Relationship Between Strange Tales Of Liaochai And Shandong Folk Custom

Strange Tales of Liaochai was written by Pu SongLing during the period of early Qing dynasty. Being the peak of ancient Chinese Classical stories, this book brought him with a very high reputation. Pu songling was born in Shandong province and spent the whole life in his hometown Zichua except one year in Jiangsu province working as an assistant to high official. His relative closed life environment and simple experience gave Strange Tales of Liaochai a dense folk custom cultural characteristic of Shandong. So provide us a new trend to study the Strange Tales of Liaochai through the sight of Shandong folk custom study.It contains profound and comprehensive connotation between literature works and the folk custom of its birthplace. Firstly, folk custom becomes the content of the works; Secondly, folk custom always acts as the constructor actively through the writer's creative work. Getting help from the theory and method of folklore research, this article tries to study Strange Tales of Liaochai through the sight of Shandong folk custom study. The main purpose is to summarize the Shandong folk custom appeared in the works and study the transformation and influence since it being a part of the works.As the first part, the article introduces the research background of Strange Tales of Liaochai on the field of literature folklore study. Then the writer s life experience and travel around Shandong is introduced as well as the origin of Strange Tales of Liaochai in order to reveal the reason for forming the characteristic of Shandong folk custom.The psychic folk custom displays the characteristic of Shandong folk custom of Strange Tales of Liaochai definitely. Focusing on the ghost and spirit beliefs, Taoism and gods beliefs and several temporal folk gods of Shandong, this article tries to study the folk custom origin of the fairy stories and the influence of the folk belief to the origin of the materials and the formation of artistic style. Shandong folk custom has an important effect on constructing the fairy world of Strange Tales of Liaochai. Firstly, folk beliefs and their stories act as the frame and materials of the novel creation. The writer used the folk custom flexibly to construct the content, weave the stories, promote the circumstances, describe the characters and increase the interest; Secondly, folk custom has been described as the details, enriched the capacity of life which the works exhibits. The remarkable description of the folk life mixes with the writer s affection and mental themes, which promotes the works to a high aesthetic state. At the same time, the description of Shandong folk custom in Strange Tales of Liaochai also stimulates the propagation of the brilliant folk culture of Shandong. The study will help us get further comprehension of Strange Tales of Liaochai from the point of interaction and mix between the folk custom and literature works.