The Fang-shih of Medieval China and his Role in the Development of Narrative

FAIN: FA-11778-77

Kenneth J. DeWoskin
Regents of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1015)

A two part study of the fang-shih, practitioners of occult arts and diverse entertainments in early China, based on dynastic history and early fiction sources. The first part is a historical study of the fang-shih analyzing his unusual social mobility, his role as a cultural synthesizer, and his promotion of subliterary and foreign ideas, practices and narrative materials into the Chinese written tradition. The second part is a literary study exploring features of fang-shih biographies in the various extant historical works, biographies which are prime examples of the rhetoric of history moving toward the rhetoric of fiction.