Urban Tragedy and Comedy

Author: Lu Xingji
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1996-07-01
Features: Vernacular popular novels were not recorded in official histories before the Ming Dynasty. They originated from storytelling, flourishing under conditions of urban prosperity, commercial development, and concentrated populations. They evolved from oral art and had little connection with the written creations of scholars. Storytellers narrated them orally, catering to the auditory senses of urban audiences, and adapted to their aesthetic tastes and comprehension levels. The earliest vernacular popular novels were records of these storytelling tales. Therefore, their cultural level and artistic style were vastly different from classical Chinese works. If it is often mentioned in the history of novels that Chinese novels suffered discrimination and had a low status, then vernacular popular novels were particularly so. Before modern society, many popular novels failed to preserve the real names of their authors.