History of the development of classical Chinese novels

Overview of the Development of the Chinese Novel

Ancient China illustrates that it matured later than poetry and prose, and slightly earlier than opera. In the long-term feudal society, the novel has always been despised by the feudal proper unified literati. We seem to think that: the ancient Chinese novel, is in the feudal orthodox literati "every ZiZhi its inferior" under the discriminatory vision of the development and prosperity. This is also a kind of "reversal".

When did the ancient Chinese novel begin and what book did it originate from? We do not seem to be stuck in a book, because the novel in the narrative technique, although not like the theater requires a high degree of integration of various literary arts, but compared to poetry, prose requirements are more and more high, not a moment can be formed, more than a book can mark, it is appropriate to generalize. The fact that we regard the Prelude and the two Han dynasties as the budding period of the Chinese novel is based on the fact that we do not believe that this long period of history has already produced works of fiction that meet the basic conditions of the novel genre. As far as the actual situation is concerned, the myths, fables, historical biographies, and "wild history" legends of this period all nurtured the elements of the art of fiction and prepared the conditions for the formation of the novel genre; at the same time, they also revealed the beginnings of the two major categories of the Chinese novel: the Zhiren (志人) and the Zhiqi (志怪), which had already been formed during the childhood of the Chinese novel. However, it is a fact that it is difficult to separate the novel from the historical biography in the early days of ancient China.

From the Later Han Dynasty to before the Tang Dynasty, it was the childhood period of Chinese novels, or the period of initial formation of Chinese novels. Mr. Lu Xun called the novels before the Tang Dynasty "ancient novels" in order to distinguish them from the novels of the Tang Dynasty and the novels after the Tang Dynasty. Because the Tang novel is recognized as a symbol of the full maturity of the Chinese literary short story, while the "rough outline" of the Six Dynasties novel is obviously immature. It can be argued that the "novels of childhood" and the "ancient novels" are similar and compatible. The novels of this period have a **** the same characteristics, is to emphasize the things of the "real" rather than emphasize the artistic reality. Most of the works did not make "illusionary language", what the author wrote was what the author believed actually existed, so the works were roughly of the nature of "passing the scene". As far as the novels are concerned, they are not like the later authors who used non-human stories to reflect the human world, but they are convinced that "Yin and Yang have different paths, and human beings and ghosts are all real". Fundamentally, the author did not know how to make a novel, let alone "intend to make a novel". This kind of novel with archetypal state undoubtedly expresses the characteristics of childhood. Childhood novels to Liu Yiqing "Shishu Xinyao" as the representative of the Zhiren novel and Ganbao "God's record" as the representative of the rise of the two categories of Zhiren novels, not only with the era of civilized atmosphere and social habits have a close relationship, but also the budding period of the development of the tendency to nurture the other way around, the development of short stories in the literary language later laid the foundation for a diversion, and even on the creation of certain novels also had an impact on the creation of a long story.

"Novels are also like poems, to Tang and a change". From the perspective of the history of the development of the Chinese novel, the Tang novel is a qualitative leap. Tang novels, only "Taiping Guangji" book included more than 40 single, special collection of more than 40, about the number of thousands of articles, roughly divided into two categories: one for the legend, one for the strange. The reason for the prosperity and development of the Tang Dynasty novels, in addition to the development of childhood novels experience, and the political prosperity, cultural development, and the imperial examinations "line volume", "warm volume" of the wind has a direct relationship.

The development of the novel to the Song Dynasty, a fundamental change occurred, which is the production of the book. From then on, the history of the novel before the Song Dynasty, which was dominated by the vernacular short story, gradually changed into the history of the novel dominated by the vernacular novel from the Song Dynasty; meanwhile, the vernacular short story developed along its trajectory. Thus the history of the Chinese novel since then by the literary, the vernacular two threads of interactive development, they have their own characteristics, but also mutual absorption, mutual penetration, a thousand forms, beautiful, climax after climax in the history of Chinese literature novels accounted for more and more weight, the status of the more and more high.

