Between Reality and Virtuality—The Study on Tang Dynasty Fox Spirit Stories

• Main Authors: Wen-Chi Yu, 游文琦
• Other Authors: 詹海雲
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/41638657275198645374

碩士 === 元智大學 === 中國語文學系 === 98 === Fox indicates the representative of craftiness and cunning in folk literatures and legends in the world. The common description results from fox’s natural instincts. Besides, after long-term development, the image of fox in China has become an evil spirit or demon which can turn itself into human appearances. It even becomes one of the characters in literary works, adding lots of creative elements for mysterious stories. Before Tang Dynasty, the records of fox or fox spirits were usually seen in historical documents. It began appearing in stories since Wei Jin and Six Dynasties. The development of story turned mature in Tang Dynasty because authors wrote stories consciously instead of simply recording folk affairs. They put more emphases on characters and plot structures so Tang Dynasty was an important transforming period for the development of story. Fox spirit is a specific creature in mysterious stories. This kind of story increased mostly in Tang Dynasty and fox spirits were more often seen in stories than other evil creatures. The essay mainly discusses fox spirit stories in Tang Dynasty. Firstly, it discusses the differences of fox images before Tang Dynasty, analyzing the reasons of the image transformation and summing up the whole context. Then it narrates how fox spirits in stories embodied social view of marriage, love, and religion in Tang Dynasty, describing the bisexual relationship of ideals and desire. Fox spirits got rid of its animal and evil aura and experienced total humanization. From the literary perspective, the essay will discuss how historians’ “fact record” view-points influenced fox spirit stories and the creative arts of interconnecting reality and virtuality. Besides, in the end of stories almost all fox spirits were dead or seriously harmed. The possible reason may be the specific non-human character of fox spirits. It was obviously meant that human beings and evils should always keep apart from each other. Based on above points of view, the essay discusses meaning of Tang Dynasty in the development of fox spirit stories. It is found that fox spirits not only inherited the basic images of fox spirits before Tang Dynasty, but transformed into “humanized” spirits with emotion and thinking ability. It established the basic appearances of fox spirits after Tang Dynasty. The creative mode of fox spirit stories was thus settled. Tang Dynasty becomes an important turning point for this story category. Key word：Tang Dynasty；Mysterious stories；Fox spirit