Pu Songling’s Short-Story “Pupils’ Talk”

The article covers the plot and translation peculiarities of the short-story by Pu Songling (蒲松齡, 1640–1715) “Pupils’ Talk”. The connection between Pu Songling’s ideas and tradition of Chinese popular medicine and Taoist concepts of soles and spirits of a human body is thoroughly analyzed; along with that the tradition of the story’s interpretation in Russian is also studied. The issue of special spirits inhabiting all organs and anatomical areas of a human has been thoroughly worked out in both parts of “Huang Di’s Inner Classic” as well as in “Huang ting Classic” and was a part of a common knowledge in traditional Chinese routine. Special medical treatises known as “Suishu” gave their own recipes of traditional medication combined with exorcism, and Pu Songling happened to be an author of such a treatise in two parts. Thus one has to admit that Pu Songling must be quite well acquainted with the tradition of Chinese folksy medicine based on the stated integrity of human physical organization with controlling spirits of each and every body-part. Therefore with the undeniable influence of Ming fiction on “Pupils’ Talk” one can’t help acknowledging that the descriptive means of expression as well as the chief idea of the story are authentic and independent. Taoist ideas about human anatomy and physiology can be met not only in this story, but in other pieces of the “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” (Liao Zhai zhi yi). Artistic peculiarities of the text as well as fundamentals of the translation are divisively demonstrated. A new variant of translation of the whole text is provided.

Why Was It the Ming Dynasty that Engendered the Guanxi Motif in Fiction?

Compared to other informal social network mechanisms, guanxi is more common in China and is the most typical. Even in daily life, it is indispensable. Hence, in Chinese fiction, the guanxi motif is prevalent and important. Interestingly, before the Ming dynasty, guanxi was not a literary motif in fiction. This article suggests that three factors contributed to the rise of the guanxi motif in fiction in the Ming dynasty. The first was the boom in fiction writing, especially in the genre of realism, that occurred in this era, which expanded the scope of literary representation. The second was the degradation of public morals in the Ming dynasty, a momentous social transition that Ming fiction writers noted and portrayed. Guanxi, as a disruptive social mechanism that dismantled previous models of human connection, became a focus in their works. The third was the fact that the atmosphere of money worship promoted by guanxi, together with official corruption, facilitated widespread social inequality. Guanxi, as the crux of inequity, inspired writers to expose social turpitude. More importantly, the guanxi motif satisfied the need for plot conflict in literary works. Thus, it became a necessary motif in Ming fiction.

Exemplary Sodomites: Chivalry and Love in Late Ming Culture

This essay explores the ideological allegiances between the chivalric (xia) and the romantic (qing) in late Ming fiction and culture. Focusing on notions of friendship and love between men and their role in the formation of the late Ming romantic ideal, it also discusses the discourse on sodomy articulated in two treatises on male friendship by the Jesuit missionaries Matteo Ricci and Martino Martini, and the hypothesis of a late Ming homoerotic fashion.