The development history of Chinese novels

Category: Culture/Art>> Literature

Problem description:

Ask for some information about the development of novels in our country, including his representative works, such as "Four Times" Some related situations of "Masterpieces" and "Four Great Satirical Novels". It would be best if you could provide me with some website for extra points

Analysis:

Overview of the development of Chinese novels

Description of ancient China, late in poetry and prose, slightly Earlier than opera. In the long-term feudal society, novels have always been despised by feudal literati. We can seem to think that ancient Chinese novels developed and prospered under the discriminatory eyes of feudal orthodox literati who "were always humbled". This is also a kind of "rebellion".

When did ancient Chinese novels begin, and from what books? It seems that we cannot stick to one book at a time, because in terms of narrative writing techniques, novels do not require a high degree of integration of various literary arts like dramas, but they require more and higher requirements than poetry and prose, and they cannot be formed in one time. It cannot be marked in one book, it can only be summarized. We regard Preface to the Han Dynasty as the budding period of Chinese novels, but this is actually based on the fact that we do not believe that this long historical period has produced novels that meet the basic conditions of novel style. As far as the actual situation is concerned, the myths, fables, historical biographies, "unofficial history" legends, etc. of this period all gave birth to elements of the novel art and prepared the conditions for the formation of the novel style; at the same time, they also revealed the characteristics of Chinese novels in childhood. The clues of the two categories of people with ambition and strangeness have been formed. However, it is an undeniable fact that it is difficult to separate novels from historical biographies in early ancient China.

The period from the late Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty was the childhood period of Chinese novels, or the period when Chinese novels were initially formed. Mr. Lu Xun called novels before the Tang Dynasty "ancient novels" in order to distinguish them from novels written by people in the Tang Dynasty and novels written after the Tang Dynasty. Because Tang Dynasty novels are recognized as a sign of the complete maturity of Chinese classical Chinese short stories, while the "crude summary" novels of the Six Dynasties are obviously immature. It can be considered that "childhood novels" and "ancient novels" are similar. The novels of this period have a unique characteristic, which is that they emphasize the "reality" of things rather than the reality of art. Most of the works do not use "fantasy language". What the author writes is what the author believes actually exists, so the works generally have the nature of "traditional scenery". As far as fantasy novels are concerned, they are not like later authors who used non-human stories to reflect human affairs, but they firmly believe that "yin and yang have different paths, and humans and ghosts are all real." Fundamentally speaking, the author doesn't know how to write a novel, let alone "a novel on purpose". This novel with an archetypal state undoubtedly expresses the characteristics of childhood. The rise of the two major categories of childhood novels, the Zhiren novels represented by Liu Yiqing's "Shishuoxinyu" and the Zhiren novels represented by Qian Bao's "Shenji", are closely related to the civilized atmosphere and social habits of the times. It was also the development of tendencies nurtured in the embryonic period that laid the foundation for the subsequent development and divergence of classical Chinese short stories, and even had an impact on the creation of some full-length novels.

"Novel is like poetry, but it changed in the Tang Dynasty." From the perspective of the development history of Chinese novels, Tang novels are a qualitative leap. Among the novels of the Tang Dynasty, the book "Taiping Guangji" alone contains more than 40 single articles and more than 40 special collections, about a thousand articles, which are roughly divided into two categories: one is legends, and the other is fantasy. The reason for the prosperity of novels in the Tang Dynasty is not only the inheritance and development of childhood novel creation experience, but also directly related to the political prosperity, cultural development and the trend of "exiting" and "warm examinations" in the imperial examination at that time.

When novels developed into the Song Dynasty, fundamental changes took place. This was the emergence of scripts. From then on, the history of novels before the Song Dynasty, which was dominated by short stories in classical Chinese, gradually shifted from the Song Dynasty to the history of novels in vernacular Chinese. At the same time, short stories in classical Chinese developed along its trajectory. In this way, the history of Chinese novels has developed interactively from two threads, the classical Chinese and the Bai. They have their own characteristics, but also absorb and penetrate each other. They are diverse and beautiful. The novels of *** over and over again occupy an increasing weight in the history of Chinese literature. heavy, and his status is getting higher and higher.

