Abstract
Recording personal and family history has been a secondary purpose of the zhiguai (tales of the strange) genre from its inception. As there is no proven female author of a surviving collection before the 20th century, these family histories were shaped by male collectors recording tales told by both female and male informants. Yet in the Republican period, when the practice of recording strange incidents from memory or hearsay had become a marginal practice, Lü Meisun 呂美蓀 (1881–1945) published two collections. Lü’s work stands at a fascinating intersection of gender, genre, and cultural change. She presents a family history centered on the female side of her family and her personal spiritual autobiography against the larger backdrop of cultural transformation from the late Qing through the Republican period. In this paper, I consider a male author of zhiguai during the same years, Guo Zeyun 郭則澐 (1882–1946), for comparison. With their differing conceptions of family, both writers strive to convert familial memory and strange experience into meaning relevant for a wider audience in the present moment.
Highlights
For most of its history, the strange tale is a genre with many female informants but no identified female authors of surviving works (Huntington 2010, p. 35)
In the Republican period, when the practice of recording strange incidents from memory or hearsay had become a marginal rather than mainstream practice, Lü Meisun 呂美蓀 (1881–1945) authored two works at least partially in the genre, 11 years apart. What difference do her gender and her historical moment make to her tales? She creates a family history from a female perspective, centered on the mother; a continuation and transformation of the didactic use of the genre; and a dialogue between the past and the present concerning the meaning of strange experience
Even a tale from the male side of Lü’s family reveals an inclusive vision of the patrilineal family. While this kinsman is serving in Hubei, far from the family’s native place, a local servant who can see ghosts describes the appearance of the family members he sees returning to receive offerings at Qingming, including two young women, later identified as the biological sister and adoptive sister of the patriarch, both of who had died before marriage (Lü 1930, p. 25; Lü 1941a, pp. 66–67)
Summary
For most of its history, the strange tale (zhiguai 志怪) is a genre with many female informants but no identified female authors of surviving works (Huntington 2010, p. 35). For most of its history, the strange tale (zhiguai 志怪) is a genre with many female informants but no identified female authors of surviving works Some of the key functions of zhiguai are transmitting a view of the cosmos and preserving individual lay religious experience (Campany 1996; Dudbridge 2002). Both Lü and Guo labor to use the genre to make sense of personal and familial experience in the face of transformation and loss. I structure my discussion, first, following the structure of the family and, second, that of larger scale historical change
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