Japanese Transplantation And Native Germination Of Political Novels In The Late Qing Dynasty

Political novels in the late Qing Dynasty occurred in the transition period of Chinese novels from traditional to modern,and they have important literary and historical significance and text research value.At the end of the 19 th century and the beginning of the 20 th century,Chinese culture opened its doors in a violent shock,and novels ushered in a century-long change in the collision and exchange with foreign cultures and literature.Among them,political novels took the lead in opening up the large-scale modern transformation of novels.The curtain has become an important force transforming modern Chinese literature and culture.Political novels in the late Qing Dynasty took on the task of transitioning from traditional old novels to new modern novels in the transformation of Chinese literature at the turn of the century,which to a large extent regulated the literary and cultural connotations of the modernity of Chinese novels and affected the novel the occupation and trend of a genre in the whole long river of modern Chinese literature.The key to objectively evaluate the literary value of late Qing political novels is to trace back the origin of political novels in the late Qing Dynasty and explore the dynamic mechanism of political novels.Political novels usually set off an upsurge in countries around the world at the same time.Political novels in the late Qing Dynasty have a direct connection with foreign literature,especially the political novels of Japan’s Meiji period(hereinafter referred to as ‘Meiji political novels’).The emergence and evolution of political novels in the late Qing Dynasty were directly influenced by the political novels of the Meiji era.Research on the relationship between political novels in the late Qing Dynasty and the Meiji period is the foundation for exploring the emergence and development of political novels in the late Qing Dynasty.An important link in the modern transformation of Chinese novels.However,assuming the relationship between late Qing political novels and Meiji political novels is simply attributed to influence–acceptance ignores the most fundamental dynamic mechanism for the emergence and development of political novels in the late Qing Dynasty.Biased assessment of cultural values.The transfer of late Qing political novels to Meiji political novels is the behaviour of cultural subjectivity.The late Qing literature formed its own value identification standards in contacting and communicating with foreign literature across cultural boundaries.How to selectively transfer Meiji political novels into it can more objectively and truly reflect on the reconstruction of ideas and the innovation of literary elements in the emergence of local modern novels from the perspective of culture and literature.Based on the textual relationship between late Qing and Meiji political novels,this paper examines the emergence of the former from the cultural perspective of the era of the formation of modern nationalism.The political novels of the late Qing Dynasty are discussed in four aspects: the formation of grand national themes,the shaping of characters and the method of narration.Using research methods such as comparative literature and close reading of texts to explore the relationship between the emergence of political novels in the late Qing Dynasty and the Meiji period can help evaluate the value standards of late Qing Dynasty novels.This provides an objective basis and new ideas and perspectives for studying the beginning of modern Chinese literature.The first chapter analyses the cultural context in which political novels occurred in the late Qing Dynasty and explores why,in that era,China chose Meiji rather than the earlier translated Western political novels as local creations from the perspective of the deep cultural origins behind the modern Sino–Japanese relations.Reference text.The deep-seated reason for the emergence of political novels in the late Qing Dynasty was the formation of modern nation-state consciousness and the response of Confucian traditional family-state thought to Western culture’s strong invasion.Considering the homology of national culture and the causes of the modern concept of the nation-state,it was reasonable for the intellectuals of the late Qing Dynasty to choose to transplant political novels from Japan instead of the West.From the perspective of the cultural homology and modern relationship of China and Japan,it can be found that the political novels of the late Qing Dynasty were closely related to four important issues related to the background of their emergence: aesthetic norms,attention to current affairs,the construction of academic discourse and the spread of novels.Japanese culture and literature are closely related.The deepening of the national crisis was accompanied by the successive and powerful invasions of heterogeneous cultures,and the traditional concept of time and space was forcibly broken.Transforming from a panic response to rational acceptance to active exploration,coping with the changing situation of the century,breaking the old and establishing the new became the cultural trend in the late Qing Dynasty.The reconstruction of the concept of time and space changed the traditional way of thinking and injected new factors into the traditional norms of poetry and beauty that had been passed down for thousands of years.The literary aesthetic model should change with time,and the matching style of novels entered the vision of Chinese literati on a large scale.It is the main carrier of the great changes in this writing era and the evolution of national emotions;the cultural shock brought about by the fiasco of the Sino–Japanese War led to the birth of a new genre of current affairs novels,which are different from the legends of the Six Dynasties,the Tang and Song Dynasties and the Ming and Qing Dynasties.The fiction genre responds to external shocks with the laws of literature itself,showing the inherent potential of consciously undertaking political narratives.The failure of the Westernisation Movement to save itself inspired reform thinkers,who sublimated learning to academic thought.The construction of academic thoughts provided theoretical support for the comprehensive transformation of society and culture in the late Qing Dynasty.The newly emerging academic discourse and construction provided philosophical and theoretical foundations for the emergence of political novels.Liang Qichao’s Xinmin Thought is one of the representative academic discourses,which determines the keynote of popular enlightenment in political novels.The late Qing reform thinkers Yan Fu,Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao promoted the transformation of late Qing literary thought to pragmatism and constructed political novels.The academic context of the novel;the upsurge of migration to Japan in the late Qing Dynasty provided a large number of translators and readers for the new political novels,and they constructed the most direct translations.The second chapter mainly analyses