Study On The Folk Narrative Of Ghost Stories In Miscellaneous Morsels From Youyang

Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang,a set of literary sketches of Tang Dynasty,was written by DuanChengshi,who styled himself as Kegu,a renowned supernatural tales writer in the late Tang Dynasty.This thirty-volume book consists of a twenty-volume prequel and a ten-volume sequel,each one of which has a title based on the substance.The book has rich and complicated contents covering Astronomy and Geography,pharmaceutical and mineral resources,folk customs,ceremonial system,Immortals,Buddhist and Ghosts,temples,towers and monuments,mysterious practice and sorcery and animals and plants,etc.Duan considered the nature of this book as supernatural tales which he insisted on and was not shamed of.Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang is full of ghosts stories,Nuogaoand Complement for Nuogao recording unusual stories,Extensive Animals and Plants describing a lot of anecdotes of monsters from animals and plants.In addition,other volumes also contain ghosts stories.The ghosts stories depicted in this book present the world another Tang Dynasty--a Tang society teeming with uncanny and bizarre atmosphere--instead of the prosperous and splendid one.Apart from the Introduction,this thesis consists of four chapters,making explanations about the narrative objects,narrative space and narrative models respectively and making analysis and discussion on the ideology and folk narrative arts in ghosts stories.The first part of every chapter introduces briefly the background of the topic and the definition of related concepts.The second part elaborates on the main content of each chapter and discusses the major point.The third part is a summary,concluding and estimating the value and meaning of the main content expounded in this chapter.In the first chapter,Narrative objects of Ghost Stories in Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang,section one presents ghosts of different dispositions,while section two illustrates Changeable Monsters.In the second chapter,Mortals' Encounter with Ghosts in Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang,section one,Narrative Space of Mortals' Encounter with Ghosts,expounds on four representative narrative spaces such as the tomb,the banquet,the official road and the house;section two,Narrative Models of Mortals'Encounter with Ghosts,discusses separately about four narrative models,i.e.,Monsters' Desire for Marriage with Mortals,the Messengers Searching for the Dying,Grudge Haunting the World and Ghosts and Mortals Becoming Kindred Spirits.The third chapter,Ideology Implication of Ghost Stories in Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang,elaborates respectively on the spiritual consciousness and view of death reflected in the ghosts stories.The forth chapter,Folk Narrative Features of Ghost stories in Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang,works out analysis and discussion about the folk narrative arts in ghosts stories from two perspectives of the motif and narrative features.Although Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang is a literary creation,the ghost groups and prototypes are from folk culture.The thesis makes analysis and elaboration on ghosts stories from the perspective of the folk literature by using the ghosts stories in the book as research text to explore abundant ideology and folk narrative arts embodied in the ghosts stories.