As far as the development of classical Chinese short stories is concerned, by the Song Dynasty, classical Chinese short stories were generally divided into three types: the first was the legendary style, which was the remnant of the Tang Dynasty novels; the second was the notebook style short stories. , which is the evolution of novels about people in childhood; third, novels about people and monsters in childhood, which is the continuation of novels about people and monsters in childhood. The achievements of the legendary novels of the Song Dynasty are far less than those of the Tang Dynasty. "People in the Tang Dynasty mostly wrote about current affairs, while people in the Song Dynasty talked more about ancient affairs. Tang people's novels rarely taught lessons, while people in the Song Dynasty wrote more about lessons." "Perhaps in the Tang Dynasty, people spoke more freely, and even if they wrote about current affairs, they would not get into trouble; but in the Song Dynasty, there were many taboos, so literati tried to avoid them and talked about ancient things. In addition, Neo-Confucianism was very popular in the Song Dynasty, because novels were also more rational. "In short, the legends of the Song Dynasty are mostly about historical themes, and the overall achievements are not high, but there are also some works of scattered gold and jade, such as "Tan Yi Gewei" by Zou Chun, "Li Shishi's Biography" by Anonymous, etc. People in the Song Dynasty took a lot of notes, which was unprecedented. Many of them are stories or similar to novels. In the early Northern Song Dynasty, people mostly remembered the events of the Tang and Five Dynasties, such as Sun Guangkuan's Beimengsuoyan; after the middle period of the Northern Song Dynasty, they mostly recorded the events of the current dynasty, such as Sima Guang's "Sushui Chronicles"; while people in the Southern Song Dynasty mostly remembered the old years of the Northern Song Dynasty, such as Zhou Dynasty Hui's "Qingbo Magazine" and so on.

The fantasy novels of the Song Dynasty were "plain and lacking in literary talent", and their achievements were not as good as notes of historical trivial matters. However, there were also several influential works, such as Hong Mai's "Yi Jian Zhi" and Wu Shu's "Jianghuai Yiyi". "Wenlu" etc. Although the achievements of the Song Dynasty's classical Chinese short stories are not very high, they are numerous in number and variety and deserve a place in the history of novels. Ningren's greatest contribution to classical Chinese novels was the editing of the voluminous "Taiping Guangji", on which many classical Chinese short stories before the early Northern Song Dynasty have been preserved.

The classical Chinese short stories of the Jin and Yuan Dynasties did not exceed the level of the Song Dynasty in terms of quantity or quality. However, the development clues are not broken, and there are some more influential collections, such as Yuan Haowen's "Xu Yi Jian Zhi", Liu Qi's "Gui Qian Zhi", Tao Zongyi's "Nancun Stops Farming Record", etc.

Although the classical Chinese short stories of the Ming Dynasty cannot compete with the vernacular long and short stories of the same era, they occupy an important position in the history of the development of classical Chinese novels. Famous collections of legends, strange stories, and clear-cut novels include: Qu You's "Xinhua on Jian Deng", Li Zhen's "Remaining Stories on Jian Deng", "Looking for Deng Yin Hua" by Shao Jingzhan, and "Yu" edited by Zhang Chao. "Chu Xin Zhi", "He Dai Yu Lin" by He Liangjun, etc. There are many works of rich literary and emotional quality in these collections. In addition, some famous prose writers such as Song Lian, Liu Ji, and Ma Zhongxi also have famous works of Japanese novels.

