Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

The Liaozhai Zhiyi (Chinese聊斋 志 异) is a collection of 500 stories whose title can be roughly translated as " Strange Stories from the Liao - study ". Author of the collection is Pu Songling ( 1640-1715 ).

Construction

Up to Pu Song Ling death only circulated manuscripts and copies of his work; until 1766, 50 years after his death, the first printing appeared. For this reason, there is now a plethora of variants of his stories. The manuscript of Pu Songling himself survived only in part, of the eight volumes are obtained only four today. The Liaozhai includes a wondrous collection of myths and legends, folk tales, fables, contemporary anecdotes, criminal cases, daily life events, extraordinary events and descriptions. As explained Pu Songling in the preface, he wanted to describe the wonders and the amazing thing in contemporary China.

Style

The stories are written all in classic Chinese (Chinese文言, Pinyin Wenyan ). However, Pu Songling enriches the language with colloquial elements (Chinese白话, Pinyin Baihua ) to this especially in dialogues, jokes, disputes or court hearings - also to characterize his characters based on these Baihua dialogs. With this mixture Pu created a new short story style because before him, such a mix of styles was mainly restricted to the poetry, eg you at Fu or Li Bai. Only with the Liaozhai can also speak of the genre of " Chinese short story " in which Pu three major styles brings together, especially Chuanqi ( Chinese传奇) and Zhiguai ( Chinese志怪) stories, as well as the Biji (Chinese笔记) - writing style: Chuanqi are romantic tales in prose, which culminated in the form and style during the Tang period. The Biji, however, are factual, short held notes in the Zhiguai 'stories were often written, and their form again find themselves in Liaozhai. Zhiguai are supernatural tales that have their roots in the Han and Six Dynasties, however, find their place in the literature only in the Tang Dynasty as a distinct genre. Usually there are collections of short, simple anecdotes in prose whose content is a mix of bizarre and sober stories of the unusual. Of the sources used by Pu here is mainly the Soushenji (Chinese搜神记) of Gan Bao (Chinese干 宝, 320 AD) mentioned.

Special

The stranger is the main theme of the collection: Pu Songling is in his stories two worlds over, the real and the fantastic reality. Central to the Liaozhai is that they overlap and blur the boundaries of both worlds; the protagonists move easily between both worlds. Especially on Liaozhai are also the comments left by Pu Songling, who find themselves at the end of 194 stories. These all begin with " the historian of the stranger commented " (Chinese异 史氏 曰, Pinyin Yìshǐshì Yue ). Pu Songling, thus pointing to Sima Qian (Chinese司马迁) that says " the Great Historian" each chapter of the Shiji (Chinese史记) with ( Chinese太史 公 曰, Pinyin Tàishǐgōng Yue ) ended. The comment of the "Greater historian " is content often morally judgmental; Pu Songling by contrast, with his comments to the stories often an unexpected turn and commented on this in an ironic and sarcastic tone. So, as Sima Qian saw himself as a commentator of the historical world, Pu shows us as an ironic commentator on the unusual and strange world.

Literary context

Pu Songling wrote the Liaozhai stories of how they were popular at the time of the Six Dynasties and the Tang period. One reason for this choice of topics like the new editions of the Zhiguai and Chuanqi narratives be published again at the end of the Ming dynasty. In the stories Pus mix the simple miracle reports of Zhiguai stories of the Six Dynasties, the more challenging issues of Chuanqi from the Tang period and the more realistic portrayals society from the Ming period in Baihua (conversational). Overall, Pu Songling operated from three different areas in order to create his own style in Liaozhai:

• Adaptation from old sources, with mainly stylistic improvements
• In traditional motifs based narratives with strong substantive changes (now known stories ), oral traditions, folk tales.
• Based on current events and experiences stories.

Reception

In the literature, the history of China Liaozhai Zhiyi is the highlight of the classic tale. However, the collection is also the endpoint of the traditional Chinese story, according to him all the important stories were written in baihua ( vernacular ). Nevertheless, the Liaozhai is grouped with the " Dream of the Red Chamber " (Hong Lou Meng, Chinese红楼梦) to the most remarkable works of literature of the 18th century. In the West, however, the work is not well known, probably because of the translation barrier: hardly without losing all the literary allusions, the change between colloquial and classical language ( Baihua and Wenyan ) can be represented. Interestingly, there is a parallel to the Brothers Grimm, who created about the same time in Europe, their collections of fairy tales (about the beginning of the 19th century ). In contrast to Pu Songling this but their stories changed only slightly, Pu, however, has created his own stories from a variety of sources throughout personal style. The Liaozhai stories and their effects still enjoy great popularity in China, such as the diverse adaptations for theater and film testify, including, for example, " A Chinese Ghost Story" (Chinese倩女幽魂, pinyin Qian nǚ yōuhún ) a trilogy of films from the 80s.

In 2008, the film " Painted Skin " (Hua Pi) appeared with Donnie Yen in the leading role.