayuan, 10:40 (因想起聞得人說，虎豹吃人，總是那人前生造定，該喪虎口；若不造定，就是當面遇見，他也不吃。請問九公，這話可是？).