During the more than 600 years from the beginning of the Song Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty, most classical Chinese short stories were written in the Jin and Tang Dynasties, but none of them surpassed the Tang Dynasty. Great changes occurred in the Qing Dynasty, when classical Chinese short stories flourished, producing "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" with world significance and influence, pushing the development of classical Chinese short stories to its highest peak. "Using the legendary method to create strange stories" (Lu Xun) summarizes the basic characteristics of the writing and content of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio". The fundamental difference between the "Zhiguai" in "Liao Zhai" and the "Zhiguai" in the Six Dynasties is: Pu Songling's "Zhiguai" does not believe in "weirdness", while the people in the Six Dynasties "Zhiguai" believe in "weirdness"; "Weird" is an unintentional promotion of "weird", while Pu Songling's "Zhiwei" is intentionally based on "weird". There is a saying in "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio": "It is impossible to continue the record of the netherworld by gathering armpits and writing in vain; it is only a book of loneliness and anger. It is quite sad to put it in this way!" As soon as "Liao Zhai" was published, the writing became famous. , although none of them can compete with them, they each have their own achievements. Those with more obvious influence include: Wang Shizhen's "Chibei Ou Tan", Yuan Mei's "Zi Buyu" (i.e. "Xin Qixie"), Shen Qifeng's "Xie Feng", Man Ren Bang'e's "Night Tan Sui Lu", Zeng Yandong's "Xiaodou Sheng" wait. Later, from the reign of Shizhi to Guangxu, there were Wang Tao's "Admonitions from the Dunku", "Songyin Manlu", "Songbin Suohua" and Xuanding's "Ye Yuqiu Lu", etc. Lu Xun commented on several later collections and said: "The style of writing and the style of "Liao Zhai" spread far and wide for a while, but the records have gradually become rarer, and the story of hundreds of fireworks is flourishing." There is also Cheng Zhixiang's "This" Chinese Language" and Jia Ming's "Nu Liaozhai", etc. This shows the influence of "Liao Zhai" and the grand occasion of his letter writing. After "Liao Zhai" became popular for more than a hundred years, Ji Yun's "Notes on Yuewei Thatched Cottage" came out one after another. Ji's criticism of "Liao Zhai" was quite critical, saying that it was "the pen of a talented scholar, not the author of the book". "Zi

(zhǐ地anni) has the details of the legends of the Tang Dynasty, but also has the shortcomings of the legends of the Six Dynasties." (Lu Xun's words) Lu Xun praised "Yuewei", saying that "he is thoughtful about wonderful things, and he is able to explain them in time; he also has insights from miscellaneous research and analysis. The narrative is graceful and elegant, and the sky is more and more abundant, so no one after him can take his seat." "However, "Yuewei" focuses on recording events to understand the truth. The storyline is not rich enough, the characters are not rich enough, and there are too many discussions. Therefore, it lacks the strong novel flavor of "Liao Zhai", and its academic value is higher than its literary value. After "Yuewei", believers also joined together. Qing people's notes were a grand space, and among the short stories in classical Chinese, note novels accounted for the largest proportion. However, most of the works in the notes are novels, but there are many works in the notes that meet the requirements of novels. It needs to be identified and sorted out by us.

Let’s talk about the formation, development and evolution of vernacular novels from the Song Dynasty. The emergence of the Song Dynasty's scripts has a revolutionary nature. Its positive intentions are at least as follows: ① From classical Chinese to vernacular, it not only enhances the expressive power of novels, but also expands the readership, thus improving the social function of novels. ②The object of the work's description has shifted from feudal scholars to civilians, especially citizens. Therefore, the ideological viewpoints and aesthetic taste of the work have changed accordingly. ③Laid the foundation of vernacular short stories and novels. The rise of pillow-talk novels is “actually a major change in the history of Chinese novels.” (Lu Xun language)

"Huaben" is originally the speaker's original text. To "speak" is to tell a story. As a skill, it originated in the Tang Dynasty and flourished in the Song Dynasty. Its origin is very long ago. Before the Tang Dynasty, "talking" activities were limited to scholars Daguang, and were mostly used for entertainment during the ruling period. In the Tang Dynasty, "speaking" as a skill had a tendency to develop into "citizen literature". Because of the classical Chinese novels and Bianwen of the Tang Dynasty, dialogue books have an influence regardless of content and form.

In the Song Dynasty, "speech" spread all over tiles, goulan, teahouses, wine shops, streets, palaces, temples, mansions and villages. In this way, a group of professional "speakers" emerged, as well as groups that wrote scripts and "speakers" guilds. "Speakers" have a professional division of labor called "Family Numbers"; among the "Family Numbers", the two families with the greatest influence are "Novel" and "History Telling", especially the "Novel" family. There is an evolution process from "talking" to story-telling novels.

In the early days, the scripts, as the "speaker's" manuscript, were not for people to read, but for masters and apprentices to teach and speak to others; the scripts were compiled not for literary purposes, but for professional needs. With the improvement of citizens' cultural demands and the development of printing industry, the scripts for "speakers" to use were gradually processed and polished, and printed and circulated for people to read. After the vernacular script was circulated publicly, the vernacular novel was born. Since then, this art and script have become separate in a certain sense.

