The Unfinished Manuscript: A Poetics of Incompletion in the Ming-Qing Transition

What makes a manuscript unfinished? Qian Qianyi’s 錢謙益 (1582–1664) Collection of My Own Roast ( Wu zhi ji 吾炙集) reveals the significance of the “unfinished book” ( wei wan zhi shu 未完之書) as a concept in Qing literature. I show how readers approached the incompletion of Qian’s anthology—a now neglected collection of poems by present-day poets—as a self-conscious and meaningful act of editorial expression. Collection of My Own Roast not only promotes a poetics of incompletion by intoning the unfulfilled aspirations of Ming loyalists, it also inspired writers throughout the late seventeenth century to compile other incomplete anthologies. Qian’s readers sought to locate within his lacunae (that which was left unfinished) openings for potential connection (that which had not yet been finalized). The “unfinished book” in this respect intimately registered and yet worked to imaginatively redress the political ruptures of the Ming-Qing transition.