Collecting Stories to Entertain: Tales of Simpletons and Literati from the Xiaolin 笑林 (Forestof Laughs)

The Xiaolin (Forest of Laughs), traditionally ascribed to Handan Chun (fl. 220), is considered the earliest collection of jokes in the history of Chinese literature. Most of its anecdotes, retrieved from later sources (mainly the Taiping guangji and the Taiping yulan), present narrative features similar to the illustrative examples found in the works of the Masters, while a few stories are reminiscent of the anecdotes about literati gathered in anthologies (such as the Shishuo xinyu) and recorded in the biographical sections of official histories. However, as the title Xiaolin suggests, its stories were probably collected more for entertainment purposes than to convey didactic messages or historical information. Since the status of the Xiaolin as the first work of its kind is well-known but its contents are not equally familiar, this article aims to provide an overview of its narratives, highlighting the features that link the text to early and early medieval collections of anecdotes. It also aims to identify the humour within its narratives and to address the issue of the ‘genre’ to which this text could be affiliated.