Zhiguai xiaoshuo
| Zhiguai xiaoshuo | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | Chí quái tiểu thuyết | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | Chí quái tiểu thuyết | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Zhiguai xiaoshuo,translated as "tales of the miraculous", "tales of the strange", or "records of anomalies", is a type ofChinese literaturewhich appeared in theHan dynastyand developed after the fall of the dynasty in 220 CE and in theTang dynastyin 618 CE. They were among the first examples of Chinese fiction and deal with the existence of the supernatural, rebirth and reincarnation, gods, ghosts, and spirits.
Robert Ford Campany sees the genre loosely characterized in its early examples by relatively brief form, often only a list of narrations or description, written in non-rhyming classical prose with a "clear and primary" focus on things which are anomalous, with a Buddhist or Taoist moral.[1]Campany, however, does not see the stories as "fiction", since the literati authors believed that their accounts were factual.[2]Lydia Sing-Chen Chiang suggests that one function of the stories in this genre was to provide a "context by which the unknown may be ascribed names and meanings and therefore become 'known,' controlled, and used."[3]
History and examples
[edit]The termzhiguaiis an allusion to a passage in the inner chapters of theZhuangzi.[4]
During theSix Dynasties,xianwere a common subject ofzhiguaistories.[5]They often had "magical"Taopowers including the abilities to "walk...through walls or stand...in light without casting a shadow".[5]
The early 4th century anthologySoushen Jiedited byGan Baois the most prominent early source, and contains the earliest versions of a number of Chinese folk legends. Later, tales of Indian origins were included and used for spreading Buddhist concepts, such as reincarnation.[6]Another of the richest early collections isYou Ming Lu,edited by Liu Yiqing (Chinese:Lưu nghĩa khánh,403-444), who also compiledA New Account of the Tales of the World.[7]In the Tang dynasty, distinction between thezhiguaiandchuanqi(strange stories) became increasingly blurred, and there is disagreement over the boundary between the two. Many stories of both types were preserved in the 10th century anthologyTaiping guangji(Extensive Records of the Taiping Era).[8]
By the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the collections ofzhiguaiandchuanqimaterials had been widely reprinted and supplemented by contemporary works. Judith Zeitlin suggests that the accounts of the strange "inevitably began to lose their sense of novelty and to seem stereotype..." and such writers asPu Songlingtherefore needed to renew the category of "strange".[9]His anomalous collection of short piecesStrange Stories from a Chinese Studio,which amalgamatedzhiguaifeatures with other styles, was left unfinished at his death in 1715.[10]Its thematic elements include ghosts, romances, spirits, uncanny dreams, and karma.[11]: 44
In the 21st century,zhiguaistories continue to appear in print and on screen. A recent collection, for example,Zhiguai: Chinese True Tales of the Paranormal and Glitches in the Matrix,edited by Yi Izzy Yu and John Yu Branscum, offers examples of the creative nonfiction stream ofzhiguaiand connects them to the more-recent genre of glitch-in-the-matrix tales.
Notes
[edit]- ^Campany (1996),pp. 24–26.
- ^Campany (1996),p. 162-164.
- ^Chiang (2005),p.12.
- ^Campany (1996),p. 29.
- ^abGershon, Livia (2022-02-22)."The Trouble with Immortality".JSTOR Daily.JSTOR.Retrieved2023-05-27.
- ^Idema (1997),p. 112.
- ^Zhang (2014),pp.1-2.
- ^Idema (1997),p. 139.
- ^Zeitlin (1997),p.198.
- ^Chiang (2005),p.68.
- ^Reinders, Eric (2024).Reading Tolkien in Chinese: Religion, Fantasy, and Translation.Perspectives on Fantasy series. London, UK:BloomsburyAcademic.ISBN9781350374645.
References
[edit]- Campany, Robert Ford (1996).Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China.Albany: State University of New York Press.ISBN0585042748.
- Chiang, Sing-chen Lydia (2005).Collecting the Self: Body and Identity in Strange Tale Collections of Late Imperial China.Leiden; Boston: Brill.ISBN9004142037.
- Idema, Wilt and Lloyd Haft (1997).A Guide to Chinese Literature.Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan.ISBN0892641231.
- Kao, Karl S. Y. (Gao, Xinyong) (1985).Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic: Selections from the Third to the Tenth Century.Bloomington: Indiana University Press.ISBN0253313759.
{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Thirty-six Tang tales and sixtyzhiguai,with an extensive Introduction. - Zeitlin, Judith T. (1997).Historian of the Strange: Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tale.Stanford University Press.ISBN978-0-8047-2968-0.
- Zhang, Zhenjun (2014).Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China: A Study of Liu Yiqing's (403-444) Youming Lu.BRILL.ISBN9789004277274.
