30. Briefly describe the origin of China's novels.

A: The word "novel" first appeared in Zhuangzi's essay "Foreign Things": "It is far from achieving the goal to decorate a novel as a county magistrate." Comparing "novel" with "greatness" refers to trivial remarks and trivial truths that have nothing to do with politics and religion, which are not exactly the same as novels as literary genres. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Ban Gu wrote the History of Chinese Literature and Art on the basis of the seven views, ranking novelists at the bottom of the ten. This is the beginning of the novel being recorded by historians. In addition, according to the "Seven Views", Ban Gu said: "Novelists are out of office. Street talk, hearsay also has. Although the "Confucius Day" trail will be impressive, it is also a blessing for gentlemen. This is the authoritative explanation and evaluation of the novel by historians and catalogers. They think that novels are gossip, which are collected and recorded by novelists, and have become a family statement. Although it is a path, it still has some merits. Ban Gu clearly pointed out that novels originated from folklore, which is of great significance to understand the origin of China's novels.

Tracing back to the origin of China's novels, there are the following aspects:

The first is myths and legends. From the brief myths and legends, we can see two important novel factors: plot and characters. In this chain from myths and legends to novels, anecdotes are the key link. It can even be said that anecdotes are the direct source of China's novels. The story that is closest to the novel or can be regarded as an early novel is The Biography of Mu and Yan Danzi, which is called "the ancestor of miscellaneous stories of ancient and modern novels" by Hu Yinglin.

Followed by fables. For example, there are many fables with distinctive characters in Mencius, Zhuangzi, Han Feizi and Warring States Policy, which are of novel significance. In Han Feizi, the stories of hiding inside, hiding outside and forest with the most fables all clearly use the word "Shuo" as the title, which also reveals the relationship between them.

The third is historical biography. For example, Zuo Zhuan, Warring States Policy, Historical Records, and The History of the Three Kingdoms describe the characters, tell stories, or provide materials for novels, or accumulate narrative experience for novels. Legendary novels in the Tang Dynasty mostly take the form of biographies, and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms directly indicates that it is a historical biography. In traditional bibliography works, there is no strict difference between novelists by subject and miscellaneous biographies by historical department, which proves that historical biographies are a source of novels.