Complete detailed information of Huaben novels

Huaben novel is the name of the ancient Chinese novel genre. It is a type of Chinese classical novel, popular in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and is also called the Song and Yuan scripts. Basic introduction Chinese name: story-teller's script Foreign name: story-teller's script Genre: Ancient Chinese novel Belongs to: Chinese classical novel Literary form: Speaking" skill production background: In the mass entertainment venue "Washi", production background, story-teller classification, Artistic achievement, the production of background Huaben, which means the background of speaking, is also called talking or poetry. Storytelling has been a popular entertainment form since the Song Dynasty. Its content is that storytellers tell and sing stories of various themes and types. It is called "huaben". Huaben can also be read, which is equivalent to today's novels. In the popular entertainment venues "Wasi" in cities in the Song Dynasty, there was an activity that focused on telling stories and telling jokes, that is, "talking". "Shuo" is divided into four categories, namely, novels, history telling, scripture telling, and Hesheng. Among the four, novels and history telling are the most important and have the greatest influence. At that time, with the prosperity of the commodity economy and the rapid increase in urban population, popular folk literature also achieved unprecedented development in the Song Dynasty. Huaben novels were the representative of folk literature in the Song Dynasty. The script of "speaking" artists is a literary form developed along with the folk "speaking" skills. Huaben is the script of the speaker's speech. It mainly includes two categories: history telling and novels. Use simple classical Chinese to tell the stories of emperors and generals in history; the latter refers to using popular vernacular to tell the stories of ordinary people. The historical scripts of the Song Dynasty include "Pinghua of the History of the Five Dynasties", "The Legacy of Xuanhe of the Song Dynasty", "Five Kinds of Quanxiang Pinghua" etc. These stories are mainly based on official history, but they also incorporate some legends, anecdotes, etc., and also use fiction to enhance their appeal. Their plots are often more tortuous and longer. The historical novels of the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties evolved from this. The artistic achievements of the novels of the Song Dynasty are mainly preserved in the "Jingben Popular Novels" and "Qingping Shantang Huaben" and "Sanyan", generally short stories. Most of the works depict real life, including romance and public cases. The characters in the works are vivid and individual, and they are particularly successful in portraying the characters' personalities and psychology through actions and dialogues, such as Li Cuilian in "Quick Talk Li Cuilian" and "Grinning". "Jade Guanyin", etc. The plot arrangement is vivid, clear and fascinating. It is basically written in vernacular, simple and lively, and has a strong flavor of life. , "Supervisor Zhicheng Zhang", "Diary of Love", "Sentimental Zhou Shengxian in Naofan Tower", etc. "None of the Jade Guanyin" tells the story of Xu Xiuxiu, a slave girl who was sold to the prince's palace and was born in poverty to fight for freedom and seek a better life. The description of a series of struggles shows the pursuit of love and the will of women in an oppressed position to fight tenaciously against the feudal rulers, praising their pure, kind hearts and spirit of resistance, and exposing the feudal rulers' hatred of the lower class people. The plot of the work is bizarre and ups and downs. The story ends with the ghost's revenge, which deepens the theme and not only expresses Xiu Xiu's unyielding spirit of resistance, but also expresses people's desire for evil to be punished. In the novel, Xiu Xiu's intelligence, beauty, ingenuity, forthrightness, perseverance, tenacity and astuteness, Cui Ning's simplicity and cowardice, Xian'an County Prince's arrogance and cruelty, and Guo Paijun's cunning and treachery are all vivid and vivid. For example, it writes about the scene when Xiuxiu and Cui Ning met after escaping from the fire at the Xian'an County Prince's Mansion: Xiu Xiu said, "You don't remember, either?" Cui Ning crossed her arms, saying no. Xiuxiu said: "Everyone cheered for you that day, 'What a great couple!' How could you forget?" Cui Ning deserved it. Xiu Xiu said: "I just want to wait, why don't you and I become husband and wife tonight? What do you think?" Cui Ning said: "How dare you!" Xiu Xiu said: "You know you don't dare, I will wake up the general and teach you a lesson. How can you bring me to your home? I'll tell you tomorrow." Cui Ning said, "Tell me, you and Cui Ning are a couple. It's just one thing. We can't live here." From this conversation, we can see. , Xiuxiu is aggressive and bold, on the contrary, Cui Ning, as a male, is always on the defensive and can be naive. Mr. Lu Xun once pointed out that the emergence of scripts in the Song and Yuan Dynasties "is actually a major change in the history of novels" ("Historical Changes in the History of Chinese Novels").

Indeed, the vernacular novels of the Song Dynasty are completely different from the ancient Chinese literary tradition that has long used classical Chinese as its language. It is the first time in the history of Chinese novels that vernacular is used as the language of novels, which is an outstanding progress. In terms of character creation, the story-telling novels of the Song Dynasty mainly focused on ordinary characters and no longer used extraordinary characters as the main objects of creation. This is a sign that Chinese novels are further becoming civilians. In addition, the vernacular novels of the Song Dynasty adopted the narrative method of unfolding the story in the scene of "speaking". This narrative mode later became the classic narrative method of vernacular novels. The above aspects have a huge impact on Ming and Qing novels and vernacular novels.