This study analyzes the structure of the literati’s travel stories in the Tang Dynasty included in the “Taiping Guangji (太平廣記)” and discusses the meaning of “Unexpected Ending” in the journey from the perspective of healing.
The literati of the Tang Dynasty needed novel writing to gain an advantageous position in the Imperial Official Examination (科擧), and the social environment of the time provided an environment in which the literati had no choice but to travel frequently, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Therefore, the literati of the Tang Dynasty acquired the “subsidiary character” of wayfarer through travel, and moved from fixed space to non-fixed space called journey.
For the literati of the Tang Dynasty, the “subsidiary character” called wayfarer was a fictional character that they could project themselves onto, allowing them to think freely. As a result, the literati of the Tang Dynasty were able to create freely with an emphasis on reality, and they were able to actively express their personal feelings as well as their beliefs and aspirations as the literati in their writing. For the literati of Tang Dynasty, natural space was a non-fixed space that they encountered during their travel journey, and it was a space where the power of the establishment was relatively weak. This became a space that frequently appeared in the stories of the literati, who needed novel stories while expanding their spatial awareness at the time. If we discuss this from the perspective of healing, the literati at the time, who were both authors and readers, established their own identity through the “subsidiary character” and non-fixed space, and were able to think subjectively through self-reflection. This had a significant impact on the formation of the literary network of the Tang Dynasty and the birth of a new social class called the ‘new intellectual class.’