ABSTRACT
T HE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY eccentric tradition was formed from many disparate elements, the variety of which can be seen in the multiple meanings of the Chinese word guai ,t1-, the term we are translating when we discuss Chinese "eccentric" literature and art of that age.1 One twentiethcentury scholar has argued convincingly that in the earliest texts the word guai is fairly close in meaning to the modern word "myth" (shenhua ;ff~,) and this supernatural meaning of the term was still current in the eighteenth century, as witnessed by such expressions as guiguai ~ ,t1-("ghosts and monsters") and yaoguai ~ ,t1-("ghosts and demons,") still in use today.2 Perhaps as a result of such supernatural associations, the word guai gradually extended in meaning to include such ideas as "strange," "uncanny," and "weird" and was frequently employed to describe unusual natural objects, as in the term guaishi ,t1-~ ("weird rocks,") or even human beings possessing particularly unusual personalities or who engaged in eccentric activities. Whether they applied it to physical objects, supernatural creatures, or human beings, many authors used the term guai with a strong sense of disapproval or even repulsion, the major exception being authors who cultivated the esthetics of the eccentric themselves, as in Yuan Mei's praise of Zhao Yi's poetry, already translated on page 271. 3
The sources of the eccentric tradition are many and varied and even include the Confucian classics. We are told that Confucius himself never talked about the guai, but there are many passages in the canonical Confucian texts, which he supposedly edited, that speak of strange, supernatural events.4
