Give priority to performance facts.
Wang Guowei said: "Although the farce of the Song Dynasty satirizes current events by stories, it is not based on facts, but on the meaning it contains. When it became a drama that played the facts, the novel at that time was really powerful. " Ancient novels have different meanings from our current novels. The word "novel" first appeared in Zhuangzi Foreign Things. "Decorating a novel is far from what a county magistrate can do." Zhuangzi's so-called "novel" is obviously completely different from our present novel concept, but refers to trivial remarks. It was not until the Eastern Han Dynasty that the novel had a modern meaning. Huan Tan's "New Theory" said: "Novelists are short and metaphorical, making simple books, managing their bodies and families, and have considerable words." Han Shu Literary Annals by Ban Gu defines "novelist" as "a stream of novelists created by bureaucrats, gossip and hearsay".
Has nothing to do with history
Wang Guowei believes that "the novels in Song Dynasty focus on narration, but on speech". It is recorded in Old Wulin that among all kinds of geisha artists, there are storytellers, storytellers, storytellers and novelists. There are many records about the Three Kingdoms in the books of the Song Dynasty.
Gao Cheng's "The Origin of Things" (Volume 9): "In Renzong's time, there were people in the city who could talk about the Three Kingdoms, or adopted their theories and decorated them with shadow people." Dongpo Zhi Lin (Volume 6): "Wang Peng once said:' The children of Tuxiang are poor and inferior, and they are hated by their families. They need money to be together. When they hear the old saying, they will say three States. " "
Wang Guowei classified this kind of content as evolutionary history and thought that novels should be "people who have nothing to do with history". "Dream of Liang Lu" said: "There are silver-haired figures in the novel, such as smoke powder, ghosts, legends, case-solving, giants, sticks, hair, fingers and so on." The style of these speeches is basically consistent with the history of performing arts, and they are mainly narrative, which is very different from the works adapted from historical stories. At that time, Wang Guowei, the representative of the novel, created the legacy of Xuanhe in the Great Song Dynasty. Xuanhe is the last title of Song Huizong. This book begins with listing the decadent countries of emperors and ends with Lin 'an, the capital of Du Nan, Song Gaozong. The book is interspersed with the story that the treacherous court official in the Northern Song Dynasty controlled the state affairs, which led to the loss of life. On the other hand, it also wrote the hero Liangshan Juyi as a comparison. This book later became the blueprint of Water Margin.
The development of novel and drama is basically parallel, and many drama themes in later generations are derived from novels, and the drama structure is mostly based on imitation novels. Therefore, we can draw a conclusion that the prosperity of novels has greatly promoted the development of drama.
The Development and Dissemination of Novels
Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio and legendary novels are mostly classified as miscellaneous histories and biographies around the Tang Dynasty. Although these works emphasize the role of making up history and admonishing punishment, this art form is still not elegant for people at that time. "Novel" was regarded as a "trail" in ancient times, and its literary value has not been affirmed in theory.
Since the Song Dynasty, novels have gradually formed two different systems, classical Chinese novels and vernacular novels, showing their different artistic characteristics. China's classical novels originated from the pre-Qin gossip and experienced a long-term development from Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to Sui and Tang Dynasties. China's classical novels have made great progress in both theme and expression, forming two novel types: notes and legends. Vernacular novels, on the other hand, were born out of the scripts of the Tang and Song Dynasties, and the stories were based on folk materials, mainly expressing people's lives and thoughts.
Novels have existed since ancient times. Why did they suddenly develop in the Song Dynasty? Before the advent of printing technology, novels and books were spread by copying, so it was impossible to copy them in large quantities. After the Song Dynasty, with the rapid development of commerce, commercial intervention and the progress and wide application of printing, written communication is no longer limited to borrowing and copying in the past. Loose cultural and educational policies have brought opportunities for the development of the entertainment industry, and the increase of entertainment venues has made oral communication more convenient.
The traditional operas in Song Dynasty developed from the three kinds of music in Zhou and Qin Dynasties, and came down in one continuous line with the Han and Wei Dynasties, with a wide variety. In the capital of the Song Dynasty, many artists showed their magical powers, and hundreds of them only served the imperial court, and all kinds of performances were colorful. The government is lax in its management of artists. When there is a performance task, artists get together. When there is no performance, everyone is scattered everywhere. Although these folk acrobats are still under the jurisdiction of the left and right armies, they have great freedom. They can also make money outside to make up for their lack of livelihood, so naturally they should be close to the aesthetics of ordinary people.
Liu Fu's Qing Suo Gao Yi is the earliest and longest anthology of novels in the Northern Song Dynasty, while most of Liu Fu's anthologies are not simple plagiarism, but revisions, additions and deletions of predecessors' works. There is an obvious vulgar tendency in the selection of content, paying great attention to men's and women's affairs and wealth, and using a lot of spoken words. Therefore, Qing Suo Gao Yi attracted the criticism of some orthodox scholars, but also attracted the attention and welcome of more ordinary readers. According to Hong Mai's "Three Knows of Jane Yi", Volume II, "Unhuman Reality", it is recorded: "A newcomer knows a little about books, although he is a swallow. I like to read books such as Ghosts, Seeking the Noble Righteousness and Wonders. " Because Qingsuo Gaoyi was more popular, it was used as a blueprint by some speakers and performed in restaurants, teahouses, washe Goulan and other places.
Some popular novels, such as Qing Suo Gao Yi, provide a lot of materials for the creation of scripts, and also inspire storytellers in form, becoming models for storytellers to imitate and learn from. With the prosperity of discourse in Song and Yuan Dynasties and the maturity of other forms of expression, the anthology of novels has played an important role.