Unquiet Qing: The Course of Lovesickness in the Modernization of Chinese Literature LIU ZIYUN and YUEFAN WANG Abstract Lovesickness (xiangsi bing), a disease of qing (sentiment, passion, feeling, desire, and love), emerged as a literary topos in China’s medieval lyrical tradition and was developed through late imperial drama and fiction. This article examines narratives of lovesickness in popular literature—both fiction and drama—from the Song (960–1279) to the Qing (1644–1912), including some texts rarely discussed in English scholarship from the perspective of love writing. With thorough documentation, we present two classic plot patterns of the literary malady: one involving mutual affection of separated lovers, the other the one-sided passion, whether of unrequited (usually male) love or of one part of a couple longing for reunion. We argue that the notorious lovelorn figures in late Ming (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) legal cases and Qing scholar-beauty xiaoshuo novels made lovesickness a target for criticism by literati and prompted reflection and revision of traditional narratives. With the modernization and westernization of Chinese literature, this classical literary malady was finally “cured. ” The disappearance of love- sickness reflects the gradual replacement of classical ways of thinking with a modern cognitive style and, simultaneously, the transition of Chinese literature from classical to modern. Keywords lovesickness, diseased qing, literary malady, illness as trope To fully grasp the characteristics of classical Chinese literature, we need to understand what might be called its cognitive style and how it differs from that informing modern literature. Modern romance narratives, shaped by disen- chantment with old notions of sentiment, reflect also the rise of science, in particular the work of psychology, to rationally theorize love and relationships. 1 The Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture • 10:2 • November 2023 DOI 10.1215/23290048-10767870 • Ó 2023 by Duke University Press 379 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/jclc/article-pdf/10/2/379/2057717/379ziyun.pdf by UNIV OF ILLINOIS LIB-E user on 26 February 2024