VIETNAMESE TALE LITERATURE IN SINITIC (漢文説話) AS SEEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE EAST ASIAN SINOGRAPHIC SPHERE

Tóm tắt

This article takes comparative tale literature as one facet of the study of the Sinographic sphere in East Asia and reads the various works included in Yuenan hanwen xiaoshuo jicheng not as ‘Sinitic fictional literature’, as suggested by the title of the collection, but as ‘Sinitic tale literature’. Focusing on important collections of tale literature such as the early 14th-century Việt điện u linh tập lục, the late 15th-century Lĩnh Nam chích quái, the mid-18th-century Công dư tiệp ký and the late 18th-century Kiến văn lục, I have selected some particularly interesting tales and here offer analyses of them. Behind these collections of tale literature were literati officials who were deeply involved in the formation of state identity and ideology. These were living collections which were revised and rearranged generation after generation. The contents changed with the times, too, moving gradually from mythic tales narrating the origins of the world to everyday topics, popular legends, Buddhist tales and other tales. I argue that Vietnamese tale literature, which has hitherto not been well known, has a significance which requires its position in the East Asian Sinographic sphere to be rethought and I suggest that more collaborative research is needed.