The development of novels
1. The pre-Qin and Han Dynasties sprouted: myths and legends, fables and historical literature.
2. The embryonic form of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties: strange and ambitious, a true record.
Gan Bao's Search for the Gods is the representative of the novel of mystery, which "invents Shinto without sorcery"; Liu Yiqing's Shi Shuo Xin Yu is a representative novel of local people, which mainly records the anecdotes of celebrities from the late Han Dynasty to the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
all lack conscious consciousness of novel creation.
Short, concise, with a certain story, pay attention to the description of characters' words and deeds.
It laid an important foundation for the development of later novels, but they are not mature novels, just rudiments of rough novels, and they are the transition from "small stories" to mature novels.
3. Maturity of the Tang Dynasty: anecdote novels, strange stories and legendary novels.
1) The important sign of the maturity of classical novels in the Tang Dynasty is that the author has a conscious sense of novel creation and the new aesthetic characteristics of the novel determined by it.
Hu Yinglin's "Poems in Shaoshi Mountain Rooms" Volume 36: "The talk of variation flourished in the Six Dynasties, but most of them were false and untrue, not necessarily imaginary; To the Tang people, they are curious and fake novels to send their pens. " Lu Xun's "A Brief History of Chinese Novels" also talks about the Tang people's "intention to be novels at first".
2) An important difference between tang legends and the supernatural beings in the Six Dynasties is that their reality is greatly enhanced, they describe social personnel, pay attention to real life, and move from supernatural beings to reality.
Broadly speaking, the theme is expanded in the following aspects: a. Love and marriage: Yuan Zhen's Biography of Yingying, Bai Xingjian's Biography of Li Wa, Li Chaowei's Biography of Liu Yi, Jiang Fang's Biography of Huo Xiaoyu, and Chen Xuanyou's Farewell; B. Chivalrous heroes: Biography of the Campus Guest by Du Guangting, Biography of the Red Line by Yuan Jiao, Biography of Kunlun Slave by Pei Yi, Nie Yinniang, etc. C. Historical theme: Chen Hong's Biography of Eternal Sorrow; D. Dream theme: Shen Jiji's A Story in the Pillow, Li Gongzuo's Biography of Nanke Taishou, etc., actually reflect real life in the form of dreams.
3) tang legends's artistic achievements are far higher than those of the novels of the Six Dynasties.
A, the story is complete, tortuous and vivid; B, the description of the characters, in various ways to express the character.
C, in terms of language, the words are gorgeous and very literary.
the dialogue between characters is vivid and vivid.
4. The development of Song and Yuan Dynasties: storytelling novels.
1) The vernacular novel comes from the folk art of "speaking" and belongs to the popular vernacular novel. It sprouted in the Tang Dynasty and flourished in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Since then, the development of China's classical novels has emerged in two ways: classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese.
2) The emergence of "speaking" art is directly related to the development of urban economy, the growth of citizen class and the demand for culture and entertainment.
Then the art of "speaking" appeared.
At that time, "talking" was divided into four schools: A, novels (silver characters), especially short stories, with many realistic stories.
B, talking about classics, which is divided into "talking about participation" (talking about things such as the guest and the host's meditation and enlightenment) and "talking about muddy classics" (mostly containing funny and humorous content).
C, telling history, refers to telling long historical stories, mainly talking, talking and commenting, also known as Pinghua.
D, the combination of students, is a special form, which is probably a performance by two people, and there is no story, which may have little to do with the development of the novel.
among the four schools, "novel" and "telling history" are closely related to the development of novels.
3) Features of vernacular novels:
A, the purpose of novel creation is very different.
It is entirely to meet the audience's cultural and entertainment needs, and this purpose determines its theme content, formal system, expression techniques and artistic style.
These characteristics are often determined by the social status, life experience and aesthetic taste of the audience, and at the same time, they in turn affect the people's thoughts and aesthetic taste. In the long-term development, the artistic tradition of popular novels with China national characteristics has been formed.
B, the story books of short stories almost all reflect real life in subject matter, so the characters in them have changed from ambitious people, legendary bureaucrats and intellectuals to mainly urban people (including craftsmen, businessmen, * * *, etc.), and the thoughts and feelings expressed are mainly citizens.
C, the language expressed is the vernacular which is processed and refined on the basis of spoken language, and popularity is its most distinctive feature.
D, strong story, beginning and end, clear clues, vivid twists and turns, good at arranging suspense, very fascinating.
E, pay attention to writing people, especially pay attention to showing the fate of characters.
When expressing the characters' thoughts, feelings and personality characteristics, they are mostly described from their own language and actions, and they are mostly completed in the process of the story's flowing development, and there are few static analytical psychological descriptions.
G, in terms of structure and expression, "ru Hua" is often used at the beginning, and poetry rhymes are often interspersed or introduced at the middle or end.
in a word, China's classical novels entered a new historical stage with the story of Song and Yuan Dynasties, which laid a solid foundation for the prosperity of novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties.
