Pu, Songling

Die erste chinesische Prosadichtung, die Hermann Hesse liest, ist P'u, Sung-ling. Chinesische Geister- und Liebes-Geschichte…in der Übersetzung von Martin Buber. [ID D3083]. Er nennt sie „das dichterische Wertvollste“ nach dem Shi-king [Shi jing] und den Gleichnissen des Dschuang Tsi [Zhuangzi].
Er schreibt : Diese zauberhaften Geschichten fanden mich wohl vorbereitet und haben mir einen tieferen Eindruck gemacht als alles, was ich sonst seither gelesen habe.

Woolf, Virginia. Chinese stories. In : Times literary supplement ; 1 May (1913). In : The essays of Virginia Woolf. (London : Hogarth Press, 1986-2011). Vol. 2.
Review of P'u Sung-ling [Pu Songling]. Strange stories from the lodge of leisures. [ID D31533].
According to Mr George Soulié, the translator of these stories, we seriously mistake the nature of the ordinary Chinaman if we imagine him any more exclusively occupied with the great classics of his literature than we are with ours. If we see him with a book in his hand it is likely to be 'a novel like the History of the Three Kingdoms or a selection of ghost stories'. Like us they have a hunger for novels and stories, which they read over and over again, so that, although in the West nothing is known about it, the influence of such light literature upon the Chinese mind 'is much greater than the whole bulk of the classics'. They may resemble us in their craving for something lighter, nearer to the life they know than the old and famous books, but in all else how different they are! The twenty-five stories in Strange Stories from the Lodge of Leisure, translated from the Chinese by George Soulié, were written in the second half of the eighteenth century by P'ou Song-Lin, at a time, that is, when with Fielding and Richardson our fiction was becoming increasingly robust and realistic. To give any idea of the slightness and queerness of these stories one must compare them to dreams, or the airy, fantastic, and inconsequent flight of a butterfly. They skim from world to world, from life to death. The people they describe may kill each other and die, but we cannot believe either in their blood or in their dissolution. The barriers against which we in the West beat our hands in vain are for them almost as transparent as glass. 
"Some people (one of the stories begins) remember every incident of their former existences; it is a fact which many examples can prove. Other people do not forget what they learned before they died and were born again, but remember only confusedly what they were in a precedent life. Wang, the acceptable of the yellow peach-blossom city, when people discussed such questions before him used to narrate the experience he had had with his first son."
And the story which occupies three little pages tells how a boy had once been born a student, then a donkey, and then a boy again. Very often these stories are like the stories a child will tell of a sight which has touched its imagination for no reason that we can discover, lacking in point where we expect the point to come, suddenly breaking off and done with, but somehow memorable. Or it may be they are extravagantly sensational, or of the nature of fairy stories, where all is miraculously set right in the end, or again purposeless and callous as a child's stories, the good man being killed merely to make an end. But they all alike have a quality of fantasy and spirituality which sometimes, as in 'The Spirit of the River' or 'The River of Sorrows', becomes of real beauty, and is greatly enhanced by the unfamiliar surroundings and exquisite dress. Take, for example, the following description of a Chinese ghost:
"He went farther and farther: the moving lights were rarer; ere long he only saw before him the fire of a white lantern decorated with two red peonies. The paper globe was swinging to the steps of a tiny girl clothed in the blue linen that only slaves wore. The light behind showed the elegant silhouette of another woman, this one covered with a long jacket made in a rich pink silk edged with purple. As the student drew nearer the belated walker turned round, showing an oval face and big long eyes wherein shone a bright speck cruel and mysterious."
So queer and topsy-turvy is the atmosphere of these little stories that one feels, when one has read a number of them, much as if one had been trying to walk over the bridge in a willow pattern plate.

Pu-ssung-ling [Pu, Songling]. Chinesische Novellen. Übersetzt von Li-te-schun [Li Teishun] ; bearb. und hrsg. von Gustav Gast. (Leipzig : Bibliographisches Institut, 1901). (Meyers Volksbücher ; 1253-1254).

