Dewoskin K.J. Doctors Diviners and Magicians of Ancient China: Biographies of Fang-shih

1st edition. — Columbia University Press, 1983. — 224 p. — ISBN10: 023105596X; ISBN13: 978-0231055963.The study of early narrative in China involves the study of both historical writing and fictional writing. At least until the T'ang Dynasty, these two poles of narrative develop in conjunction with each other, with the tenets of each being refined in dialectic interaction with the other. In my ongoing research into the evolution of early narrative, this interaction has been a primary concern. I have sought to understand the forces shaping historical texts between the narratives of pre-Han China and the Records of the Grand Historian up through the histories of the T'ang. At the same time I have sought to understand the forces shaping the evolution of fictional narratives, from the pre-Han philosophies and early chih-kuai collections up through the mature ch'uan-ch'i stories of the T'ang. From both sides of this research problem, my attention was repeatedly drawn to the fang~shih. Here was a character found in both worlds, at times celebrated and exploited by both, at times rejected by both. I believed that in the study of fang-shih texts, especially their biographies in the dynastic histories, information could be found to illuminate the evolution of both history and fiction. Even as the histories became more sober and more stereotypic in their approach to biography, their lives of fang-shih remained a trove of enchanting descriptions of remarkable characters, who seemed to exist in a textual world of their own.