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In contemporary world culture, under the influence of various schools of psychoanalysis, there is no need to stress the importance of dreams. In ancient times and in every culture, it was already so, yet traditions of interpretation of dreams varied greatly. China is not an exception. One of the merits of the book under review is to open to a larger public, as the translator states in his Preface, 陳士元 Chen Shiyuan’s (1516-1595) 夢占逸旨 Mengzhan yizhi or Lofty Principles of Dream Interpretation (a work completed around 1562) as “one of the most extensive compendiums of traditional Chinese dream culture” (p. ix).
The Introduction will serve as some initiation to this “Chinese dream culture”, in its historical evolution since the 商 Shang dynasty (pp. 1-27). The great value of these pages is to place this “dream culture” in its cosmo-anthropological context, expressed mainly under Taoist influence. It “asserted the existence of an ethereal soul 魂 hun and an earthly soul 魄 po that normally were conjoined within the body during waking life. In sleep, as in death, the bonds between these souls dissolved, freeing the ethereal hun-soul to wander while the earthly po-soul remained with the body. In an entry about the appearance of a ghost in 534 BCE, the aristocrat Zichan of Zheng 鄭子產 (ca. 580-522 BCE) explained: “Man at his birth undergoes a transformation, and this is called the ‘po’. As soon as the po has taken form, it also contains a yang part which is called the ‘hun’. If he can consume a great amount of the vigorous essence 精 jing of things, then his hun and po will be strong. Thus his essence will become supple and his spirit 神 shen will be luminous.” (p. 7).
The second part of the Introduction deals with “Chen Shiyuan and his encyclopedia” (pp. 27-37). The Chinese book itself does not pretend to be an “encyclopaedia”, but only to propose principles for dream interpretation that would go “beyond” the variety of schools of the past. After presenting Chen Shiyuan’s family background and biography, the work itself, composed when he was only forty-six, is presented.
After a Preface, Lofty Principles of Dream Interpretation is made of two parts, in imitation of 莊子 Zhuangzi, called 内篇 neipian, inner chapters and 外篇 wai pian, outer chapters. The inner chapters (pp. 53-99) give details on nine different categories of dreams and the best ways to interpret them; a tenth chapter examines the difficulties involved in the interpretation of “Influences and Abnormal Conditions”. Each chapter is made up of some main text, to which interlinear commentaries are added by Chen Shiyuan (these have been placed by the translator as endnotes to each chapter). It is only in the outer chapters that the real nature of “one of the most extensive compendiums of traditional Chinese dream culture” is revealed that could justify the appellation of “encyclopaedia” given to it by its translator. In fact, every one of the twenty outer chapters, each having a special heading, gives an extensive nomenclature of relevant instances of dreams historically recorded, plus (in endnotes as for the inner chapters) commentaries on the applied interpretations. The abundance of given and translated sources would certainly be a strong antidote against further imaginative dreaming…
All the more so that these outer chapters are also followed (pp. 257-272) by a lengthy list of Chinese sources of the original work and a generous and detailed Index of motifs (pp. 273-289).
One may regret that the translation of Chen Shiyuan’s “compendium” or “handbook” on the interpretation of dreams has been published under a title that could mislead the casual reader. Too many inter-cultural ambiguities remain implicitly present in such a title given to the translation of the Lofty Principles of Dream Interpretation, when no cosmo-anthropological explanation has been given yet to the Chinese meaning of 神遊 shenyou “spirit-wandering” (p. 1, note 2).
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Yves Camus has supervised (1985-1998) the up-dated compilation of a Chinese-French dictionary, the Grand Dictionnaire Ricci de la Langue Chinoise in 7 volumes (300,000 entries, Paris , 2002). One of the Founding Members of the Institute, he has taken part in the conception and development of its Research and Cultural activities, especially as Associate Director and now Editor of this Chinese-English quarterly journal, launched in January 2004. He has recently been appointed Research Fellow of the Institute. His main fields of studies and interests are Chinese philosophical and spiritual traditions in modernity. |
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| Issue 6.1 |
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The Sorcerer’s
Apprentices
—A Global Tale
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