Research on Ming Dynasty Strange Tales and Legendary Fiction

Author: Chen Guojun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Driven by the concept of a periodized and segmented novel history, this book uses the novel text as the longitude and the historical facts of novel development as the latitude. It not only describes the historical system of novel trends, schools, and literary styles but also examines the inner world of novelists through the text, aiming to combine macroscopic grasp with microscopic investigation, and overall elaboration with individual exploration. Within a relatively stable system, its the individual novel Guangxi and the style of novelists as individuals. Starting from crucial categories in the development of Ming Dynasty ghost stories and legendary novels such as "poetry and prose fiction," "middle-length legendary novels," "using the method of legendary tales to record strange events," and "novel critiques," the book explores the rise and fall, transformation, and evolution of novel creation or phenomena under different historical contexts. It delves as deeply as possible into the cultural factors behind schools or phenomena, uncovering the cultural elements of novel development. At the same time, the history of novels or some regular elements of novel development is often closely related to typical writers, texts, and eras. The history of novels is not just a combination of writers and works in chronological order, but history cannot exist without people and events. Without writers and works, how could there be a history of novels? Therefore, this book places some important writers and works, such as Qu Ges's New Tales of the Scissors Lamp, Chang Qi's Remnants of the Scissors Lamp, and Zhao Bi's Collecting the Imitation, in specific historical atmospheres and conducts thorough aesthetic and historical analyses of them. It explores the contributions, experiences, and lessons of the writers and works, as well as how they formed their own artistic personalities, school status, and influence on later generations. This aims to achieve the goal of combining the longitude of the text with the latitude of historical facts, integrating macroscopic grasp with microscopic investigation.