The causes and artistic characteristics of strange novels

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The word "novel" began in Zhuangzi, and people became novelists, and regarded anecdotes, myths and legends circulated among the people as novels. It should be said that Ban Gu's understanding also reflects the development of novel style concept. China's ancient novels can be traced back to fables and even ancient myths of pre-Qin philosophers, but they are not the direct source of China's narrative literature. The formation of novels is more influenced by developed historical biography literature, and there are a lot of legends and ghosts in pre-Qin historical prose. Strange things and reliable historical facts are integrated into one, which has become the pioneering work of mystery novels in later generations. Its vivid description of historical events also provides experience for the emergence of mystery novels in Wei and Jin Dynasties. The appearance of historical records even coincides with all the basic elements of the novel. Mystery novels are represented by stories of seeking gods, with strong religious superstitions and more records of ghosts and gods. Chronicle novels are represented by telling human stories and recording anecdotes of characters as the main content. As a strict stylistic concept, the formation and maturity of literary novels should be in the Tang Dynasty, and the Ming and Qing Dynasties are its heyday. There are four basic elements of the national characteristics of China's ancient novels: a relatively complete story, distinctive characters, reasonable fiction and omniscient narration. Before the legend of the Tang Dynasty appeared, the works of the two systems, Zhi and Zhi, were still rough, not refined in art, and the author's consciousness was not conscious.

The novels of Han, Wei and Six Dynasties are in the embryonic stage of China's novels. Before the Han Dynasty, there was no such name as novel. The so-called "decorating a novel as a county magistrate" in Zhuangzi Foreign Things only refers to the path opposite to the main road, just like the so-called "small words and foresight" in On Wuqi. Novelists in the Han Dynasty began to have names, probably from Liu Xin's seven views. Because of this, Ban Gu's Hanshu Yiwenzhi is listed as one of the schools of thought, but it is regarded as a trail and said to be "a little knowledge". Huan Tan's "new theory" is also said to be "a novelist's essay combination, taking analogy theory as a short book, managing the body and managing the family, with considerable words" (Selected Works of Jiang Yan and Shan Li's Miscellaneous Poems). At that time, the so-called novels only referred to "short stories" telling small stories and little knowledge. The pre-Qin works Shan Hai Jing and Mu Zhuan were regarded as historical and geographical books by the ancients, and Sikuquanshu was listed as a novelist. There are also several novels in this edition of Yizhoushu, which can be said to be the origin of ancient novels. All the 15 novels recorded in Hanshu Yiwenzhi have died. Among them, there are five novels: Yi Yin, Xun Zi, Huangdi, Fengchan Fang and Yu Chu Zhou, all of which are representative works of novels. There is also 1 kind of Qing historian, with a few lost articles, which can roughly understand the content of the so-called novels of Han people. There are also lost articles in Yi and A Hundred Schools of Thought contend. Generally speaking, as Lu Xun said, "the trustee is as shallow as a son, and the recorder is close to history and absurd."

The so-called Chinese novels that can be seen now are not found in the records of Han people, and most of them are not works of Han people. Only one wonderful book, which is said to be Dong Fangshuo, has been quoted by the Han people, but it may not really be written by Dong Fangshuo. This kind of work was not regarded as a novel before the Tang Dynasty. In the Annals of Sui Shu Classics compiled by the Tang Dynasty, the geographical categories of the historical department are listed in Nerve and Ten Records of the Sea, the old events are listed in the Biography of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and the Miscellaneous Records of Xijing, and the miscellaneous biographies are listed in the Biography of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Ghost Story of Hanwu Cave, the Story of Searching for Gods and the Postscript of Searching for Gods after Jin Dynasty. When the Qing Dynasty compiled Sikuquanshu, the scope of novelists was further expanded, and unofficial history's notes and the like were also listed as novels. The works mentioned above are now considered as novels of the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties. Lu Xun's Goushen Ancient Novel also contains many miscellaneous books. Among them, the story of Hanwu (that is, the story of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty) is earlier and closer to history. There are also some legendary stories, such as the trip of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to Cooper, which are widely circulated, and the sword of Zi Tongzhi has also been adopted. Another example is the frequently quoted question Shang Yan asked Emperor Wu. There are also stories about the Queen Mother of the West and Dong Fangshuo in the story of Hanwu, but they are not as strong as the stories about the legend of Emperor Wudi and the ghost story of Hanwu Cave.

