Title: Strange writing : anomaly accounts in early medieval China /
Authors: Campany, Robert Ford, 1959-
Publisher: State University of New York Press,
Year: 1995
Subjects: Fantasy fiction, Chinese.
Abstract: Between the Han dynasty, founded in 206 B.C.E., and the Sui, which ended in 618 C.E., Chinese authors wrote many thousands of short textual items, each of which narrated or described some phenomenon deemed "strange." Most items told of encounters between humans and various denizens of the spirit world, or of the miraculous feats of masters of esoteric arts; some described the wonders of exotic lands, or transmitted fragments of ancient mythology. This genre of writing came to be known as zhiguai ("accounts of anomalies").
Contents: 1. Anomaly and Cosmography in Comparative Perspective -- 2. Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China: Genre and Texts -- 3. Justifying the Strange: The Warrant for the Genre of Anomaly Accounts -- 4. The Making of the Texts: Who, How, Why -- 5. The Description and Narration of Anomaly: Cosmographic Poetics -- 6. Modes of Anomaly: Cosmographic Logic -- 7. Strange Persuasions: Cosmographic Rhetoric -- 8. Reciprocity across Boundaries: Cosmographic Ethics.