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7/26 Vickey
Full-length Hsiao-shuo and the Western Novel: A Generic Reappraisal by Andrew H. Plak
I.    Novel
A.    Content: Plot by plot; Mostly full-length
B.    Three forms: epic, romance and novel; see it as a single integral narrative tradition.(164)
1.    Origin: The structural unity, temporal ordering, and representation of character derived mainly from the experience of the epic.(164)
2.    In nearly all of the other languages of Europe, it is called “roman” during the Medieval and Renaissance periods. (164)
3.    Definition : The 18c writers emphasize the novel is allegiance to “real life”(165)
C.    Background: elements of social and economic history(urbanization, commercialization, the industrial revolution, the spread of education, printing==rise of bourgeois culture.(166)
D.    Language: less restrictive linguistic medium, the national languages (romance羅曼斯語)
E.    Features: with sophisticated wit and philosophical vision of the high cultural traditional
1.     Realistic : a realistic dimension of historical or philosophical truth
a.    Aesthetic expectation of a “realistic” representation of some phase of human existence(169)
b.    Two major areas of significance: 1. The nature of the objects that are depicted in a given work. 2. The actual manner of depiction that is employed.
2.    Unrealistic level: to confront some of the deeper issues regarding the nature of that reality, namely, the exploration of consciousness. (169)
F.    Characters: ambiguous heroes(foundling, criminal, adulteress..), roles of the fully-realized heroes( because of a hostile environment)(170)
G.    Theme:1. self-realization such as bildungsroman; 2. Reflection for outside world in individual consciousness. such as Picaresque
II.    Hsiao-shuo
A.    Content: Episodic, 章回小說; it could be short or long
B.    Forms: historiography and folk narrative.
1.    Difference(origin): NO epic narrative exists in early Chinese literature. (164)
2.    Ming-Ching fiction: historical fiction(draw upon “official” historiography for a variety of formal and structural devices such as biographical form, multiple foci of narration, conventional narrative topo and motifs) vs.埤史(a wide variety of fictional works) (165)
C.    Background: parvenu merchant or military figures, or on bandits, outcasts, and other disenfranchised types and the imitation o the rhetoric of the street side oral-storyteller as the normative narrative mode
1.     see Hsiao-shuo as the “broad masses” (167)
2.    Popularity because of spread of printing establishments and the wider reading published (with enough time and money, because of the growth of trade and the money economy) (167)
D.    Language: less restrictive linguistic medium, colloquial language白話文(a new hybrid literary language= classical diction + the jargon of the marketplace.)(167)
E.    Features: with sophisticated wit and philosophical vision of the high cultural traditional
1.    Realistic : a realistic dimension of historical or philosophical truth
a.    Aesthetic expectation of a “realistic” representation of some phase of human existenc(169) Ex: 三國演義:romance;西遊記: allegory;金瓶梅、紅樓夢: domestic fiction人情小說
b.    Two major areas of significance: 1. The nature of the objects that are depicted in a given work. 2. The actual manner of depiction that is employed.
2.    Unrealistic level: to confront some of the deeper issues regarding the nature of that reality, namely, the exploration of consciousness.(169)
F.    Characters: a rogues-gallery of manqué individuals(劉備、賈寶玉), the popular heroes may sometimes also encounters frustration because of their own individual flaws(關羽、諸葛亮、武松); different from the West, the heroes are the greater emphasis on learning and wisdom than on physical exploits.(173)
G.     Theme: Reflection for outside world in individual consciousness such as Picaresque Ex:紅樓夢
III.    Conclusion(175)
1.    The rise of the novel and the social and economic development of the pre-modern period describes quite well the context of the emergence of full-length prose fiction in China.
2.    Chinese novel shares with its Western counterpart a basic grounding in realistic representation, but that in both cases the inherent limitations of realism lead to an increasing preoccupation with the more problematic aspects of human character and experience.
3.    Critical inquiry; further illuminates the essentially critical nature of the mimetic representation of reality in the great examples of the genre.
4.    Novels grow out of the increasing cultural complexity of the modern era.