People's views on novels in Sui and Tang Dynasties were different from those of Liu Xin and Ban Gu.

According to "Sui Shu Jing Ji Zhi", there are 25 kinds of novels, and some lost titles are recorded in the notes. Except Yan Danzi and Shi Shuo, they have all been lost. Judging from the titles and lost articles, most of these books are miscellaneous notes and trivial matters, with little supernatural color, and they are also advertised as true records. For example, Pei Qi's Yu Lin, which was lost at that time, was criticized by Xie An for its inaccuracy and low reputation (Shi Shuo Xin Yu Di). Shi Shuo can be said to be the successor of Yu Lin, and it and Liu Jun's annotations use a lot of materials from Yu Lin. It can be seen that the so-called novels before the Tang Dynasty mainly refer to books such as unofficial history's chores. Liu Zhiji said in Miscellaneous Notes, the tenth article of Shi Tong, that he preferred to write novels and set up his own family. He divided these books into ten categories, among which Ji Zu Ji Nian and Xijing Miscellaneous Notes were called anecdotes, Shi Shuo and Yu Lin were called Miscellaneous Notes, and others were called Miscellaneous Notes. Although historians do not value this kind of "simplified books", they still regard it as a branch of the history department. By the time Ouyang Xiu compiled The Book of the New Tang Dynasty, a large number of miscellaneous books in the history department were classified as novelists in this department.

There are only two novels recorded in Sui Shu Jingji Zhi: Yan Danzi and Shi Shuo.

Yan Ganzi tells the story of Yan Taizi Dan letting Jing Ke stab the king of Qin. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, people paid no attention to it. After the Qing Dynasty copied it from Yongle Dadian, it was re-circulated by Sun Xingyan. However, this story did spread in the Han Dynasty, and it was mentioned in books such as General Meaning of Customs and Lun Heng. It seems that it may be the only reliable Chinese novel in existence, and it is also the pioneer of later historical storytelling. The story of "Yan Danzi" is basically the same as the Biography of the Assassin in Historical Records, except for some magical plots. For example, the king of Qin detained Prince Taizi Dan, and he could not tell his bald head. He would not be allowed to return to China until he was defeated by a horse, but Prince Taizi Dan sighed, and such a miracle actually appeared. For example, Taizi Dan is very kind to Jing Ke, eating with him, sleeping in the same bed, and even throwing frogs at Jing Ke Gold for fun; Jing Ke wanted to eat horse liver, so he killed Maxima. Jing Ke praised the beauty who played the piano for her good hand, so she cut it out and gave it to him. Finally, there are some thrilling scenes to stab the king of Qin. These plots are so bizarre that Sima Qian refused to accept them. However, it is full of folk literature color and already has the artistic characteristics of the novel.

Shi Shuo Xin Yu is a masterpiece of local novels (also known as anecdote novels). The name "knowing benevolence" comes from Lu Xun's "Knowing Yourself". The words and deeds recorded in Shi Shuo Xin Yu are mostly the words and deeds of celebrities in Wei and Jin Dynasties, which are divided into 36 articles, such as morality, speech, politics and literature. The book is full of selected highlights, paying special attention to language refinement, which is more literary than general unofficial history chores. Many stories only use a few strokes to outline a character image, which has high generalization power. A few short stories of some characters, scattered in each article, can be combined to see a person's personality quite completely. Some stories later became popular idioms and allusions, such as "catching the knife", "vivid", "empty books" and "sleeping with an empty stomach".

There are also some books recording jokes in this kind of novels, such as Laughing Forest by Dan Chun, Jieyi by Yang Songsong (suspected as Tan Xun) in the Northern Qi Dynasty, and Laughing Garden by Sui Dynasty.

