Record of an Ancient Mirror: An Interdisciplinary Reading

Jue Chen's "Record of an Ancient Mirror" is a study on the "Gujing ji", one of the few extant texts of the early Tang dynasty (618-907) "chuanqi" fiction. It presents concrete research on the textual history and close reading of the work, against the background of detailed informational material regarding the historical careers of Wang Du and Wang Ji, as well as the intellectual context of Sui-Tang politics, philosophy, and religion. Based on that, Chen's analysis illuminates a broad range of fields: art history and the lore of medieval Buddhism and Daoism; the spiritual geography of China's "sacred mountains"; ancient Chinese medicine and occult arts; and other related topics. Like the text on which it is based, this study deals with a wide variety of seemingly disjointed elements. Yet they all come together in a comprehensive view of the workings of Tang "tales of the strange", and traditional Chinese fictional and historical narrative in general, with their frequent adumbration of historical and religious implications beyond the specific episodes presented.