Zhiguai xiaoshuo, translated as "tales of the miraculous", "tales of the strange", or "records of anomalies", is a type of Chinese literature which appeared in the Han dynasty and developed after the fall of the dynasty in 220 CE and in the Tang dynasty in 618 CE. They were among the first examples of Chinese fiction and deal with the existence of the supernatural, rebirth and reincarnation, gods, ghosts, and spirits. Robert Ford Campany sees the genre loosely characterized in its early examples by relatively brief form, often only a list of narrations or description, written in non-rhyming classical prose with a "clear and primary" focus on things which are anomalous, with a Buddhist or Taoist moral. Campany, however, does not see the stories as "fiction," since the literati authors believed that their accounts were factual. Lydia Sing-Chen Chiang suggests that one function of the stories in this genre was to provide a "context by which the unknown may be ascribed names and meanings and therefore become 'known,' controlled, and used."
History and examples
The term zhiguai is an allusion to a passage in the inner chapters of the Zhuangzi. The early 4th century anthology Soushen Ji edited by Gan Bao is the most prominent early source, and contains the earliest versions of a number of Chinese folk legends. Many are of Indian origins and were used for spreading Buddhist concepts, such as reincarnation. Another of the richest early collections is Youming lu, edited by Liu Yiqing, who also compiled A New Account of the Tales of the World. In the Tang dynasty, distinction between the zhiguai and chuanqi became increasingly blurred, and there is disagreement over the boundary between the two. Many stories of both types were preserved in the 10th century anthology, Taiping guangji. By the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the collections of zhiguai and chuanqimaterials had been widely reprinted and supplemented by contemporary works. Judith Zeitlin suggests that the accounts of the strange "inevitably began to lose their sense of novelty and to seem stereotype...." and such writers as Pu Songling therefore needed to renew the category of "strange." His anomalous collection of short pieces, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, left unfinished at his death in 1715, which amalgamated zhiguai features with other styles. In the 21st centuryzhiguai stories continue to appear in print and on screen.
