What are the institutional characteristics of China's ancient novels?

The institutional form of the novel is created by combining the requirements of the public audience, and generally consists of six parts: title, the beginning of the article, introduction, the first reply, main statement and the end of the article.

China's ancient novels, after a long way, didn't really have novel elements until the Tang Dynasty.

1. Pre-Qin and Han Dynasties were the embryonic period of ancient novels. Myths, fables, historical biographies, unofficial history legends, religious stories, etc. This period gave birth to the artistic factors of the novel, prepared the conditions for the formation of the novel, and also revealed the clues that the novel formed two categories in its childhood.

Myths: such as Jingwei filling the sea, Goddess mending the sky, Kuafu day by day, etc. The fairy tale is simple and the characters have a certain personality, which is the artistic element of the novel in its embryonic stage.

Fable story is a short and satirical literary style, which is characterized by explaining an abstract truth through false stories. Pre-Qin fables that dared to interfere in life contributed to the formation of the realistic tradition of China's ancient novels, and their satirical art was directly inherited and used for reference by later novels. Later, the satirical art in satirical novels was positively influenced by fables. It is one of the earliest narrative literature, creating a precedent of consciously fictional stories, and its artistic experience in narrative, personification, figuration and exaggeration is absorbed by novelists.

Historical Records initiated China's biographical history, changed the tradition of narrating historical events in chronological or ethnic style, and interpreted history with people and their historical activities as the center. As far as the influence on the novel is concerned, in addition to the realistic creation method, it also lies in the tortuous and meticulous description of interesting story scenes, which vividly shows the identity and personality of the characters. The story is vivid, the characters are vivid and full of drama and novel meaning, which not only provides rich themes for later novels, but also directly provides artistic experience in writing stories and shaping characters for the formation of novel style.

China's ancient novels are closely related to religious superstitions and legends. It can be said that they formed an indissoluble bond, thus forming two categories of strange words and strange rules in ancient novels. The religious form in the pre-Qin period was mainly witchcraft.

2. Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties-childhood of ancient novels. At this time, there appeared "Zhi Ren" and "Zhi Guai" novels, collectively referred to as note novels. During this period, China's novels began to take shape, such as Liu Yiqing's Shi Shuo Xin Yu and Gan Bao's Search for Ji Shen. These novels are not mature enough in art, but only "rough": the characters can't write a complete image, and the stories written are mostly factual and lack artistic fiction. The author is just looking for strange stories, not consciously creating novels.

3. Tang Dynasty-the mature period of ancient novels. The legend of the Tang Dynasty appeared in the Tang Dynasty. The appearance of the Tang legend marks the maturity of China's classical novels. Compared with the works of childhood, the novels of the Tang Dynasty have made great progress: writing novels consciously, moving from ghosts and gods and anecdotes to real life, and making great creation and improvement in art. Famous tang legends are: Biography of Huo Xiaoyu, Biography of Yingying by Yuan Zhen, Biography of Liu Yi by Li, Biography of Li Wa by Bai Xingjian.

4. Song Dynasty-the generation of scripts. In the Song Dynasty, there appeared a vernacular novel-storybook, also known as "storybook novel". Since then, the history of novels with classical Chinese short stories as the mainstream has gradually changed into that with vernacular novels as the mainstream. At the same time, classical Chinese novels still exist, and so far, novels have always been the proper names of story styles. The appearance of the script is "a great change in the history of novels"; From classical Chinese to vernacular Chinese, it not only enhances the expressive force of the novel, but also expands the audience and improves the social function of the novel; The object of the work description changed from feudal scholars to civilians, and the ideological point of view and aesthetic taste of the work changed; It laid the foundation for vernacular short stories and novels. Representative works include Wrong Chop of Cui Ning and Three Kingdoms Pinghua.

5. Ming dynasty-vernacular novels flourished. In the Ming Dynasty, "parody of books" appeared. That is, novels created by Ming literati imitating the system and form of scripts. Such as "Jade Tang Chun Finding Husband Difficult" and "Du Shiniang's Wrath Box". The Ming Dynasty is an era of vigorous development of vernacular novels. Famous writers' works: The Story of Qingping Mountain Hall by Hong Kun, Three Characters by Feng Menglong (performed by Yu Shiming, performed by Yu Shiming) and Two Beats by Ling Mengchu (the first moment of surprise, the second moment of surprise).

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, "Zhang Hui Style Novels" appeared. It is characterized by sub-titles, often with one or two central events as an episode, each episode is roughly equal in length, and the plots are connected before and after. Spoken words such as "say something" and "listen to the next episode" are often used at the beginning and the end, interspersed with poems and rhymes, so suspense is set at the end to attract readers. During this period, China's ancient novels reached their peak and produced a large number of immortal masterpieces. In the early Ming Dynasty, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Luo Guanzhong) and The Water Margin (Shi Naian) came out one after another, which marked that the history of China's novels entered a new stage. Since then, China's novels have gone from short stories to short stories. The "Four Wonder Books" are outstanding among all kinds of novels: Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the first novel in the history of novels and a model of historical novels; The Water Margin is not only the first work describing peasant uprising, but also a model of heroic legend. The Journey to the West (Wu Cheng'en) is not only the first ghost novel of China, but also a model of ghost novels. Jin Ping Mei is not only the first novel about the world, but also the first novel written by a scholar alone.

6. Qing Dynasty-the climax of novel creation. The appearance of The Scholars (Wu) and A Dream of Red Mansions (Cao Xueqin) in Qing Dynasty pushed novel creation to a climax. At this time, the famous short story in classical Chinese was Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio.

After A Dream of Red Mansions, due to the reasons of the times, the novel creation was in a low state, and it didn't prosper until the late Qing Dynasty. There are more than 1000 kinds of novels in the late Qing Dynasty, among which Li Boyuan and Wu Woyao, the Adventures of Twenty Years, Liu E's Travel Notes of the Old Disabled, and Ceng Pu's Flowers of Evil Sea.

Author: How to repay evil with good?

Source: Zhihu.