Date of Award
2011
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Zhang, Jing
Keywords
Literature, Chinese, China Studies, Comparative Literature, PU Songling, Gender Studies, Chinese Literature
Area of Concentration
Chinese Language and Culture
Abstract
This thesis studies the Liaozhai Zhiyi, a seventeenth century collection of strange tales written by Pu Songling, the self-titled Historian of the Strange. The collection was written with the perspective of the thousand-year tradition of strange writing, and specifically contains two classical genres: fictionalized tales of the marvelous and historical accounts of anomalies. While the collection highlights the strange tradition's ambiguous place between history and fiction, in many of his tales, Pu Songling explores and plays with its conventional themes, motifs, and storylines. As exemplified in �A Chivalrous Woman,� Pu's innovative writing is particularly noteworthy for how the female characters of his tales complicate the often one-dimensional image of women in traditional literature, and underscores problematic constructions of gender in the tradition of the strange.
Recommended Citation
Boeyen, Kate, "A Body of Her Own PU Songling's "Chivalrous Woman" and the Tradition of the Strange" (2011). Theses & ETDs. 4485.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/4485