Fantastische Literatur in China: Theoretische Diskurse und historische Entwicklungen.

The purpose of this paper is to determine what the discourses on Chinese fantasy narrative are, how the discourses have been delivered, and the historical developments of these fantasy narratives and their contents. This paper also reveals that Confucian ideas and the chauvinism of the true record formed the political and cultural grounds for the underestimation of the Chinese fantasy narratives. In order to focus on the unique features of this kind of narratives, the temporal scope of the research was limited to the period from the mythical age to the Qing Dynasty, before Western rationalism was introduced to China. I explore topics ranging from discourses on fantasy and the strange (幻奇論) to discourses of emptiness and actuality (虛實論), and I discuss general features of the fantasy narratives from Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海經) to Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢). When reading this kind of narratives, we should pay attention neither to the Confucian lessons nor to whether the narratives are true records, but to the meanings implied in the narratives and their cultural interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]