THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO CHINESE ENCHANTMENT: REINVENTING PU SONGLING’S CLASSICAL TALES IN THE REALM OF WORLD LITERATURE, 1880-1920 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE BY SHENGYU WANG CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ v ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. viii INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter I: In Search of Clues: Herbert Allen Giles’ Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio and the Victorian Science of Religion ........................................................................ 25 Introduction: The Indian (Chinese) Rope Trick ........................................................................ 25 I. ............................................ Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio as a Polemical Translation ................................................................................................................................................... 32 1.1 Tales from the Peripheries: Treaty Port Translations of the Liaozhai from and the Victorian Translation of Oriental “Folklore” ........................................................................ 33 1.2. Giles’ Approach as Translator in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio ..................... 40 II. The Marvelous that “Might be Explained Rationally”: Ethnographic Encounters in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio and The Records of Strange Nations ........................................ 57 2.1. From Cosmography to Ethnography: Giles’ The Records of Strange Nations .............. 58 2.2. The “Foreign Devil” in the “Land of Opposites”: Contrasting Perspectives in Giles’ 1877 “The Lo-Ch’a Country and the Sea Market” ............................................................... 62 III. Survival of Pensée Sauvage in the Liaozhai: Animism and the Conjectural Paradigm ..... 67 3.1. “Cultural Notes” in the Strange Stories and the Victorian Science of Religion ............ 70 3.2. Catalepsy and Bilocation: Giles’ Search for Survival and Recurrence of Animistic Beliefs in the Liaozhai .......................................................................................................... 72 3.3 The Conjectural Paradigm .............................................................................................. 76 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 79 Coda. “Freemasonry in China” and Giles’ Disenchanted Enchantment ................................... 81 CHAPTER II: The Later Liaozhai: Wang Tao (1828-1897)’s Classical Tales in the Age of Lithography ............................................................................................................................. 84 Introduction: the Swan Song of Chinese Classical Tale? ......................................................... 84 I. A Material Approach to the Study of Wang Tao’s Classical Tales ....................................... 88 1.1 Songyin tushuo: the Original Format of Wang Tao’s Classical Tales ............................ 89 1.2 Dianshizhai Huabao as a New Medium ......................................................................... 92 1.3. The Pictorial Proper and Pictorial Supplement .............................................................. 95 1.4. The History of tushuo and its transformation during the Guangxu reign ...................... 99 II. From Serial to Collection—How Wang Tao’s Installments Became the Hou Liaozhai ... 102 2.1 Strange Tales or Miscellaneous Notes? Two Versions of the Preface to the Songyin manlu................................................................................................................................... 105 ii 2.2 “Writings are properties common to all under heaven”: pirated editions of the Songyin manlu................................................................................................................................... 107 2.3. Songyin xulu and Wang Tao’s self-portrait as a writer of strange tales ....................... 111 2.4 Songyin tushuo and the Liaozhai Illustrations .............................................................. 114 2.5 The Empress Dowager’s Liaozhai tushuo .................................................................... 118 III. Enchantment and the Realm of Illusion as a Recurring Theme ........................................ 120 3.1 Woyou: Vicarious Journeys to the Realm of Illusion.................................................... 121 3.2 The Realm of Illusion as a Feminine Space .................................................................. 131 3.3 Empirical Praxis vs. Empty Talk in Transnational Voyages ........................................ 138 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 144 CHAPTER III: The Explained Supernatural: Rewriting Liaozhai Tales as New Fiction ................................................................................................................................................. 146 Introduction: Counter-narratives of the Liaozhai ................................................................... 146 I. New Fiction and Disenchantment........................................................................................ 151 1.1. The New Fiction Movement and the Anti-Superstition Campaign ............................. 151 1.2. The Explained Supernatural Formula .......................................................................... 155 II. Phantasms and the Subjective “Weird” in Po Mi’s Mirror ................................................ 161 2.1. The Deranged Spirit (Shenluan) in “Fox Bewitchment” ............................................. 164 2.2. “Losing the Po-Soul” and the Uncanny ....................................................................... 167 III. The Explained Supernatural and Figural Consciousness in Wu Qiyuan’s Counter-Liaozhai ................................................................................................................................................. 173 3.1 Plot Pattern and Gender Asymmetry in Counter-Liaozhai ........................................... 177 3. 2 Phony Obsession in the “Plum Maid” ......................................................................... 182 3.3. The Naïve Hero ............................................................................................................ 187 3.4. Wu Qiyuan’s Depiction of Private Thoughts............................................................... 193 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 201 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 204 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………207 APPENDIX: FIGURES ......................................................................................................... 225 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Book Cover of J. N. Maskelyne’s The Fraud of Theosophy Exposed 225 Figure 1.2: A Portrait of Blavatsky in Maskelyne’s The Fraud of Theosophy Exposed 226 Figure 1.3: Woodblock illustration of an inhabitant of the Land of Three Heads from the Yiyu tuzhi (Illustrated Records of Other Realms) 227 Figure 1.4: Pamplet cover of Herbert Giles’ Translation of the Yiyu tuzhi 228 Figure 2.1: Dianshizhai Pictorial issue 126 229 Figure 2.2: Folios in Dianshizhai Pictorial 230 Figure 2.3: Wang Tao. Huitu louliaozhai zhiyi. Shanghai: Dianshizhai shiyin shuju 1903. 231 Figure 2.4: Xiangzhu liaozhai zhiyi tuyong. Shanghai: Tongwen Press, 1886. 232 Figure 2.5: One illustration accompanying “Raksha Country and the Sea Market” in Liaozhai tushuo. 233 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS While writing this dissertation, I accrued a great many debts that I cannot expect to be able to repay fully. I owe a special debt of gratitude to the three members of my dissertation committee for their guidance, patience, and support. Prof. Judith Zeitlin played an instrumental role throughout my graduate studies at the University of Chicago; she taught me a great deal about late imperial Chinese literature and instilled in me a great respect for the classical texts. Her wonderful course on the “Ghost Tradition in Chinese Literature, Film, and Opera” inspired me to write this dissertation. Prof. Haun Saussy has been extremely supportive and encouraging; he extended my intellectual horizon by recommending a number of books that became central to my project. I am also grateful for a great many ideas he suggested, which have significantly improved my argument. Prof. Paola Iovene assisted me tremendously with literary-theoretical issues that initially lay outside my expertise. Her comments and criticism proved crucial in clarifying my writing and improving my reader awareness. Prof. John Minford at the University of Hong Kong kindly shared many research materials concerning