Chuanqi

Chuanqi (Chinese: 传奇; pinyin: chuánqí) is a type of Chinese fiction.

The scholars Wilt Idema and Lloyd Haft, see "chuánqí" as a general term for short stories written in classical Chinese during the Tang and Song dynasties (excluding Bianwen Buddhist tales written in the colloquial). These stories consisted of anecdotes, jokes, legends, and tales involving mystical, fantastical or legendary elements. The authors, they continue, did not want to present their works as fiction, but modeled themselves on the literary style of the biographies in the official histories. They went so far as to credit specific people as authorities for the story, however fantastic, and give particular times and places as settings. The authors of these tales were also more careful about the art of storytelling than authors of earlier works, and a number of them have well developed plots.^[1]

The chuánqí of the Tang period frequently use incidental poems, set their story in the national capital, finish with an instructive moral, and are narrated by someone who claims to have seen the events himself. There is some difference of opinion whether stories from later dynasties should be called chuánqí, but most scholars accept many of the stories in Pu Songling's 17th century collection, Liaozhai Zhiyi (Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio) as such.^[2] In this case, chuánqí is sometimes translated as "marvel tales."^[3]

Many were preserved in the 10th century anthology, Extensive Records of the Taiping Era (Taiping Guangji).^[4]

The short tale chuánqí is distinct from the dramatic form of chuanqi,^[5] though both are written with the same characters. An example of a dramatic chuanqi is The Governor of Nanke, where a man lives a whole generation in one afternoon as an ant.

Translations

• Y. W. Ma and Joseph S. M. Lau. ed., Traditional Chinese Stories: Themes and Variations. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978). Reprinted: Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 1986. ISBN 023104058X. Includes 26 selections, ranging from the Tang dynasty to 1916.
• Wolfgang Bauer, and Herbert Franke, The Golden Casket: Chinese Novellas of Two Millennia (New York: Harcourt, 1964 Translated by Christopher Levenson from Wolfgang Bauer's and Herbert Franke's German version of the original Chinese.)
• "The World in a Pillow: Classical Tales of the Tang Dynasty," in John Minford, and Joseph S. M. Lau, ed., Classical Chinese Literature (New York; Hong Kong: Columbia University Press; The Chinese University Press, 2000 ISBN 0231096763), pp. 1019-1076.

See also

• Ci

References