Moral Stories of the World: A Classic Chinese Literary Masterpiece

Author: Feng Menglong
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-01-01
Features: The Waking World Stories is a collection of colloquial tales compiled by Feng Menglong (1574–1646) during the late Ming Dynasty. Feng Menglong, a native of Changzhou, was known by the literary name Youlong, and also went by pseudonyms such as Longziyou, Mo Hanzhai Master, and Gu Quisan Ren. Throughout his life, he adapted and compiled numerous tales. The Waking World Stories, alongside the other two colloquial tale collections he compiled—The Enlightening World Stories and The World Stories—are collectively known as the "Three Words" (San Yan). This book was published slightly later than the other two and contains fewer Song and Yuan Dynasty tales compared to the first two works, accounting for approximately one-sixth of the entire collection. Some of the confirmed ancient tales include The Letter from the Water Bay Fox, The Fatal Indulgence of Jinhai Ling, Zheng Jieshi's Achievement with the Divine Bow, and The Fifteen Guan Coin and the Misfortune of a Witty Lie. When compiling these ancient tales, Feng Menglong refined them, polished the colloquial tales written by Ming Dynasty authors, and even wrote some of the stories himself. Many works in this book draw from historical events, but the historical figures and events have been fictionalized and typified, deviating from the actual historical facts. When handling such themes, the author paid attention to the relationship between historical truth and artistic truth. The book includes forty stories with diverse styles, some sourced from historical records, others from historical notes and novels across dynasties, while the majority originate directly from folk legends and the realities of social life. Through these plots and characters, it reflects the social life and people's aspirations of that time from different perspectives and to varying degrees.