A Study On The Narratology Of The Legend Of Swordsmen From Shushan

The Legend of Swordsmen from Shushan,written during the Republic of China era,is the representative work of Li Shoumin.This work combines the essence of traditional Chinese mythology,legends,and martial arts stories.The writing technique inherits the narrative structure of traditional Chinese novels while also attempting to incorporate the creative techniques of western novels.The extraordinary landscapes,martial arts scenes,and Buddhist and Taoist philosophies presented in the work are all greatly impactful to readers.If the aforementioned aspects are the surface reasons why The Legend of Swordsmen from Shushan has remained popular,the internal reasons lie in the narrative achievements of the author.These narrative achievements permeate the narrative framework,structure,content,and organization of the work.This paper selects The Legend of Swordsmen from Shushan as the research subject and uses narrative theory to analyze the work from three perspectives.Firstly,it analyzes the author from a narrative perspective.Of course,this analysis must begin with the real author,as the author’s era and personal experiences profoundly influence the creation of the work.The real author establishes the textual norms of The Legend of Swordsmen from Shushan through implied authorship,which guides the thematic ideas,character development,plot organization,and scene construction of the text.On the whole,the era in which the author lived was a time of cultural conflict and collision between the old and the new,and between Chinese and Western cultures.During this era,the author maintained the traditional aesthetic interests in his creation while actively attempting popular literary forms and commercial literary production.In addition,the narrator and the focalizer of the text are also fundamental issues examined in this paper.Through the analysis of these concepts,the narrative framework of The Legend of Swordsmen from Shushan is grasped.From the perspective of the narrator,Li Shoumin successfully attempts to assume the narrative function as the "author" to intervene in the narrative structure and conception of the work.Ultimately,the narrative framework constructed by Li Shoumin is shaped by the serialized format of the novel.From the perspective of the focalizer,Li Shoumin mostly adopts the non-focalized framework of traditional vernacular fiction.Secondly,the article analyzes the text from a narrative perspective.It analyzes the narrative dynamics,temporal scheduling,and spatial narration in the process of creating the text of The Legend of Swordsmen from Shushan.Li Shoumin constructs a duallayered narrative dynamics that continuously propels the lengthy narrative of The Legend of Swordsmen from Shushan.In this narrative process,Li Shoumin skillfully manipulates temporal scheduling and spatial layout to expand the timeline of the text,resulting in a voluminous work.Ultimately,Li Shoumin’s skilled narrative techniques are used to cope with serialized publication.Furthermore,the article analyzes the multi-layered characters and magical objects presented in the content,as well as the narrative environment and scene construction of the text.Characters are the center of the narrative content.In the expanding text of Legend of Swordsmen from Shushan,the author constantly supplements functional characters when shaping the righteous swordsmen group,placing these characters in one scene after another to unfold their dialogue and actions.Thirdly,the paper analyzes the reception of the work from a narrative perspective.It analyzes how the narrative of The Legend of Swordsmen from Shushan draws from traditional culture,how Li Shoumin uses poetic language to refine old martial arts literature,and how the narrative of The Legend of Swordsman from Shushan inspires new generation martial arts novelists in their creative practices.Overall,Li Shoumin’s narrative style,rich in imagination and poetry,permeates the various structures and organizations of the text.This is the reason for the classic status of The Legend of Swordsmen from Shushan.