Critical Examination of Biography of Yingying and Its Original Title A Legend

Regarding whether YUAN Zhen’s Biography of Yingying was originally titled A Legend, scholars have presented different views based on historical records or titling conventions. Biography in Chinese is zhuan ji. To fundamentally address this issue, a return to the text to analyze the narrative of this novel is needed to seek an answer. In The Draft of Poems by Yuan and Bai with Historical Annotations, CHEN Yinke proposed that there should be a structure of integration of songs and legends in Biography of Yingying. In this structure, the song does not refer to LI Shen’s Song of Yingying, but to the poem Encountering Fairy within the novel. Because the song is titled with Hui Zhen, and A Legend is from chuanqi (legend), the proposed title and naming scheme are consistent. From YUAN Zhen’s creative motives and the narrative focus of the novel, the original title of Biography of Yingying as a legend suggests that the unusual does not refer to extraordinary events but to extraordinary individuals. The extraordinary individuals specifically indicate both ZHANGJanrui and CUI Yingying. As a biography of ZHANG and CUI, YUAN would not have named it Biography of Yingying. Therefore, the title A Legend is not only succinct and unique but also profound in connotation.