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Unnatural narratology and Zhiguai tales of the six dynasties in China

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Abstract

This article continues the author’s previous work on unnatural narrative across borders and unnatural narrative in the national literatures written in languages other than English. With Zhiguai tales of the Six Dynasties in China as its central concern, it pursues three major goals: (1) to revisit the much debated conception of unnatural narrative and to call for diachronic and transnational perspectives, (2) to reveal the unnaturalness of impossible storyworlds in Zhiguai tales by taking a close look at such unnatural elements as unnatural characters, unnatural space, and unnatural time at local level, and (3) to further examine the unnaturalness of this genre by investigating the storyworld boundary transgression at global level.

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Notes

  1. Alber et al. (2013, p. 1).

  2. Herman and Vervaeck (2016, p. 514).

  3. Von Contzen (2017, p. 1).

  4. Fludernik (2012, p. 364).

  5. Klauk and Köppe (2013, p. 78).

  6. Prince (2016, p. 691).

  7. For my previous work on unnatural narrative in the national literatures other than English, cf. Shang (2016, 2017a, b).

  8. Tian (2010, p. 202).

  9. Hu (2001, p. 542).

  10. Tian (2010, p. 202).

  11. Richardson (2015, p. 3).

  12. Ibid.

  13. Alber (2016, p. 14).

  14. Alber et al. (2013, p. 6).

  15. Ibid, pp. 6–7.

  16. Ibid, p. 7.

  17. Ibid, p. 12.

  18. Shang (2015, p. 175).

  19. Von Contzen (2017, p. 1).

  20. Alber et al. (2012, p. 373).

  21. Fludernik (2003, p. 331).

  22. Ibid.

  23. Richardson (2015, pp. 91–120).

  24. Von Contzen (2017, p. 17).

  25. Richardson (2015, pp. 91).

  26. Wolf (2013, p. 136).

  27. Von Contzen (2017, p. 1).

  28. Herman (2009, p. 106).

  29. Ibid.

  30. Alber (2016, p. 3).

  31. Ibid.

  32. Herman (2009, p. 105).

  33. Prince (2003, p. 12).

  34. Alber (2016, pp. 104–148).

  35. This tale, as well as other tales analyzed in this article, is taken from the volume edited by Yang Hsien-Yi and Gladys Yang The man who sold a ghost: Chinese tales the 3rd–6th centuries (1974), and  Karl S.Y. Kao’s collection Chinese classical tales of the supernatural and the fantastic: Selections from the third to the tenth century (1985).

  36. Yang and Yang (1974, p. 7).

  37. Alber (2016, p. 186).

  38. Ryan (2009, p. 142).

  39. Hu (2001, p. 542).

  40. Alber (2016, pp. 47–48).

  41. Nielsen (2013, pp. 67–93, 2014, pp. 239–260).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (Grant Number: 17ZDA281).

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  1. English Department, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai, 200240, People’s Republic of China

    Biwu Shang

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Shang, B. Unnatural narratology and Zhiguai tales of the six dynasties in China. Neohelicon 45, 179–190 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-018-0421-5

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