During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, most of the storybooks were circulated in single pieces, mostly written by folk artists. They were circulated in the market with almost no signatures. As a result, the specific year of writing of many works is still unclear. Especially the Song and Yuan dynasties are more difficult to distinguish. So those who organize novels had no choice but to lump them together and call them "Song and Yuan scripts". There are still no precise statistics on how many "Song and Yuan scripts" there are. Contemporary scholars believe that there are 67 novels in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and most of them are from the Song Dynasty. "Tao Shi" [also known as "Pinghua" (or "Pinghua")] script. Most of them come from the Yuan Dynasty. According to the records in Volume 46 of the Yongle Dadian, there are ***26 chapters (unfortunately, many of them have been lost. Today, only "Compilation of Pinghua of the History of the Five Dynasties", "Five Kinds of Pinghua of Quanxiang", and "Xuanhe of the Song Dynasty") The scripts of "Relics" and "Lectures" are only approximate novels rather than novels, but they have a positive impact on the formation of Zhanghui novels.

The rise of "speaking" skills in the Song Dynasty was related to the abnormality of the urban economy at that time. Prosperity is closely related, which can be clearly illustrated from various notes such as "Tokyo Menghua Lu", "Capital Records", "West Lake Old Man Fansheng Lu", "Meng Liang Lu" and "Old Martial Arts".

The Ming Dynasty was an era when vernacular short stories flourished. As far as vernacular short stories are concerned, the Ming Dynasty made contributions in three aspects: first, they processed and polished the artistically flawed scripts of the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties. The second is to collect and organize a collection of vernacular novels, and the third is to create a large number of vernacular novels (short stories) in the Ming Dynasty. The most prosperous period for vernacular novels (short stories) was after Wanli, especially in the south, where the urban economy developed and the urban class formed an increasingly liberal life for literati. Therefore, the vernacular short stories with the main content reflecting the lives of citizens are increasingly vigorously developed. The most representative collections are "Qing Ping Shan Tang Hua Ben" by Hong Biān (Mu Ming) and "Three Words" by Feng Meng. ” ("The Ming Yan of Yu Shi", "The Tong Yan of Awakening the World", "The Heng Yan of Awakening the World") and Ling Mengchu's "Er Pai" ("Surprise at the First Moment", "Surprise at the Second Moment").

< p> "Qing Ping Shan Tang Hua Ben" was originally divided into six volumes and contains 60 novels. Only 27 of them are left in the book. Works. "Three Words" contains all the vernacular novels, some of which were edited by Feng Menglong, and some of which were written by him. Most of the works in "Erpai" were written by Ling Mengchu in the Ming Dynasty. This book. Feng Menglong is an "all-round" popular writer who also has outstanding insights into the theory of popular novels. His "Three Words" has a wide range of themes, many excellent works, covering all aspects of social life at that time, and he has made many artistic creations. . From this, we can see the outstanding achievements of the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties. "Erpai" is the earliest collection of huahua at the same time as "Sanyan". It contains 80 works. Ling Mengchu's thoughts are far less advanced than Feng Menglong, and the book is dregs. It is much more serious than "Three Words", but in terms of art, "Lyric description of the scene is as clear as the eyes and ears" (Sun Kaidi's words)

Please start from "Three Words" and "Two Words". "Pai" selected forty works, named "Wonderful Views of Modern and Ancient Times". When "San Yan" and "Er Pai" were once lost, we can rely on this book to understand the basic situation of the vernacular novels in the Ming Dynasty. This selection is in It had a broad and profound influence on the masses.

In the late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty, under the influence of "Sanyan" and "Erpai", there was a boom in the creation of imitative scripts, with a collection of forty. Although their ideas and artistry are not as good as those of "San Yan" and "Er Pai", they are still the same, and there are still some works worth reading, such as "Stone Nod" by "Natural Zhisou" published during the Chongzhen period. "The Twelfth Floor" by Li Yu in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, "Zhao Shi Cup" by "Master Yuan Heng", "West Lake Two Episodes" by Zhou Qingyuan, "Drunken Awakening Stone" by "Donglu Gu Kuangsheng", etc.

After the Qianjia period of the Qing Dynasty, the trend of textual criticism prevailed, and scholar-bureaucrats were not keen on novels. It was not until the late Qing Dynasty that this phenomenon changed, and novels developed vigorously.

