The Study Of Fantastic Tales By Ji Xiaolan

The Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan is a classical Chinese novel written by Ji Yun in Qing Dynasty. As the general compiling officer of Complete library in the Four Branches of Literature, Ji Yun is master of the Confucian classics, and other theories, and initiated a new the model of classical Chinese novels.The Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan contains rich traditional Chinese culture and is diversified in its content, including not only the essence of traditional culture, but also the feudal superstition. Therefore, we should use the method of dialectical analysis, tailored analysis of the specific issues, and use a pragmatic approach to analyze this content-rich works. For example, the questions of feudal ethics, karma and reincarnation and so on, not only dye the color of feudal and religious superstition, but also play a role of education in the society. We should study the embryo and formation of the story themes of the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan by the literature thematic approach combining the rich literary legacy. Ji Yun inherited the mystic writing style of Wei and Jin Dynasties, therefore, the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan is similar to mystic stories in its subjects and content. We should analyze this works from the perspectives of history of novels and social culture, and explore in-depth the psychological dimensions of national culture. The folk custom is a culture inherited among the folks, and it enjoys a long history and broad popular mass base. the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan records many stories of folk events reflecting the prevailing social and cultural psychology. For example, the records, such as the worship of Thunder God and Town God among the people, the prevalence of the cosciomancy, the polygamy marriage customs, all vividly demonstrated the social life at that time. The Folklore Research in the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan has its domain. By the folk custom, the author expresses not only the ethical and worldly phenomena, but also his inquisitive psychology of creation. The dissertation is divided into nine chapters:In chapter 1, the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan, there are many revival stories and the stories happened at Ji Yun's side which include marriage and love stories, world-satirizing stories, saving and reviving stories, Buddhist stories and Taoist stories. Taking the unusual and the rare as his style, Ji Yun puts down all unsettled mysteries into his book and also makes some textual research on them. The revival stories in the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan show not only the ancient people's perception of life and death, but also their conception of ghosts and gods, Buddhist samsara and Taoism. Hence, it is of multi-culture implications.In chapter 2, the author analyzes the recorded dreams in the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan. In the book, Ji Yun initially explored the reasons to dreams, demonstrated the wonderful dream world to people by the way of the hell, ghosts, reincarnation and karma showing the rich moral and religious implications. By studying the dreams in the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan, the author explores the dreams'form and connotations. This article observes the activities of the human spirit, finds the real-word reflected in dreams, and meanwhile deepens the understanding of the concept of dreams. In chapter 3, throughout Ji Yun's life, his official career was illustrious and influential. Experiencing the ups and downs in the officialdom, he fathomed the inside story of it. In the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan, his exposure of the inside story of officialdom recorded various fatuous and corrupt officials, from which we can see the phenomena that bureaucrats shielded one another and pandered to superiors, and the complicated relations in which associates jostled against each other. With a profound knowledge of the inside story of officialdom, the writer criticized and reveled the corruption of the official system.In chapter 4, the author elaborates the Western merchants in the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan. The group of Western merchants, namely the businessmen in Shanxi and Shaanxi Provinces, has a long history as it emerged long time ago. Ming and Qing Dynasty witness the top of its prosperity. They are financially so strong that it once ranked the first among all the commercial groups throughout the country. In Ji Yun's the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan, there are lots of stories about Western merchants with the general description of the commercial activities, the ways of the world and the relationship among people. The merchants in the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan have various professional features, either honest and noble, or unfaithful and greedy. The features show not only such luxury of Western merchants that they spend money like dirt and are always followed by numerous servants, but also the solitude of homesick people who are separated from their families. In a word, it provides us with some vivid historical information and objectively reflects the historical features of Western merchants in the past centuries.In chapter 5, the author analyzes the women's filial piety. Women often sacrifice their own happiness and even their lives to honor filial piety. They serve their parents in-laws with sadako, section filial and strong filial, show filial women's tragic fate. To be able to give up their own interests and even lives to honor filial piety is an altruistic act and an extreme self-sacrifice. Its moral significance is undeniable. However, the filial women's tragic fate reflects the traditional culture's