4) The theme and representative works of this novel:
The theme of this novel can be divided into eight categories: ghosts, cigarettes, legends, legal cases, ju, poles, immortals, witchcraft, etc. Among them, legends tell love stories, ghosts, immortals and witchcraft tell stories of ghosts and gods, and legal cases tell stories of judging cases, ju and poles.
More important are love stories, case-solving stories and heroic stories.
The works describing love include Crushing Jade Goddess of Mercy, Li Cuilian's Tale of Quick Mouth, Fan Lou's Affectionate Zhou Shengxian, Director Zhang Zhicheng, etc. The works that show the verdict include Wrong Chop of Cui Ning, Simple Post of Monk, etc., and the works that write heroic stories include Song Sigong's Big Set of Forbidden Soul Zhang, etc.
most of the scripts in the Song and Yuan Dynasties are lost.
There were some collections in the Ming Dynasty, such as Qing Ping Shan Tang Hua Ben by Hong Gang, Four Kinds of Popular Novels by Xiong Longfeng, and Sanyan by Feng Menglong (also included in Ming Dynasty works).
There are five kinds of historical stories in existence: Quanxiangpinghua published in Yuan Dynasty (Pinghua of King Wu, Pinghua of Seven Kingdoms in Spring and Autumn, Pinghua of Qin and Six Kingdoms, Pinghua of Pre-Han Dynasty, Pinghua of Three Kingdoms), New Pinghua of History of Five Dynasties, and Xuanhe Legacy of Da Song, etc. Generally speaking, the historical stories are relatively.
5. Prosperity in Ming and Qing Dynasties:
1) There are three signs of prosperity: a. Various forms and systems of classical novels have been complete and mature, and there has been an all-round prosperity.
the strange and legendary styles in the colloquial books, imitative books, vernacular novels and classical Chinese novels.
B. There are many writers, and their masterpieces are like forests.
Four Wonder Books in Ming Dynasty, Scholars in Qing Dynasty, A Dream of Red Mansions and Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio, etc.
C, realistic art, in terms of creative methods and specific expression techniques, has matured, with the overall characteristics of richness, delicacy and profundity.
2) The development of novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties has four noteworthy tendencies and characteristics: a, from the collective creation of the unknown masses and literati writers to the independent creation of literati writers.
B, in terms of subject matter content, it has changed from writing historical subjects to writing realistic subjects, especially to describing daily family life in detail, and through the description of ordinary and ordinary life phenomena, it reflects the emergence of a major social theme, Jin Ping Mei.
C, in artistic expression, from emphasizing plot to emphasizing characterization; In the description of characters, it is mainly the legendary exaggerated description with ideal color that develops into realism, that is, the characters and life are expressed through real and rich details.
Characters and life situations are closer to reality.
D, novels are divided from the subject matter and content, resulting in several most distinctive novel types: historical romance novels, heroic legends novels, ghost novels, human feelings novels, satirical novels, case-solving chivalrous novels and so on.
E, two summative works appeared: A Dream of Red Mansions is the summary of ancient novels and Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio is the summary of classical short stories.
6. Modern transformation: the transition and transformation from ancient times to modern times from 184 to 1919.
1) Features of modern novels: A, large number.
B. Novels are closely combined with real political struggles, and the mainstream is anti-imperialism and feudalism.
"Four Denunciation Novels".
C, it is made to meet the needs of political struggle, so it is not refined enough in art and is relatively rough.
D. Influenced by western novels, it has produced new features in novel form and narrative mode, while retaining the traditional novel form of chapter and chapter.
2) The main reasons for the above characteristics of modern novels are: a, changes in society and times.
The invasion of the empire and the corruption and incompetence of * * * have aroused the concern of the literati about the fate of the country and the nation, so they expose and attack social politics through novels.
B, the rise of new novel theory has greatly improved the understanding of the social role of novels.
Liang Qichao's On the Relationship between Novels and Group Governance.
C, with the emergence and development of capitalist economic factors, the development of printing industry, and the publication of a large number of newspapers and magazines provide objective conditions for the creation and publication of novels.
D. A large number of translated novels will inevitably have a great impact on novel creation.
3) The most influential novel in modern times is the "condemnation novel", and its representative works include Li Boyuan's The Appearance of Officialdom, Wu Woyao's Current Situation of Strange Things Seen in Twenty Years, Liu E's Travels of Lao Can and Ceng Pu's Flowers of Evil Sea.
In addition, there are chivalrous case-solving novels Wenkang's Biography of Heroes of Children and Shi Yukun's Three Heroes and Five Righteousnesses.
and narrow and evil novels that advocate a better life: Chen Sen's Treasure Mirror of Flowers, Wei Zian's Flower Moon Scar, Han Bangqing's Biography of Flowers on the Sea
Revolutionary novels: Chen Tianhua's Roar of the Lion, Huang Xiaopei's Romance of Hong Xiuquan, etc.