Yin Yun's novels are a collection of previous novels, named after "novels". The story is arranged according to the times, and the quotations indicate the source. They are rich in information and rigorous in style. As the basis of compiling ancient books, they can be compared with Liu Jun's Notes on the World. However, this book has been lost. There are four editions: Lu Xun, Yu Jiaxi, Tang Lan and Zhou Lin.

There are many miscellaneous books in the novels of the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, most of which are supernatural and come from the absurd words of the wizard. After the Han dynasty, Taoism and Buddhism became more and more popular, and the preaching of superstition and ghosts spread more widely, so books about anecdotes emerged one after another. For example, Zutai's strange tales, Cao Pi's strange tales, strange tales, and strange tales in the moon are all named after strange tales. Zu Chongzhi, who pays attention to science, also wrote Notes on Different Things. People-oriented Shi Shuo Xin Yu also has some supernatural colors, such as the story of Ma Rong's metamorphosis and Zheng Xuan's disaster in the first article of literature, and the story close to the supernatural tomb of Guo Pu in Shu Jie. However, at that time, people did not regard such stories as novels. For example, Gambao's Preface to Searching for the Gods says that the purpose of his book is to "know the truth of Shinto". At that time, people called Gan Bao "the East Lake of Ghosts" (Shi Shuo Xin Yu Pai Diao).

Searching for God can be said to be a strange novel masterpiece. The existing 20 volumes, re-edited in the Ming Dynasty, are not what they used to be, and there are some suspicious chapters. It collected anecdotes before the Jin Dynasty and preserved some beautiful myths and legends, such as the wife of Yong Dong and Han Ping, which had a great influence on later generations. Other relatively complete works include Epilogue of Searching for God, Different Gardens in Tao Qian, Notes on Wang Jia's Collection, Notes on Wu Jun's Continuation of Qi and Harmony, Notes on Different Events, etc. As for Biography, Travel and Qi Xie Ji, etc. , have been lost, lost articles are collected in the ancient novel "hook and sink" in this book.

Wang Jia's Collected Notes has its own characteristics in Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio. According to the historical dynasties, it records the legacy outside the official history. The tenth volume is a famous mountain with novel stories and rich literary talents, especially Historical Records written by Xiao Qi, which is gorgeous in style and artistic. There is Zhang Hua's Natural History, which records many strange things, including rare birds and animals, plants, insects, fish, and some fantasy stories about fairy tricks. Based on Historical Records, it opened up the way of "narrating different records" and even "Youyang Miscellaneous Records", so it listed Sui Shu Jingjizhi as a miscellaneous scholar and changed the old Tang Book Jingjizhi into a novelist.

After the prevalence of Buddhism, the stories of strange stories and the preaching of karma merged, and novels became a tool for religious propaganda. There are Yan Zhitui's Record of Killing People (a work of "avenging wrongs"), as well as Xuanyan Ji, Wang Yan's Ji, Yan Zhitui's Ji and Hou Bai's Jing Yi Ji. Taoism also has such works, such as Jin's Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio, which is juxtaposed with Ge Hong's Biography of Immortals.

People and strange people gradually unified in the development of the story. It is a direction of the historical development of China's novels to strengthen storytelling and pay attention to conception and literary talent. Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio was incorporated into the novelist, on the one hand, according to the classification of catalogers since the Song Dynasty, on the other hand, it also recognized the historical facts of the development of China's novels. Because mystery is a magical story, there is bound to be artistic fiction, which has a positive impact on the development of later novels. It was from the ghosts and gods of the Six Dynasties that the legendary novels of the Tang Dynasty were born.

The influence of novels in Han, Wei and Six Dynasties on later novels and operas can not be ignored. For example, the story of Lu Fen dreaming into an ant's nest in Search of Ji Shen is the first story in Conan's biography of the satrap, and the story of Hu Muban sending a book to Hebo is the origin of Liu Yichuan. The story of the barren woman's soul meeting Pang 'a in You can be regarded as the embryonic form of Away from the Soul, and the story of falling into a jade pillow dream. In Qing Dynasty, Pu Songling creatively combined the artistic techniques of ambition and legend, strengthened imagination and detailed description, and formed the characteristic of "using legendary methods, but emphasizing ambition and strangeness", which was the further development of the novel tradition of Han, Wei and Six Dynasties.