Ancient Chinese Fiction and the Culture of Alchemy

Author: Wan Qingchuan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: Ancient novelists were deeply influenced by esoteric culture, and some authors were even sorcerers. Chinese ancient novels involving esoteric content are countless. It had a profound impact on the creative ideology, character development, artistic structure, theoretical criticism, and more of ancient novels, becoming one of the important factors in forming the national characteristics of Chinese ancient novels. The theoretical knowledge involved in esoteric culture is extremely complex. The unity of heaven and man, the theory of yin and yang, and the symbolic and numerical thinking provided a framework for summarizing and integrating these concepts. It served as a cultural standard for sorcerers to elevate their techniques and as a theoretical and classic basis for entering mainstream social consciousness. This book explores the ideological connotations and artistic features of Chinese ancient novels from the perspective of esoteric culture. It focuses on discussing the evolution of the creative thinking and artistic techniques of novelists under the influence of esoteric culture, using several pioneering and representative masterpieces as entry points to study divination, astrology, and weather forecasting, among others. Finally, the author selects some representative esoteric stories from the novels and provides modern interpretations. This study broadens the research perspectives of ancient novels and enriches the research methods of Chinese ancient novels.