Absent Teacher, Present Reader: Narrative, Dialogue, and Fragment in Yuan Zhongdao’s Zuolin jitan

Abstract This article argues that any understanding of the yulu 語錄 (recorded conversation) genre must take into account a work’s literary form, not merely its philosophical content or even the ideological, linguistic, material, political, financial, or interpersonal factors contributing to its compilation, publication, or consumption. As a case in point, this essay analyzes Zuolin jitan 柞林紀譚, Yuan Zhongdao’s 袁中道 (1570–1623) rendering of his pedagogical interactions with the late-Ming maverick thinker Li Zhi 李贄 (1527–1602). I argue that the uses of narrative, dialogue, and fragment in this text prevent the reader from passively absorbing the text’s “message”; instead, they foster a sense of intimacy and identification between the reader and the characters depicted in the text while at the same time inviting the reader to upend the traditional power hierarchy between master and disciple.