On this line of development of the literary short story, to the Song, the literary short story is roughly divided into three types: one is the legendary body, which is the remnants of the Tang novels; the second is the notebook body short story small standing, it is the evolution of the childhood Zhiren novels; the third is Zhiqi body, which is the continuation of the childhood Zhiqi novels. The achievements of the legendary novels of the Song people were far inferior to those of the Tang people. "The Tang largely wrote about current events; while the Song spoke more about ancient events, and the Tang novels taught fewer lessons; while the Song taught more lessons." "Probably the Tang was a little freer to speak, although writing about current events, not to get into trouble; while the Song was more taboo, so the literati will try to avoid, to speak of ancient things. In addition, the Song Dynasty science prevailed for a while, because the novel is also more rationalized." In short, the Song dynasty legend with historical themes, the overall achievement is not high, but there is no lack of scattered gold and jade works, such as Rao mellow "Tan Yi Ge Wei", Anonymous "Li Shishi out of the world" and so on. Song notes are especially numerous, for the previous phenomenon has not been. Many of them are said to be or similar to the novel. At the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty, many of them remembered the Tang and Five Dynasties, such as Sun Guangkuan's Northern Dreams; after the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, many of them remembered the dynasty, such as Sima Guang's Blossom River Chronicle; and many of them remembered the old years of the Northern Song Dynasty, such as Zhou Hui's Qingbo Magazine, and so on. Song Dynasty novels, "plain and lack of literary merit", its achievement is not as good as the notes of historical trivia, but there are a few influential works, such as Hong Mai's "Yi Jian Zhi", Wu Shu's "Jianghuai Anecdotes" and so on. Although the achievement of Song people's literary short story is not very high, but the number and variety, in the history of novels should occupy a place. The biggest contribution of the Ning people to the literary novels is the editing of a voluminous "Taiping Guangji", many of the short stories in the literary language before the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, more on the basis of preservation.

The short stories in the Golden Age did not exceed the level of the Song Dynasty in terms of quantity or quality. But the development of clues have not been broken, and there are some more influential collection, such as Yuan Haoqian's "renewed Yijian Zhi", Liu Qi's "return to the submerged Zhi", Amoy Zongyi's "Nancun Dropout Records" and so on.

The Ming Dynasty's literary short stories, though not comparable to the contemporaneous vernacular long and short stories, occupy an important position in the history of the development of the literary novel. Famous legendary, strange, Qing dynasty novels collection are: Qu You's "cut lamp new words", Li Zhen's "cut lamp Yu words", Shao Jing Zhan's "search for the lamp because of the words", Zhang Chao edited the "Yu Chou Xinzhi", He Liangjun's "He generation language forest" and so on. There are many literary and emotional works in these collections. In addition, some of the prose masters such as Song Lian, Liu Ji, Ma Zhongxi's Wen Huo, but also between the Rikan novels masterpieces.

The early Song Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty, more than six hundred years, most of the short novels in the literary language Jin Tang, but none of them can surpass the Tang. To the Qing Dynasty and a big change, the language short story highly prosperous, produced a world significance and influence of the "Liaozhai Zhiqi", the development of the language short story pushed to the highest peak. "Using the method of legend but with Zhiqi" (Lu Xun) summarizes the basic characteristics of both the writing and the content of Liaozhai Zhiyi. The fundamental difference between Liaozhai's "Zhiqi" and the Six Dynasties' "Zhiqi" is that Pu Songling's "Zhiqi" did not believe in "weirdness", while the Six Dynasties' "Zhiqi" did not believe in "weirdness", and the Six Dynasties' "Zhiqi" did not believe in "weirdness". The fundamental difference between Pu Songling's "Zhiqi" and the Six Dynasties' "Zhiqi" is that Pu Songling's "Zhiqi" does not believe in "weirdness", while the Six Dynasties' "Zhiqi" believes in "weirdness"; the Six Dynasties' "Zhiqi" promotes "weirdness" even though he does not intend to do so. The Sixth Dynasty people's "Zhiqi" is to promote "strange" unintentionally, while Pu Songling's "Zhiqi" is to support "strange" intentionally. Liaozhai Zhiyi" has the cloud: "set armpit into a fur, presumptuous continue the record of the netherworld; floating white loaded pen, only into the book of loneliness and indignation; support so, but also enough to carry on the sad! Liaozhai" out, made a rise, although no one can fly down with, but also have their own achievements. Even the influence of the more obvious are: Wang Shizhen "Pool North Puppet Talk", Yuan Mei "Zi Buyan" (i.e., "New Qi Harmony"), Shen Qifeng "Harmonious Frontier", the Manchu and the amount of bang "Night Tans with the record", Zeng Diffractive East "small bean shed" and so on. After that, from the reign of the Emperor to the reign of the Emperor Guangxu, there were Wang Tao's "Calumny of the Transported Grottoes", "Pine Hidden Records", "Songbin Zuojiao", and Xuan Ding's "Night and Rain Autumn Records", etc. Lu Xun commented on the latter collections. Lu Xun commented on the latter several sets of clouds: "its penmanship and pure Liaozhai" flow of a moment of circulation is quite far, but the record has been fox gradually thin, a hundred flowers and powder things Sheng carries on." Another Cheng Toe Cheung, "the people in this language" and Jia Ming's "female Liaozhai" and so on. Visible "Liaozhai" influence and the letter of the prevalence of work. Liaozhai" popular more than a hundred years later, ji yun's "read microcao tang notes" came out. Ji's "Liaozhai" is quite critical, said it is "the pen of the talented, not the pen of the author of the book". "Zi