late Qing political novels’ selective recognition,acceptance and transformation of the themes of Meiji political novels.It analyses how the modern concept of nationhood constitutes the core proposition and literary imagination of the novel’s transformation period.The philosophy of modern nationalism is the fundamental reason for not only the emergence but also the main theme of political novels in the late Qing Dynasty and is an important symbol of the transformation of traditional novels to modern times.For the political novels of the Meiji period and the late Qing Dynasty,the dynamic mechanism of their association with modernity is the emergence of the modern concept of nationality.In the late Edo period of Japan and the late Qing Dynasty of China,both countries were invaded by the West and faced the crisis of becoming colonies of the West.External crises gave birth to changes in internal affairs.After the Meiji Restoration,Japan embarked on a course of modernisation.The Meiji political novels echo the domestic and foreign issues surrounding the nation’s future development and the psychological upheaval of the nation’s culture during this period.In the late Qing Dynasty,China encountered a more severe foreign invasion and partition crisis than Japan.New literary concepts emerged from the upheaval of cultural concepts during this turbulent period.When national crisis and salvation became the main themes of the times,literature followed suit.Meiji political novels and themes related to the nation’s fate quickly resonated with the translators of the novels in the late Qing Dynasty,and the grand national narrative captured the attention and recognition of the literati in the late Qing Dynasty,becoming the target theme for translation and introduction.Under the influence of Meiji political novels,the awakening of national crisis consciousness,the imagination of national salvation literature and the construction of a ‘power dream’ entered Chinese novels for the first time,manifesting as themes of national salvation in political novels of the late Qing Dynasty.In addition,the modern women’s emancipation movement was born in the modern trend of thinking of survival and saving the nation,which jointly and reversely participated in the construction of modern nationalism in the late Qing Dynasty.The third chapter analyses the relationship,similarities and differences between the political novels of the late Qing Dynasty and the Meiji period and the characteristics and causes of the stereotyped characters in the political novels of the late Qing Dynasty.The stereotyped characterisation of these novels has the rationality of local culture,but its origin is deeply influenced by the theory of enlightenment and the characteristics of characterisation in the process of moving into Meiji political novels.Once translated and introduced,the stereotyped characters in Meiji political novels that were shaped according to the needs of national development were quickly recognised by the local culture of the late Qing Dynasty.Rapid growth and divergence in cultural environments.Political novelists in the late Qing Dynasty often projected their own political ideas onto their novels by referring to the characteristics of Meiji political novels,becoming politicians and reformers who educated the people and promoted progressive ideas in the literary world.The times called for heroes;the imagination and image construction of heroes are the key points of character shaping in political novels of the late Qing Dynasty.They recognised and strengthened the national heroes portrayed in the political novels of the Meiji period and created a series of local cultural flavours.The idea of building a modern democratic country also created a colonised heroic image with a deep postcolonial flavour and an alternative heroine image who makes a physical sacrifice to realise IX value.Novelists in the real world and politicians in the literary world.Under this double vision,the gap between modern citizens and people who are not ideal in reality is naturally prominent in the novel,and the image of the common people between individuals and groups also became the object of criticism and attention in political novels.The rudimentary consciousness of national character.The fourth chapter discusses the evolution of the narrative that emerged in the late Qing political novels and the origin of the narrative mode of the Meiji political novels.The transformation of narrative strategy to modern mode is an important feature that distinguishes the late Qing political novelsfrom traditional novels.Compared with modern novelists who are proficient in mastering rich narrative strategies,the narrative modes of the late Qing political novelsmostly change in an unconscious state.However,this unconscious shift is not without reason.From the perspective of the culture of that time,based on literature comparison,the relationship between the transformation of the late Qing political novelsand the Meiji political novels is analyzed from three perspectives: narrative in metaphor,narrative perspective,and model of beauties and talents(BAT).Based on this,this chapter analyzes the process of the late Qing political novelsselectively absorbing the literary elements of the Meiji political novels,discusses how the narrative strategies of the late Qing political novelstransform actively or passively,and clarifies the driving force for the transformation of the late Qing political novels’ narrative strategies.Through literature analysis,it is found that the late Qing political novelsselectively absorbs narrative strategies from the Meiji political novels.Moreover,the selection criteria of the absorbed content are closely related to Chinese traditional culture and the actual needs of the time.In addition,although the metaphorical narrative is a common strategy in modern novels,traditional Chinese literature also uses rhetorical methods similar to modern metaphors.For example,the popular model of BAT in the Meiji political novels comes from traditional Chinese novels.If metaphorical narrative and the BAT paradigm have awakened the narrative strategy of traditional Chinese literature,then the change in narrative perspective is an era change based on factors such as the emphasis on the author’s voice.It can be concluded that whether it is the return of narrative tradition or the change of narrative strategy,the late Qing political novelsendow the narrative strategy with new literary connotations in the local creation,thereby enriching the narrative level and diversifying the narrative expression.By sorting out the textual relationship between late Qing and Meiji political novels,this dissertation demonstrates why and how late Qing political novels choose to identify and accept Meiji political novels from the perspective of contemporary culture and analyses the culture behind the choice.It also analyses the local growth of political novels in the late Qing Dynasty and provides a meta-perspective for objectively evaluating the literary value of political novels in the late Qing Dynasty and the emergence of modern Chinese literature.