Hesitating between elegance and popular culture: A study of narrative fiction in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty

Author: Song Ruoyun
Publisher:
Publishing Time: Not available
Features: This book primarily focuses on the collection of mock-narrative novels that emerged and were published during the period from the first year of the Tianqi reign (1621) to the sixtieth year of the Kangxi reign (1721), approximately one hundred years. Due to the late emergence and ambiguity of the term "mock-narrative," research on mock-narratives has faced many challenges. Based on literature, this book first discusses the definition of mock-narratives, aiming to objectively grasp several basic textual features through a diachronic description of mock-narratives. In the chapter, it provides a survey of the research status of mock-narratives over the past few centuries. The second chapter discusses the historical context in which mock-narrative novels rose to prominence, arguing that the rapid flourishing of mock-narratives in the late Ming Dynasty was not only due to literary context and material conditions (such as the development of paper, printing, and publishing) but also other factors. The third chapter delves into the evolution of mock-narratives under historical conditions, providing an overview of their basic structural features before dividing mock-narrative novels into three periods. It studies the evolution of volume titles, introductory passages, and concluding sections in each period, pointing out that mock-narratives have been in a state of gradual transformation since the formation of their structure, with highly flexible structural changes. The fourth chapter presents an analytical study of mock-narratives from a narratological perspective, focusing on the narrative subjects and narrative characteristics of mock-narratives. The fifth chapter attempts to introduce the concept of the "charismatic figure" from sociological theory to analyze the cultural significance of characters in mock-narratives. It analyzes the cluster of charismatic figures of ideal archetypes—primarily merchants and female characters—in mock-narratives, aiming to explain the characteristics, causes, and underlying cultural meanings of such ideal personalities. The sixth chapter analyzes the value subjects, value objects, and value mediators of mock-narratives, seeking to demonstrate that the alignment between the value orientation of mock-narrative criticism and the aesthetic tastes of readers should be a standard for popular literature. The concluding section notes that, as a literary genre situated between high literature (primarily poetry and prose, aimed at the educated elite) and mass popular literature (folk storytelling, aimed at illiterate or rural readers with limited literacy), mock-narratives possess unique cultural characteristics. Further research could potentially uncover more cultural connotations.