聊斋志异 is the title of a famous collection of short stories dealing with the supernatural. What actually do the words the title is made of verbatim mean? What is the cultural significance of those words and word-combinations so one could understand why the author (pu songling) used to choose them for the title?
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3 Answers
According to Revised Chinese Dictionary of the Ministry of Education, ROC:
聊齋為蒲松齡的書房，志異是說記錄一些怪異的事情，借鬼狐之事，抒發對現實政治、社會的不滿。
So 聊齋 (聊斋) is simply the name of Pu Songling's studio. 聊 could possibly mean "fun" or alternatively "to depend" or "to rely on". 齋 means a study (as in a room in which one pursues literary endeavours). 志異 (志异) simply means "records of strange happenings".
聊斋 is the name of the study room of the author.
斋 means a small room or house.
聊 is the name of that house.
In ancient China, a writer usually refers himself with the name of his room or his hometown.
The author 蒲松龄 called himself 聊斋先生.
志异 means to record something weird.
志 usually is used as a noun such as 日志 (daily record or log), In classic Chinese, sometimes you can use a noun like a verb. So here, it means to record something.
异 is a adjective means weird. In this case, it is used as a noun that means weird things.
So 聊斋志异 means something weird recorded by 聊斋先生 .
聊斋 => Means people talk about something when they ate enough or in free time Use 聊 because the stories in the book is from people's talking. Use 斋 because this word in Chinese have two normal means, one is meal, one is the house use to read book or talking about literature. 志异 => Means the things sounds strange or weird.
So, that the reason why that called 聊斋志异.
