Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic

Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
In Chinese literary history, the Six Dynasties (317-588) and the T'ang (618-906) were the great creative times for the production of supernatural and fantastic stories in the classical language. This major collection of ninety-six stories, most of them newly translated, represents the very best of this tradition. These are all basically fictional narratives or stories, but unlike Western supernatural stories, are considered more or less as records of observable facts and have the effect of giving the fantastic a rootedness in historical reality. Underlying the recording of these supernatual stories is a belief in supernaturalism and magic and, above all, the acceptance of the unnatural and the supernormal on their face value as factual.

Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic

Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 424

Get Book

Book Description
In Chinese literary history, the Six Dynasties (317-588) and the T'ang (618-906) were the great creative times for the production of supernatural and fantastic stories in the classical language. This major collection of ninety-six stories, most of them newly translated, represents the very best of this tradition. These are all basically fictional narratives or stories, but unlike Western supernatural stories, are considered more or less as records of observable facts and have the effect of giving the fantastic a rootedness in historical reality. Underlying the recording of these supernatual stories is a belief in supernaturalism and magic and, above all, the acceptance of the unnatural and the supernormal on their face value as factual.

Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic

Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic PDF Author: Karl S. Kao
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780783787213
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
In Chinese literary history, the Six Dynasties (317-588) and the T'ang (618-906) were the great creative times for the production of supernatural and fantastic stories in the classical language. This major collection of ninety-six stories, most of them newly translated, represents the very best of this tradition. These are all basically fictional narratives or stories, but unlike Western supernatural stories, are considered more or less as records of observable facts and have the effect of giving the fantastic a rootedness in historical reality. Underlying the recording of these supernatual stories is a belief in supernaturalism and magic and, above all, the acceptance of the unnatural and the supernormal on their face value as factual.

Classical Chinese Literature: From antiquity to the Tang dynasty

Classical Chinese Literature: From antiquity to the Tang dynasty PDF Author: John Minford
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231096775
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 1252

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Book Description
Contains English translations of Chinese writings drawn from throughout a period of four hundred years, including poems, drama, fiction, songs, biographies, and early works of philosophy and history; arranged chronologically and by genre, with introductory quotes and comments.

Hidden and Visible Realms

Hidden and Visible Realms PDF Author:
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547056
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Chinese culture of the Six Dynasties period (220–589) saw a blossoming of stories of the fantastic. Zhiguai, “records of the strange” or “accounts of anomalies,” tell of encounters with otherness, in which inexplicable and uncanny phenomena interrupt mundane human affairs. They depict deities, ghosts, and monsters; heaven, the underworld, and the immortal lands; omens, metamorphoses, and trafficking between humans and supernatural beings; and legendary figures, strange creatures, and natural wonders in the human world. Hidden and Visible Realms, traditionally attributed to Liu Yiqing, is one of the most significant zhiguai collections, distinguished by its varied contents, elegant writing style, and fascinating stories. It is also among the earliest collections heavily influenced by Buddhist beliefs, values, and concerns. Beyond the traditional zhiguai narratives, it includes tales of karmic retribution, reincarnation, and Buddhist ghosts, hell, and magic. In this annotated first complete English translation, Zhenjun Zhang gives English-speaking readers a sense of the wealth and wonder of the zhiguai canon. Hidden and Visible Realms opens a window into the lives, customs, and religious beliefs and practices of early medieval China and the cultural history of Chinese Buddhism. In the introduction, Zhang explains the key themes and textual history of the work.

Classical Chinese Supernatural Fiction

Classical Chinese Supernatural Fiction PDF Author: Xiaohuan Zhao
Publisher: Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
This is the first attempt ever made at a systematic analysis of classical Chinese supernatural fiction known as zhiguai under the morphological framework designed by Vladimir Propp (1928) and later developed by Alan Dundes (1964). The focus is on a synchronic presentation of textual features and structural patterns of zhiguai fiction, but the book includes a general review of zhiguai literature from Sahnhai Jin to Liaozhai Zhiyi.

Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China

Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China PDF Author: Zhenjun Zhang
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004277846
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
This book demonstrates the historical changes in early medieval China as seen in the tales of the supernatural—thematic transformation from traditional demonic retribution to Karmic retribution, from indigenous Chinese netherworld to Buddhist concepts of hell, and from the traditional Chinese savior to a new savior, Buddha. It also examines Buddhist imagery and the flourish of new motifs in the fantastic dreamworld and their relationship with Buddhism. This study relates the Youming lu to the development of popular Chinese Buddhist beliefs, attempting to single out ideas that differ from the beliefs found in Buddhist scriptures as well as miraculous tales written especially to promote Buddhism.

Some Chinese Ghosts

Some Chinese Ghosts PDF Author: Lafcadio Hearn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Folklore
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description


Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction

Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction PDF Author: Daniel Hsieh
Publisher: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
ISBN: 9882378846
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
In traditional China, upper-class literati were inevitably strongly influenced by Confucian doctrine and rarely touched upon such topics as love and women in their writings. It was not until the mid-Tang, a generation or two after the An Lushan rebellion, that literary circles began to engage in overt discussion of the issues of love and women, through the use of the newly emerging genres of zhiguai and chuanqi fiction. The debate was carried out with an unprecedented enthusiasm, since the topics were considered to be the key to understanding the crisis in Chinese civilization. This book examines the repertoire of chuanqi and zhiguai written during the Six Dynasties and Tang periods and analyzes the key themes, topics, and approaches found in these tales, which range from expressions of male fantasy, sympathy, fear, and anxiety, to philosophical debate on the place of the feminine in patriarchal Chinese society. Many of these stories reflect tensions between masculine and feminine aspects of civilization as seen, for example, in the conflict of male aspiration and female desire, as well as the ultimate longing for reconciliation of these divisions. These stories form a crucial chapter in the history of love in China and would provide much of the foundation for further explorations during the late imperial period, as seen in seminal works such as The Peony Pavilion and Dream of the Red Chamber.

Chinese Ghost Stories - Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

Chinese Ghost Stories - Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio PDF Author: Songling Pu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
Chinese Ghost Stories - Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, is a collection of 164 Classical Chinese stories compiled by Pu Songling. These hair-raising tales focus on the everyday life of commoners and their interaction ghosts, fox spirits, immortals, demons and other spirits. Pu Songling used the supernatural and the unexplainable to illustrate his ideas of society and government. Through the stories he criticized the corruption and injustice in society and sympathized with the poor. With the embedded Confucian-styled moral standards and Taoist principles this collection of supernatural stories. Dating back to the Qing dynasty, its earliest publication date is given as 1740. Since then, many of the critically lauded stories have been adapted for other media such as film and television. Long considered of true classic of Chinese literature, this second edition of Herbert Giles translation, with over 600 footnotes of backstory, provides a fascinating glimpse into the daily life of the Chinese in the time period, while tantalizing the reader with tales of the supernatural.

Chinese Storyteller's Book

Chinese Storyteller's Book PDF Author: Michael David Kwan
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462901301
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
Imagine a universe constructed in layers: At the top is Heaven—where the gods live. Beneath is the Earth, where people dwell. And beneath the Earth lies a magical realm of witches, vampires, ghosts, and immortal foxes capable of assuming human form. This is the universe of Chinese folktale. The nine tales in The Chinese Storytellers Book show what happens when the worlds of Earth and the supernatural collide. The cast of characters, both humble and fantastic, includes: A young man willing to spend a night in a haunted mansion to prove that the spirit world does not exist Fox faeries wearying of their immortality and craving the uncertainty of human experiences A bored husband looking for excitement—but finding mortal danger instead Michael David Kwan first heard these tales told by street–corner storytellers during his childhood in China. He retells them through his own unique literary vision—through the lens of his own personality, experience, and imagination.