In the early Ming Dynasty, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin" were published one after another, marking that the history of Chinese novels has entered a new stage of historical development. Since then, the history of Chinese novels has shifted from short stories to a new period of novels. Although short stories in classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese have been developing and advancing according to their own laws, and sometimes they are good and sometimes bad, but generally speaking, their achievements and scale cannot be compared with that of full-length novels. The "Four Great Books" dominate their respective genres: "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is both the first novel in history and a model of historical fiction; "Water Margin" is not only the first masterpiece to comprehensively describe the peasant uprising, but also a model of historical fiction. A model of heroic legend; "Journey to the West" is not only the first full-length novel about gods and demons, but also a model of a novel about gods and demons; "The Plum in the Golden Ping" is both the first full-length novel about worldly affairs and the first one created solely by a literati. successful novel. Each of them created a field of novel creation.

The great achievements of the "Four Great Books" have profoundly affected the creation of full-length novels, and even formed several series of full-length novels: "Three Kingdoms" series, "Water Margin" series, "Journey to the West" series, "Jin Ping Mei" series, and so on. It affects the entire society, affects cultural thought, and affects people's spiritual life. This huge and subtle power is difficult to estimate.

During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, two masterpieces, "The Scholars" and "A Dream of Red Mansions", were published. Two generations ago, although there were many satirical works in the history of Chinese novels, none of them could be called satirical novels. This is why Lu Xun praised "The Scholars" so much: ""The Scholars" was published with an open mind, pointed out the current ills, and pointed out the current trends, especially in the scholarly community; its writing was concise, humorous, and tactful. There are many satires; so it is said that there are only books that can be called satires in this department." (Part 23 of "A Brief History of Chinese Novels") "The Scholars" opened up another path besides the "Four Great Books". . It not only directly influenced the creation of condemnation novels in the late Qing Dynasty, but also influenced Lu Xun's later essays. As for the achievements and influence of "Dream of Red Mansions", there is no need to say more. Regardless of its ideological and artistic quality, it is the pinnacle of the history of Chinese novels and literature, and is also a masterpiece in world literature. Its great achievements can be regarded as a glorious summary of the realist creative art of ancient Chinese novels. If "Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin" and "Journey to the West" have great influence among the people, the influence of "The Scholars" and "Red Mansion" is among the scholar-bureaucrats. In particular, the reading and speaking of "A Dream of Red Mansions" has long become a habit and fashion among the scholar-bureaucrats: "Don't talk about "A Dream of Red Mansions" when talking, and you can understand each other even if you read all the poems and books." This shows that among the intellectuals in the Qing Dynasty, Not only is there a "Dream of Red Mansions" craze, but also whether one is familiar with "Dream of Red Mansions" is regarded as a criterion for measuring a person's level of knowledge. There were reviews for "A Dream of Red Mansions" even before the Western Dynasty. Over the past 200 years, there have been countless reviewers and numerous sequels. The number of researchers and the wealth of research results are unique in the history of Chinese novels. The study of "Dream of Red Mansions" has long formed a school of thought - "Redology", and now it has become a world-wide knowledge. This is the pride of Chinese people.

After "A Dream of Red Mansions", novel creation went into a trough due to the times. It was not until the late Qing Dynasty that novels flourished again. Due to the extreme corruption of the Qing court, society was in a period of great change; novel theory was highly developed, many magazines were launched, and the printing industry was also developed and prosperous, which provided convenient conditions for the creation of novels. According to recent rough statistics, there should be more than a thousand kinds of novels in the late Qing Dynasty. Among the "Four Great Novelists" (Li Boyuan, Wu Yiàn, Liu E, and Zeng Pu), Li Boyuan and Wu (can't type this word) alone have created dozens of novels. The novels of the late Qing Dynasty contain many new factors, both in content and technique, reflecting the characteristics of the period of change. Mr. A Ying (Qian Xingdun) made the greatest contribution to the research and arrangement of late Qing novels, and Mr. Wei Shaochang also did a lot of basic work. Generally speaking, compared with the research on novels of the Ming Dynasty and the pre-Qing Dynasty, it seems to be very weak. What can be recorded are the "four major condemnation novels": Li Boyuan's "The Appearance of Officialdom", Wu Ren's "The Strange Current Situation Witnessed in Twenty Years", Liu E's "The Travels of Lao Can", and Zeng Pu's "Nie Haihua".

To sum up, the history of the development of ancient Chinese novels is generally as follows: before the Song Dynasty, there was a single line of development of classical Chinese short novels; in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, classical Chinese, vernacular, novels, short stories, and multi-line development were presented. A colorful state of affairs.