Confucian Culture And The Rise Of New Novel In The LateQing

Confucian culture is intrinsically linked with the rise of the late Qing new fiction. It seems that there are elements of so-called "break" between "traditionality" and "modernity". But they in fact are "the crack but that have not broken" .In the cultural function there exist some forms of conversion and spiritual channels between them.Perspectives on the change of function relation between Confucian culture and the traditional novel, the novelist is between "Tao" and "Qi" in China's traditional knowledge systems. The Transitional position of the novelist decides that the novelist has the dual function of "Tao" and "Qi". As China's social development and academic downward movement, in the West heterogeneous culture impact, the pattern of Chinese culture "Tao-regarded and Qi-despised" is gradually broken.The position and function had emerged structural cracks and displacement between Confucian and traditional novelist. At the same time, when Confucian classics and the traditional novel classics developed to the latter period of 19th century in late Qing Dynasty, they also appeared the structural change in society's status and in its function. The change from traditional culture had provided the historical preparation for the fresh novel of late Qing Dynesty.Liang Qichao is a key man in the late Qing cultural transform. His contribution to the history of Chinese fiction is that he found practical function of fiction, New-People, in theory, and that he promoted the emergence of new novel in practice. His innovation to the function of fiction in theory lies in the two points, one is that he found "fiction has incredible power to dispose of humanity", and the other is that he raised the concept that "fiction is the most artistic types of literary text". Liang Qichao's view of novel function consists of two parts, "energy" and "effect". The "energy" is a sort of potential power from the fiction body, it takes the form of novels with two categories of functions, "the ideal school" and "the realist school" and the four powers of "edification, soaking, stimulation and upgrade". The "effect" refers novel "energy" to the "psycho-social" impact of including national ideology, character, belief, spirit, and including social ethics, customs, national psychological, etc. The ideas of "energy" on fiction are succession and development to the traditional literary theory. On the succession, Liang Qichao explained the novel concept of "energy" with the idea "body integration with use" of the traditional literary theory, "Wen Xin Diao Long"; and this causes the novel and the prose to own the same influence, and to change the neglected fate of the novel which has lasted for more than 1,000 years. On the development, Liang Qichao had introduced the west literary criticism term "the ideal school" and "the realist school" to refers the called "two bodies" that the novel moves the human, enable his novel view to have the modem characteristic, and thus causes the Chinese modem literary theory to start integration into world literary theory.Liang Qichao's novel function view had three kinds of echoes in latter Qing dynasty theorists, the Practical orientation, the Esthetic orientation, and the Divulges orientation. They have consummated latter Qing dynasty novel function theory, and prepared the foundation for the new novel widely to be accepted.Liang Qichao established his novel function view on his "applied Buddhist" and he explained the novel theory with the "applied Buddhist". The background knowledge of "the application Buddhist" with his Confucius and Yang Ming Confucianism, interacted mutually, responsed summon of the age, bred the Liang Qichao's thought of novel view to save the people."Group study" is the thought resource of Liang Qichao's new novel "community imagination". Liang Qichao's new novels promote national imagination, which comes from the traditional "group study", and from the modem Western political science and sociology. It is this integration that Liang Qichao's novel view of"New People" provides legitimacy and destination of discourse.Liang Qichao brings the political novel into enlighting propaganda domain for the "New People", then leads to the residential social stratum, which objectively expands the breadth that "New People" were propagandized, and this is advantageous to western modem thought admitting in the latter Qing dynasty. In the cultural inheritance aspect, the political novel continues down the spirit "the literary for the sake of Tao" of the Confucian culture through new novel, and shows profound influence to the May-Four New Literature afterwards and even 20th century revolution literature.