(zhǐ底毁)其有唐人传奇之详,又杂以六朝志怪者的短" (Lu Xun) Lu Xun praised "Liaozhai" as "the pen of a talented man, not the pen of a writer" ("才子的笔"). (Lu Xun's words) Lu Xun praised and commented on "Reading Weaknesses", saying that it was "a wonderful thing to think about, and sometimes enough to solve the Kui; intermixed with the examination and analysis, there is also a penetrating insight. The narrative is graceful and elegant, and the sky is full of color, so no one can take its place afterward." However, "reading micro" focus on remembering things in order to understand the reasoning, the storyline is not rich enough, not rich enough characters, and too much discussion, and thus the lack of "Liaozhai" like a strong novel meaning, its value is higher than the literary value of the academic description. After "reading micro", the letter also partner. Qing notes space, in the short story in the literary language, notes the largest proportion of novels. But the notes in the Pu non-all for the novel, just notes have a lot of works in line with the requirements of the novel. It is yet to be identified and organized.

We talk about the formation, development and evolution of vernacular novels from the Song Dynasty. The creation of the Song dynasty vernacular novel was revolutionary in nature. Its positive intentions are at least the following: ① from the literary language to the vernacular, not only enhanced the novel's expressive power, but also expanded the readership, thus improving the novel's social function. ②The object of description of the work shifted from the performance of feudal scholars to the common people, especially the citizens, and thus the ideology and aesthetics of the work changed. (3) The foundation of vernacular short and long novels was laid. The rise of the Pillowman's Talking Book is "really a great change in the history of Chinese fiction." (Lu Xun)

"Talking book" was originally the base of the speaker. "Talking" is storytelling. As a kind of kung fu, originated in the Tang Dynasty and flourished in the Song Dynasty to study its origins is very far away. Before the Tang Dynasty, "talking" activities are limited to among the Shidaguang, mostly for the ruling stage of entertainment and recreation. To the Tang Dynasty, "talk" as a kind of Kung Fu, there is a trend towards "civic literature" development. Because of the Tang's literary novels, change the text, no matter the content and form, the dialog has an impact.

Song dynasty "talk" very hair damage throughout the tile, hook bar, teahouse, wine shop, streets and alleys, palace temples, government villages. In this way, there is a group of professional "speakers", and writing groups, "speakers" guilds. The "speakers" had a professional division of labor called "family number"; among the "family number", the most influential ones were "novel" and "storytelling". Among the "families", the most influential are the "novel" and "history" families, especially the "novel" family. There is an evolutionary process from "speech" to novel. At the beginning, as a "speaker", the basic text was not for people to read, but for teachers and apprentices to teach and tell people; the preparation of the text was not based on the purpose of literature, but due to the needs of the profession. With the improvement of the public's cultural requirements and the development of the printing business, the base text for the use of "speakers" - the book of words was gradually processed and embellished, printed and circulated for people to read the flavor of the pit. After the books were publicly circulated, vernacular novels were born. From then on, also make this kind of kabuki and the book in a certain sense separated.

Song and Yuan times, the book is a single piece of circulation, mostly out of folk artists, circulating in the city between almost no signature, resulting in many works so far can not figure out the specific age of the writing, especially in the Song and Yuan dynasties is more difficult to distinguish. So the rule of fiction people had to eye them together, collectively referred to as the "Song and Yuan book". "Song and Yuan book" in the end how many, so far there is no accurate statistics, contemporary scholars believe that the novel book **** 67, of which most of the Song Dynasty. "Speaking of history" [also known as "plain speech" (or "commentary")] books. More from the Yuan Dynasty, according to the "Yongle Canon" directory volume 46 records, *** 26 (unfortunately much has been lost, today only survives "five generations of history," "full phase of the Pingyin five," "Song Xuan and the legacy of the" and "talk about the scripture" text is only similar to the novel and not a novel, but only on the formation of the chapter book novels have a positive impact.