oppression to women. The fact that women's weak body bearing heavy economic and moral burden, shows the feudal ethical code's disregard for the life value of women. Female filial piety's ethical shortcomings in the feudal era manifest itself clearly. Women have lost their basic rights and independent personality, suffered physical violence and mental agony. Its negative and unreasonable side is difficult to arouse the sympathy of people in the modern times.In chapter 6, the author studies the polygamy marriage customs in the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan. Ji Yun has recorded the polygamy marriage customs in Qing Dynasty, and provided social and historical information for the study of marriage c ustoms. The major source of concubine is from the slave women, trafficking in per sons and the poor women who are willing to be concubine. Most polygamous fami lies have many conflicts between husbands and concubines, wives and concubines. In chapter 7, the author studies the cosciomancy in the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan. In the Qing Dynasty, cosciomancy was popular in the daily lives of people, the cultural lives of the literati and the lives of the officials. cosciomancy is closely linked with Taoism, and also incorporated some Buddhist ideas. Cosciomancy poetry originates in the course of cosciomancy. These poems are from the manuscripts of Murano pedant, the old works of friends who watching cosciomancy, and the creation of cosciomanciers who had a basic understanding of chant. The styles of the poems'varied, not only covers god and ghost, erotic poetry and marriage poems of women ghost in cosciomancy, but also the style of imitating of Tang poetry, and doggerels with low level. Ji Yun believes the efficacious of cosciomancy in promoting the ethical and moral. However, he believes cosciomancy is the game of litertis and is not credible.In chapter 8, the author analyzes the Town God's stories in the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan. Town God is the tutelary god of the town for ancient Chinese folk and Taoism. Town God's stories is an age-old genre in Chinese ancient literature. In JI Jun's Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan, there are 18 Town God's stories, which are of various types, showing the multiple function of the Town God. In the period of Tang and Song dynasties, aside from his role to protect city, the Town God was regarded as hell official, from which a series of judicial functions were derived, forming the common story types in the novels. As the local official of the nether world, the Town God has many functions. The Town God's stories in the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan were narrated with the aid of the dreamland. Relating the illusory world and the ghosts and gods world with the real world, the Town God's stories presented both the real and the imaginary artistic effects. The Town God's stories also reflected some social contents. Contrasted and supplemented with the officials in this world, the official in nether world, the Town God, are more intelligent and fairer, while in this world, unjust charges were common occurrence, which insinuated the darkness of the official circles in Qing Dynasty. In Chinese ghost culture belief, the town god won the widespread belief from populace because he wielded the power to decide a person's life and death, to remove the bullies to bring peace to the law-abiding, and to protect the country. Drawing on the belief of the folk, the folk materials and the expression technique of folk literature, JI Jun displayed the creation purpose of encouraging good and punishing evil.In chapter 9, The Thunder God in Ji Yun's Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan shows both the folk-custom of Thunder God worship in the ancient China and the Taoism origin of the Thunder God tales. Ji Yun made the most of this folklore to disseminate the feudal orthodox ideas of loyalty, filial piety, moral integrity and righteousness hoping to stabilize the society and making the good and honesty be the will of the people. As Ji Yun deeply felt the decline of the morality, he admonished the people through establishing religion on the basis of the divine doctrine. Seeing the cardinal guides and constant virtues were completely spoiled and the general mood of the society was getting from bad to worse, Ji Jun wanted to make up the deficiency in morality, law, civilization and cultivation with the expectation of keeping people away from evil and close to good, so as to defend the normal order of the feudal rules. Ji Yun's Thunder God tale meant to make people believe the ideas that justice had a long arm and that evil would be rewarded with evil. These tales are of some feudal superstitious color. Although the language used in them sounds rather fantastic as if coming from fables, the establishment of religion based on the divine doctrine can make people aware of respect, which is also an extraordinary painstaking effort to make an admonishment to the people in the world.In conclusion, the advocating of the good and criticism of the evil in the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan embodies the subjective awareness of the author and is also the main stream and tradition of the past novel creation of China. In some parts, he gives expression to the filial piety ethic and the concept of karma, this shows his social responsibility as an intellectual at his times. The moral and ethics of Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan contains the feudal moral lecturing and the traditional virtue of the Chinese nation. There are karma, revival, and feudal superstitions indicating the standards of people in judging the good and the evil. the Fantastic Tales by Ji Xiaolan is suck a book, it provides us a view of the past though fatuous and decadent, yet the integrity and the past traditions.