Original language:
Chinese Translated from: Russian
Authors: Yuan Mei
Translated by: Kajokas, Donaldas
Full translated source bibliographical description:
Mey, Yuan', O chom ne govoril Konfutsiy. Moskva: Nauka, 1977.
ISBN: 9986-97-017-2
Published in: Kaunas
Published on: 1999
Publisher: Eridanas
‘’What the Master Would not Discuss’’ by Yuan Mei is a rebellion against the system of Confucius, which denies strange things, violence, riots and supernatural creatures. The book contains a lot of stories. Using supernatural topics and characters, telling stories about ghosts, devils and corpses Y. Mei provokes people to get interested into magic. Most of his stories are closely related to the contraposition of life and death. The ghosts of dead people can transform into the human body and seek to punish the culprit. But there are good ghosts too. They observe the life of their relatives, help them or ask for help.
Y. Mei’s stories can be divided into three types. In the first type of stories there is one event and the consequence. The character finds himself in a strange situation. The end is unexpected and not traditional. The second type consists of longer stories. The prehistory is very important. The author creates a more complicated structure of the story with the climax and outcomes. There are more different characters and episodes. The story covers a longer period. The third type stories are very short. There is no action, plot, climax and outcomes. You find short information.
Yuan Mei was a well-known Chinese poet, scholar, artist of the 17th century. He was born in the Qing Dynasty in 1716. He became interested in history under the influence of a famous painter and politician of that time Jiang Pu. According to Yuan Mei a real historian gives real facts to future generations. That is why in his stories the characters are different from historical sources. Y Mei died in 1797.