The Song Dynasty "talk" of the boom in the arts, and the city's economy at the time of the deformed prosperity has a close relationship with the "Tokyo Dreaming Records", "the city of the record", "the West Lake old man prosperous record", "dream beam record" and "old stories of the martial arts," the kind of notes can be clearly illustrated.

The Ming Dynasty was an era of vigorous development of vernacular short stories. In terms of the vernacular short story, Ming people contributed from three aspects: one is processing and embellishing the Song, Yuan, Ming Dynasty artistic defects endure the words of the book, the second is to collect and organize the collection of vernacular novels, the third is the creation of a large number of proposed book. Ming Dynasty vernacular novels (short) the most prosperous period is after the Wanli, especially in the south, the urban economy is developed, the city of the formation of the class of ShiDaFu life is becoming more and more ridiculous, so to reflect the public life as the main content of the vernacular short story more and more vigorously developed. The most representative collections were Hong braid biān's Qing ping shantang yuuben (清平山堂话本), Feng Meng's san yan ("喻世明言", "Waking up to the World" and "Waking up to the World") and Ling mengchu's er bai ("初刻拍案惊奇", "二刻 The Second Beat" (《初刻拍案惊奇》, 《二刻拍案惊奇》).

The original "Qing Ping Shan Tang Talking Book" was divided into six episodes*** and collected 60 talking books, with the general name of "60 Novels". Only 27 articles exist. The book is mostly old works of Song and Yuan, not embellished; a few are works of Ming people. "Three Words" *** collection of vernacular small lie 100 open, including by Feng Menglong plus embellishment of the words, but also his creation of the proposed book, the majority of works in the Ming Dynasty. The "two beats" are all the proposed books created by Ling Mengchu. Feng Menglong was an "all-around" popular writer, and he also had excellent insights into the theory of popular fiction. His "Three Words" had a wide range of subjects, many masterpieces, involved all aspects of social life at that time, and was artistically creative. From this, we can see the outstanding achievements of Song, Yuan and Ming novels. The "Two Beats" is the earliest collection of proposed dialogues at the same time as the "Three Words", and contains 80 works. Ling Mengchu's thought was far less progressive than Feng Menglong's, and the dregs of the book were much more serious than those of "Three Words". However, artistically, "he writes scenes as if they were in his ears" (Sun Kai Di). (Sun Kai Di)

The first "old man holding the urn" was asked to select 40 works from the "Three Words" and "Two Beats", which were named "Wonders of the Present and the Past", and were published in the book.

The old man "瓮老人" selected forty works from "Three Words" and "Two Raps" and named them "The Wonderful View of the Present and the Past".

In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, under the influence of "Three Words" and "Two Beats", there was a boom in the creation of novels in the vernacular, and there were more than forty collections. Their thinking and artistry is not as good as the "Three Words", "two beat", but to save the essence of the phase, there are still some works worth reading, such as Chongzhen published during the "natural knowledge of the old man" of the "Stone Nodding ", the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty Li Yu's "twelve floors", "Yuan Heng master" of the "Shining Cup", Zhou Qingyuan's "West Lake, two sets", "Donglu ancient madman" of the "Drunkenness Stone" and so on.

The Qing dynasty since the Qianjia, the prevalence of the wind of the examination, the scholar is not keen on the novel, until the end of the Qing dynasty, this phenomenon has changed, and the novel has been vigorously developed.