P'u, Sung-ling. Chinesische Geister- und Liebesgeschichten. Mit 16 Abbildungen nach chinesischen Holzschnitten. Übersetzt von Martin Buber. (Frankfurt a.M. : Rütten und Loening, 1911). Übersetzung von Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765). 聊斋志异

P'u Sung-ling. Strange stories from the lodge of leisures. Transl. from the Chinese by George Soulié. (London : Constable, 1913). Übersetzung von Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765). 聊斋志异

Pu, Songling. Monakhi volshebniki : iz sbornika Strannykh rasskazov Pu Sunlina (Liao Chzhai chzhi i). Perevod I predisl V.M. Alekseeva. (Moskva : Gos. Izd-vo, 1923). Übersetzung von Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765).聊斋志异

P'u, Sung-ling. Seltsame Geschichten aus dem Liao chai. Frei übertragen aus dem Urtext von Erich Schmitt. (Berlin : A. Häger, 1924). (Ex Oriente lux ; Abt. 1 : China). Übersetzung von Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765). 聊斋志异

P'u, Sung-ling [Pu, Songling]. Fiabe cinesi. Trad. dal Cinese di L[udovico Nicola] di Giura. (Milano : Mondadori, 1926). (Proprieta letteraria riservata). Übersetzung von Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765). 聊斋志异

[Pu, Songling]. Der Pantoffel der kleinen Yen-dschi : zwei chinesische Novellen aus alter Zeit. Mit
drei
chinesischen Miniaturen ; aus den Urtexten übertragen von Anna von Rottauscher. (Wien : Wilhelm
Fritz, 1940). (Wiener Bücherei ; 9).

Der Turm der fegenden Wolken : altchinesische Novellen. Aus dem Chinesischen übertragen von Franz Kuhn. (München : Bavaria, 1947), Übersetzungen aus Go lian hua ying, Jin gu qi guan, Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi, Li, Yu (1). Shi er lou.

Irrlicht und Morgenröte : fünf chinesische Erzählungen. Mit 6 farb. Illustrationen. Aus demChinesischen ins Deutsche übertragen von Anna von Rottauscher. (Zürich : Die Waage, 1955). Übersetzung von Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765). 聊斋志异

P'u, Sung-ling. Gaukler, Füchse und Dämonen. Aus dem Chinesischen übertragen von E[rich] P[eter] Schrock und Liu Guan-ying. (Basel : Schwabe, 1955). (Sammlung Klosterberg. Neue Folge). Übersetzung von Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765). 聊斋志异

P'u, Sung-ling. Höllenrichter Lu : chinesische Gespenster- und Fuchsgeschichten. Aus dem Chinesischen von Irmgard und Reinhold Grimm. (Eisenach : E. Röth, 1956). (Der Erdkreis). Übersetzung von Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765). 聊斋志异

P'u, Sung-ling [Pu, Songling]. I racconti fantastici. Trad. dal Cinese di L[udovico Nicola] di Giura. (Milano : Mondadori, 1957). Übersetzung von Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765). 聊斋志异

P'u, Songling. Liao-chai chih-i : chinesische Geschichten aus dem 17. Jahrhundert. Ausgewählte und aus dem Chinesischen übertragen von Kai Yeh ; mit einem Vorwort von Werner Eichhorn. (Stuttgart : P. Reclam, 1965). (Universal-Bibliothek ; 8979). Übersetzung von Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765). 聊斋志异

Chinesische Gespenstergeschichten. Hrsg. und übersetzt von Adrian Baar. (Frankfurt a.M. : Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1975). Übersetzung von Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765). 聊斋志异

Pu, Songling. De beschilderde huid : spookverhalen. Vert. uit het Chinees en ingel. door W.L. Idema, B.J. Mansvelt Beck, N.H. van Straten. (Amsterdam : Meulenhoff, 1978). (De Oosterse bibliotheek ; no 9).

Pu, Sung-ling. Fräulein Lotosblume : chinesische Liebesgeschichten. Aus dem Chinesischen übertragen von Gottfried Rösel. (Frankfurt a.M. : Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1982). (Fischer Taschenbücher ; 8042). Übersetzung von Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765). 聊斋志异

Li, Wai-yee. Rhetoric of fantasy and rhetoric of irony : studies in Liao-chai chih-i and Hung-lou meng. (Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University, 1988). Diss. Princeton Univ., 1987. [Pu, Songling. Liao zhai zhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1765). 聊斋志异 ; Cao Xueqin ; Hong lou meng].