| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 中國文學系研究所 === 102 === As a masterpiece of supernatural tales written in Classical Chinese, Liaozhai Zhiyi was commented by Lu Xun to be fictions created in a combination of surreal and reality. The real world is undistinguishable from the illusion through its description of dreamlike supernatural stories. (A Brief History of Chinese Fiction) By using dreams and illusions to refer to the reality, Pu Songling applies Chinese dream culture in literary creation, making Liaozhai to exceed Six Dynasties’ supernatural fictions and to be different from Tang novels. It could be said that in his description and in his play of dream world and real world, Pu Songling makes a breakthrough in literary creation.
This thesis would focus on discussing how dreams and illusions work and their meanings in Laozhai Zhiyi. In Chapter Two, to show how dream culture develops in Classical Chinese novels, theories about the relationship between dream culture and literary creation would be elaborated first. In Chapter Three, by classifying Liaozhai Zhiyi’s tales into three types—“vicissitudes of life,” “karma and repayment,” and “folklore,”—what this great work has inherited from its dream work predecessor and what kind of innovation it has made would be unveiled. Chapter Four would analyze how Pu Songling uses the device of dreams/illusions/fantasy to depict surreal/ real spaces in the work. Finally, the last chapter would go further to see how dreams/illusions/fantasy are arranged in the work under the author consciousness and what they imply
As a work developed from traditional dream-narrative fiction, Pu Songling’s Liaozhi Zhyizi not only succeeds the subject of dreams/illusions/fantasy, but at the same time makes a variation in the depiction of fantastic imagination. It is exactly this deviation creates more possibilities in the discussion of other space and make this work become a classic..
Key words: Liaozhai Zhiyi, Dream, Illusion, Fantasy, Dream Culture, Subject Mat
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