廣異記初探

A Preliminary Study of the Kuang-i chi

杜德橋(Glen Dudbridge)

《新亞學報》 15卷 (1986/06) Pp. 395-414+ap16

並列摘要

Kuang-i chi ('The great book of marvels'), now lost, was once a collection of supernatural tales in twenty scrolls, running to more than 100,000 words in length. Its author was Tai Fu, a man who became a chin-shih graduate in A.D. 757, held minor posts in the provincial service and died at 57 sui. This much we know from a contemporary preface by his friend, the poet and painter Ku K'uang. The present bibliographical study seeks to extend our knowledge of the author and his collection by examining its ample remains in compendia of the Sung period, chiefly the T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi (977-8). We can identify more than 300 items, representing perhaps 80 per cent of the original.The great majority deal with events of the eighth century and imply a chronology which ends abruptly in 780. Several items suggest the author's personal contacts with society inChekiang during the 706s and 770s. A few pieces dealing with later events are shown to be of doubtfull attribution. The evidence of early catalogues suggests that this little-known book was finally lost after the fall of Kaifeng in 1127. A short version made its first appearance, circulating in manuscript form, in the seventeenth century. Two surviving specimens of this late tradition, now in the Peking National Library and here described for the first time, appear to derive from a known version of the T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi.