The Historical Evolution of China's Ancient Novels

Milestones and Laws in the Development of China's Ancient Novels

The first part expounds the development of China's ancient novels; The second part expounds the development law of China's ancient novels. The first part is discussed vertically, and the second part is discussed horizontally. The full text is intertwined and complementary, fully expounding the development and laws of China's ancient novels.

The first part talks about the development process, and the author writes it in several stages. 1. Origin: myths and legends. 2. Development: Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. In the above two stages, novel and history belong to the same category. 3. Maturity: Tang Legend. Break away from history and become an independent literary creation. 4. Continue to develop: story novels and romance novels in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. 5. Peak: Ming and Qing literati created independently, writing about ordinary people and ordinary things.

The author expounds the development of China's ancient novels and grasps two keys. The first is the relationship between literature and history. Xiao Tong's definition of literature says that "everything comes from meditation and meaning comes from profundity", which means that literary works must be imaginary and fictional, and literary talent should be emphasized. Myths and legends and people's aspirations are recorded through field trips and folk collections, so they belong to the same category as history. Legends of the Tang Dynasty, full of imagination and literariness, left history and developed into literary creation. The second key is the relationship between literati's processing of folk customs and independent creation. Novels in Song and Yuan Dynasties and romance novels are all recreated by literati using folklore, and they are all about extraordinary characters and heroes. Novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties developed into independent creations of literati, which described the daily life of ordinary people. Grasping the above two keys, the development process of China's ancient novels can be easily clarified.

The second part talks about the law of development, and the author lists four. These four articles are closely related to the first part. For example, the first article, "China's novels come from the people and reflect their thoughts, wishes and real life. Every development and progress of China's novels is the result of excellent literati writers learning from the folk, participating in and processing folk creation. " . This can be proved by several stages of the development of China's ancient novels. Another example is the second article "The Influence of Historical Biography Literature on China's Classical Novels". This can be seen more clearly from the development stage of China's ancient novels. In the article, the author only talked about "views and descriptions of people", and also talked about several points in another article (refer to "related materials").

Second, the main points of learning

1. Understand the text.

First, connect the contents of the development process of the first part in chronological order. In the middle, the development process can be divided into five stages and two keys. Knowing this, you can understand the first part. Secondly, combine the content of the second part about the law of development with the content of the first part. For example, the second law, because ancient novels were born out of historical biography literature, inevitably inherited the tradition of historical biography literature, which is first manifested in the view and description of people. On the contrary, if you understand the second part, you can understand the first part more deeply. For example, it is not difficult to understand that the emergence of vernacular novels and romance novels in the process of novel development is not accidental.

2. Give examples to illustrate the law.

In the text, the author gives many examples to illustrate this rule. Therefore, it is not difficult for students to get inspiration from the text and imitate familiar examples to further illustrate the rules of the text. For example, the author has used Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin to illustrate the third law, but it is too simple. Students may wish to explain it in detail. Even some students are familiar with the examples, but the author didn't mention them. Please explain some laws mentioned in the article. This is an extension of learning the text, which is also helpful for further understanding the text.

● Problem solving guidance

1. Fill in the table below according to the text.

This topic aims to guide students to master the basic content of the text.

dynasty

stage of development

Genre characteristics

law

Before Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties

origin

Myths and legends

1. China's ancient novels originated from the folk, and every development of ancient novels was the participation of literati writers and the processing of folk creation. 2. Historical biography literature has a great influence on China's ancient novels. The creation of ancient novels is based on reality. Due to the oppression and destruction of feudal culture, the development of ancient novels is extremely difficult.

Wei, Jin, southern and northern dynasties

develop

A strange and ambitious person

the Tang Dynasty

mature

Tang legend

Song and Yuan Dynasties

continue to develop

Storytelling Characters (Folk Literature in Song and Yuan Dynasties)

Ming and Qing dynasties

pinnacle