A Passage to China (走近中国) - Fiction

After long years of development, Chinese fiction began to take shape during the period of the Wei, Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties. Fiction created during this period fell into two categories: supernatural fiction and anecdotal fiction.

During the periods of Wei and Jin, religious and superstitious thought prevailed in society, leading to the emergence of stories about spirits. A large number of works about strange and mysterious events were written at the time. The extent supernatural fiction includes more than 30 works, of which Records of Spirits by Gan Bao represents the highest achievement of the genre at that time.

Most of the earlier supernatural fiction consisted only sketchy outlines. The purpose of writing supernatural fiction was to argue for the certain existence of heaven and hell. Some fiction of this period had already taken on the shape of short stories, for example, “The Sword-Maker” in Records of Spirits told a thrilling story in short length.

During the period of Wei, Jin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, social commentary became common, leading to the rise of anecdotal fiction, literary works telling interesting stories about people. New Anecdotes of Social Talk compiled by Liu Yiqing belonged to this category and was well preserved. It epitomized the achievements that anecdotal fiction made in its early stages.

New Anecdotal Talk devoted most of its pages to describing the “unconventional” ways of scholars at the time. Some stories in the book recorded the Sima family’s despotism and other rich and powerful families’ decadent indulgences in the Jin period. Other stories eulogized charitable persons and their beneficence. The novel was very successful. Its artistic achievements could be summarized as skillful portrayal of characters’ personalities through distinctive details, flawless blending of dialogue with storytelling, and concise and subtle language. New Anecdotes of Social Talk became the rudimentary text for Chinese literature. Many stories in the book were used as source material by later writers.

Chinese fiction went through marked transformations in the Tang Dynasty. Although the subject matter was still about spirits and social anecdotes, compared with fiction created in the periods of the Wei, Jin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the plots became more intricate and complex, the characters more distinctive, the language more ornate, and the structure more expanded. Fiction of the Tang Dynasty was called prose romances. The emergence of prose romances the in Tang Dynasty was called prose romances. The emergence of prose romances the in Tang Dynasty marked the maturity of the Chinese short story, because they went beyond works by scholars. Prose romances of the Tang Dynasty fell into three categories:

1. Supernatural Stories that drew their subject matter from literary sketches. Famous works include The Story of the Pillow by Shen Jiji, and The Governor of the Southern Tributary State by Li Gongzuo. The two stories ridicules feudal scholars obsessed with fame and riches.
   
2. Love Stories that were the most valuable of the prose romances of the Tang Dynasty. Famous works include The Story of a Singsong Girl, The Story of Yingying, Prince Huo’s Daughter, Ren, the Fox Fairy, and The Story of Liu Yi. These stories praised faithful love and criticized the oppression of women by feudal ethics and customs. As well, they successfully portrayed a series of women characters that fought bravely for happy marriage.
   
   The Story of a Singsong Girl describes the love between the prostitute Li Wa and Gongzi Zhi, a nobleman from Xingyang. By giving the story a happy ending, the novel condemned the idea of two families must match in social status and expressed appreciation for true love between men and women. The plot of the novel was complex and the characters well rounded in their portrayal.
   
   The Story of Liu Yi tells of a romance between LiuYi, a failed scholar, and Dragon Girl of Dongting Lake. Liu Yi helps Dragon Girl out of an unhappy marriage, and after a series of complications, the two ends up getting married. Wonderful characterizations are the most successful part of this novel. Liu Yi’s honesty, Dragon Girl’s deep feelings and the explosive character of Qiantangjun are vividly depicted. The novel’s adept way of contrasting reality with illusion exerted great influence on literature in later periods.
   
3. Heroic Fiction that describes the courageous deeds of swordsmen in punishing villains. The representative works include The Red Thread Maid and The Story o Xie Xiao’e.
   
   Prose romance of the Tang Dynasty surpassed the fiction created by predecessors not only in its subject matter and ideas but also in artistic achievement. Many prose romances described a period or the whole life experience of a character in order to reveal his or her personality and development of though. The prose romance of the Tang Dynasty was the beginning of the Chinese-style novel. Though relatively short in length, it began to taken on the profile of a full-length novel.
   
   Storytelling scripts, which first appeared during the Song and Yuan Dynasties, brought the Chinese novel to a new stage. Storytelling was a kind of folk art during the Song Dynasty. It had four forms: small talk (xiaoshuo, i.e. what novels and short stories are now called), history-telling (tales from history), scripture-telling (tales from Buddhist scriptures), and he sheng or shuo hunhua (impromptu verse).

History-telling was the most influential form of storytelling, and mainly were myths, and love and heroic stories, which reflected the lives of common people, especially women’s resistance to feudal morality. Fictions on legal cases are represented by Killing Cui Ning by Mistake and Song Sigong Makes Troubles with Councilor Zhang. The two works disclosed the disclosed the dark inside of feudal government while praising people’s fighting spirit.

Storytelling scripts of the Song and Yuan Dynasties were further developed compared with previous works. First, in order to attract audiences, storytellers introduced much use of suspense in the story’s plot and structure. Second, storytellers began to depict characters with typical details. For example, character’s mental activity, dialogue and behavior would be in accord with the specific situation. And the dialogue in scripts became more dramatic and better revealed a character’s personality.

Vernacular and lively language began to be used extensively in literary works starting from story telling scripts of the Song Yuan Dynasties, bringing the development of Chinese literary language to a new stage. The realistic techniques compared with earlier fiction.

In the Ming Dynasty, with developments in politics, society, economy and philosophy as well as the growth of printing, fiction was further developed on the foundation of its past achievements. A wealth of short stories and novels thus emerged.

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, a batch of full-length zhanghui (chaptered) novels (a type of traditional Chinese novel with each chapter headed by a couple giving the gist of its contents) were created based on history-telling from the Song and Yuan Dynasties, as represented by The Romance of the Tree Kingdoms, The Romance of the Five Dynasties, Sorcerer’s Revolt and Its Suppression, and Outlaws of the Marsh.

The zhanghui novel was the only full-length form of Chinese classical fiction. Although its characters and plots were derived from history, it did not restrict itself to historical facts. It was longer in length than most history books and covered more in its contents, which was divided into different volumes, with each volume again divided into different chapters with introductory couples. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms was the earliest zhanghui novel. From then on a large number of historical novels were created, including The Romance of Genesis and The Romance of the Qing Palace.

The development of the Chinese novel was even greater after the middle of the Ming Dynasty. Journey to the West and Jin Ping Mei (The Golden Lotus) represented the pinnacle of novels created during this period. Historic romances and the sagas were also created in large numbers during this period, including The New Fictionalized History of the States, The Romance of Ming-Dynasty Heroes and The Surviving Writings of the Sui Dynasty.

After Journey to the West was published, mythological novels became the rage, of which Canonization of the God was one of the most successful. The novel was based on the historic story of King Wu’s campaign against Zhou, with the author also incorporating a great deal of folk tales along with aspects of his satirizing social reality.

The publication of storytelling scripts in large numbers attracted great attention from scholars, who turned from merely editing and polishing the scripts to their personal writing through imitation thus creating the so-called imitation scripts.

Each of Feng Menglong’s three works contained 40 short stories with subject matter falling into three categories:

1. women’s pursuit of true love and happiness
2. the internal struggles of the ruling class
3. extolling true friendship while condemning perfidious behavior

Ling Mengchu’s two volumes of Amazing Tales contained 78 stories. Most of these tales were based on preciously published works. The development of trade and the seeds of capitalism, which emerged during the middle and late period of the Ming Dynasty, were reflected in his stories. Some tales were filled with pornographic and superstitious description, and even falsified a peasant uprising, which greatly impaired his works’ value.

In the Qing Dynasty, the writing of full length novels written in vernacular Chinese also made great strides. Sage novels prevailed. Chen Chen’s Sequel to Outlaws of the Marsh described stories of the 32 surviving heroes from Liangshan. They rose up again to defend the country against overseas invaders in this novel were drawn from Outlaws of the March, further developed in new setting. The novel, while successful in capturing the spirit of rebellion against the government, still revolved around the subject of patriotism.

Feudal society was in a gradual decline in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. Discussions about love, marriage and codes of ethics were the major subjects in fictions of this period. It described the entanglement of marriages between two families engaged in a blood feud and vividly portrayed a host of characters from different social classes, profoundly revealing the seamy side of social reality and acutely reflecting the rise of mercantile forces at the end of feudal society. This was The Marriage that Awakes the World.

With the strong development of Reform Movements, the voices of reforming literature grew louder. Exposure novels, represented by Li Boyuan’s The Bureaucrat: A Revelation and Wu Yanren’s Strange Events for the Last Twenty Years deliberately chose to focus on reformism and exposed the corruption of the government and the crimes committed by capitalist countries.

The literary revolution during the May 4 Movement turned out a new page in the development of Chinese literature. Both the form and content of the novel made great breakthroughs during this ideological revolution.

Lu Xun’s short stories broke the traditional style of narration adopted by classical, flexible and varied structure. But their expressive methods and style still followed those of the traditional novel. The new type of novel written during this period was inclined to reflect the true colors of life.

Members of the Literary Research Society, established in 1921, created a large amount of issue-oriented fictions guided by the dictum “literature for life’s sake.” The novels discussed the problems of family and marriage and solutions from an individual point of view, instead of analyzing from political and social perspectives.

In the mid 1920s writings reminiscing about hometown life began to spring up, labeled native fiction, which influenced the “for life” school. Native fiction reflected the peasant’s lives of suffering, their awakening, and the decline of the landlord and small propertied classes.

Existing side with the “fir art” school was Zhang Ziping, whose representative works included Fossils of the Alluvial Period and Tree Planting Day.

At the end of the 1920s, inspired by proletarian revolution, Chinese writers created a large number of works. Rou Shi’s representative novels belonged to this category of disillusionment novel. In contrast to disillusionment fiction was outrage fiction, which was best represented by Jiang Guangci’s Li Sha’s Bitterness, Memorial Ceremony and The Last Smile.

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