The beginning of the Ming Dynasty, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin" came out one after another, marking the history of the Chinese novel has entered a new stage of historical development. From then on, the history of the Chinese novel, dominated by short stories, turned into a new period dominated by long stories. Although the short novels in the vernacular and the vernacular language have been developing according to their own laws, and there are good hair and climaxes from time to time, on the whole, their achievements and scales are not comparable with those of the long novels. The "Four Great Wonders" dominate in all kinds of subjects: "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is both the first full-length novel in history and a model of historical fiction; "Water Margin" is both the first comprehensive description of the peasant revolt and a model of heroic legend; "Journey to the West" is both the first full-length novel of gods and demons and a model of divine and demonic fiction; "The Golden Vase" is the first full-length novel of gods and demons and a model of divine and demonic fiction; "The Golden Vase" is the first full-length novel of gods and demons and a model of divine and demonic fiction; "The Golden Vase" is a model of divine and demonic fiction. The Journey to the West is both the first full-length novel of gods and devils and a model of divine and magical fiction; The Plum in the Golden Vase is both the first full-length novel written about the world and the first successful full-length novel created solely by a man of letters. Each of them created a new field of novel writing. The great achievements of the "Four Great Wondrous Books" have profoundly influenced the creation of novels, forming several series of novels: the Three Kingdoms series, the Water Margin series, the Journey to the West series, and the Golden Plum series, and also influencing society as a whole, influencing cultural thinking and affecting people's spiritual life. The power of this great subtle influence is immeasurable.

The Qing Dynasty, during the Qianlong period, "Confucianism" and "Dream of Red Mansions" two long masterpieces, before the two worlds, the history of Chinese novels, although there is no lack of satirical works, but there is no one called satirical novels of the model, so Lu Xun on the "Confucianism" of the praise of the special: "Confucianism" out of the heart, is upholding the public interest, refers to the ills of the times, the sharpness of the direction, especially in the scholarly world; Its text is knit and harmonious, euphemistic and satirical; thus, there is a satirical book in the Department of Literature." (A Brief History of the Chinese Novel, XX.) (A Brief History of the Chinese Novel, Part XXIII.) The History of the Ru Lin Layman, outside of the Four Great Wonders, opened up a new path. It not only directly influenced the creation of the late Qing Dynasty condemnation novels, but also influenced Lu Xun's miscellaneous writings. As for the achievement and influence of Dream of Red Mansions, there is no need to talk about it. No matter its ideology and artistry, it is the pinnacle in the history of Chinese novels and literature, as well as a masterpiece in world literature. Its great achievement can be regarded as a glorious summary of the ancient Chinese art of realist creation of long novels. If The Three Kingdoms, Water Margin and Journey to the West have great influence in the folklore, the influence of Confucianism and The Red Chamber is among the scholars. Especially the reading and speaking of "Red Mansions", then early in the scholarly class became a habit and fashionable: "open talk does not say "Dream of Red Mansions", read all the poems and books also mutual understanding in." This shows that in the Qing dynasty intellectual class not only has a "Dream of Red Mansions" heat, and also whether through the "Dream of Red Mansions" as a measure of a person's knowledge of the standard. In the "Dream of the Red Chamber" has not yet West when someone commented, more than two hundred into to, the commentator than shoulder to shoulder, the sequel to the sweat of the bull, the number of researchers, the richness of the research results, in the history of Chinese novels is unparalleled. The study of "Dream of the Red Chamber" has long formed a school of thought - "red science", and now has become a world of learning. This is the pride of Chinese people.

After "Dream of Red Mansions", due to the reasons of the times, the novel creation went to a low point, to the late Qing Dynasty, the novel only flourished again. Due to the extreme corruption of the Qing court, society is in a period of great change; novel theory is highly developed, many magazines and journals, printing business is also developed and thriving, is for the novel to provide a convenient conditions for the creation of the world. According to recent rough statistics, there were more than a thousand kinds of novels in the late Qing Dynasty. The "four great novelists" (Li Bo Yuan, Wu yiàn (foot enterprise also) people, Liu Osprey, Zeng Park), only Li Bo Yuan, Wu (the word can not be typed) people two created dozens of novels. The novels of the late Qing Dynasty had many new elements in both content and technique, reflecting the characteristics of the period of change. Mr. A Ying (Qian Xingtong) contributed the most to the study and arrangement of late Qing novels, and Mr. Wei Shaochang also did a lot of basic work. On the whole, compared with the research on the novels of the Ming Dynasty and the former Qing Dynasty, it seems to be very weak. The four major condemnatory novels can be summarized as follows: Li Boyuan's <>, Wu Ren's <>, Liu Osprey's <>, and Zeng Park's <>.

In summary, the history of the development of the ancient Chinese novel is: before the Song Dynasty, it was a single line of development of the short novels in the literary language; the Song and Yuan dynasties, the literary language, vernacular, long, short, multi-line development, presenting a multifarious and colorful state

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