On The Legendary Hero NoveIs In The Background Of Song Dynasty

The Heroic Legends in Ming and Qing dynasties such as Water Margin series novels,YangJiaJiang novels,YueFei novels and ZhaoKuangyin novels etc all take Song Dynasty as the background,They are the main components of the Heroic Legends. Besides the large quantity, these novels' subject is also similar, the story and characters also have mutual connection cross each other. Except Water Margin, most of these novels are not the first-class classic, but most of them also have considerable achievement and influence. Thousands of readers have enthusiasm for the novels for hundreds of years, so we should pay more attention to this kind of legendary novel. Based on this understanding, this paper aims to take the series hero legendary novels in the background of Song Dynasty as the research object. And their development situation, characterization, cultural connotation and aesthetic features are mainly be studied and discussed. In combination with the characteristics of era, this article try to find out the cultural reason that why these novels can be self-reliance and even be flourished;analyzes cultural composition and influence of this type of novel comprehensively.In the Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty, The printing and publishing of Water Margin had great far-reaching significant to the development of the Hero legendary novels. As its widely and rapidly spread to a great extended area, its great success both in thoughts and artistic has influenced the creation of a series of Hero legendary novels. During the late Ming Dynasty, a great numbers of the heroic legends set in Song Dynasty were created. The historical changes of The Ming and Qing Dynasty make people began to rethink profoundly issues related to social history, politics, life, which added more deep thought to their works. At the same time, with the experience from the former writer of Ming Dynasty, they got more profound understanding of theoretical issues of creation, such as strange and true, virtual and actual, people and things, elegant and philistine. On the other hand, the write themselves also got a lot of experience. With reasons above, the Hero legendary novels finally matured in art. Deep thoughts and mature art form make the hero legendary novels which take Song Dynasty as the background to a mature stage in the early Qing Dynasty. There are still a lot of hero legendary novels produced in the middle period of Qing Dynasty. But most of them are former generation of renewal books. Some of them have made innovation in the basis of the previous novels, becoming more vivid, and the character image is more outstanding, but most are imitative for lack of innovation. So these novels are just on average level. In the late Qing Dynasty, the hero legendary novels lost their Quality and charm, and the life of legendary hero novels come to the end finally.The Heroic legends in the background of Song Dynasty have fuse fairly complex culture consciousness of different historical periods and different social groups. Therefore they contains profound and complex culture connotation. Most of the fiction always take historical events that have close contact with the survival of the country or nation as the main content and praise the distinguished patriotic heroes who save the nation. They fight for the country with a strong sense of responsibility. So from the description of adoration to the heroes, we can see a firm strong patriotism emotion in the legendary novels. Chinese traditional Confucian thought has a deep influence on every aspect in ancient China such as social politics, economy, culture, military and people's value and so on. This kind of influence is embodied in the creation of hero legendary novels whose creative background is in Song Dynasty. The most obvious manifestation in the novels is the art deduction of the Confucian thoughts about "benevolent government and kingly way" and the social ideal about "loyalty","justice" and "filial piety". Read these hero legendary novels from the perspective of ethics, we can feel strong moral strength.Religion has profound influence on ancient Chinese cultural consciousness, and certainly including the literary creation. There are some religious plots in these legendary hero novels,such as the merciful bodhisattva,the image of immortal,the magical gobbledygook,invincible treasures and so on.We should not regard this kind of description as feudal superstition simply. From the point of religious view, it gives an unfathomable life meaning and a fantastic sublimation to the literature creation. The authors tried to surmount the reality with the tool of religion inspiration, and at the same time showed a secular life in the religious world.The legendary hero novels in the background of Song Dynasty created many hero images, though different fate and character they have, their vivid image has been living in the heart of the readers for hundreds of yeas. There are some representative characters such as Song Jiang, YangLiulang, Yue Fei and Di Qing who have great personality characteristics. As a representative of the orthodox hero image, they are always the core characters who decide the development of the story. The orthodox hero often have the Feudal society's virtue such as loyal, righteousness, filial piety, benevolence, wisdom and brave which are very close to the author's "perfect" hero image. But they also have differences in similar, everyone has their own unique laugh and they have different life and character. Another type of distinctive characteristics in the legendary novels is the comedy hero images. Li Kui, Niu Gao, Zheng En, Jiao Tinggui, etc. are the typical characters. Their honest and frank character has a pure comedy spirit, compared to orthodox hero, they are not bound by traditional rites and they often have a more assertive rebellion consciousness against the rulers and the darkness of society, which take them more close to ordinary people and get wide favors from masses. The image of heroine also appeared in these novels, their beauty and brave become unique and beautiful scenery in the legendary novels. In addition to the hero group, the author also describes many other characters, like Gao Qiu, Qin Hhi, Pan Renmei etc. these treacherous characters who persecute the faithful and honest also left a deep impression to the readers.In the background of the Song Dynasty,the novels still have unique aesthetic characteristics.This shows up in several ways by shaping the image of the typical noble hero,the fantasy of structure and plot and the tragic color of the novels. The sagas describe real and super art images of heroes.They are typical heroes with shocking artistic force and lasting artistic vitality.These typical heroes show the highest of the sublime.The saga write the extraordinary wonders of the Rise and Fall of the war.The plots are thrilling and bizarre and the article content varies.The extraordinary wonders and the variable stories of saga works results in a strong artistic appeal.The Hero legends written in the background of Song Dynasty have rich color of tragedy.Home subjugation breaking sorrow,the moans of the loss of life,the sense of outrage of faithfulness struggle and suffering penetrate in almost all the works.The tragedy of the heroes makes people bitter and grief most.The tragedy of the hero is both a moral tragedy,but also a social tragedy,the tragedy of history,which is the human tragedy if reflected at the deepest level. In turbulent times and dark and decadent society, the people can not grasp their own destiny and resist nothing to get rid of the shackles of long-standing moral.Tragic figures have a magnificent life,but the results were tragic and heroic.What it left to future generations is the intense grief, bitter grief and endless thinking. The Heroic Legends in the background of Song Dynasty showed a prosperous situation from the middle of Ming Dynasty to the middle of Qing Dynasty.The reasons involve the factors of literature, economic, political, ideological, military, etc.There have been a rich literary creation and legends before the legendary hero novels,besides novels, there are operas and various kinds of folk rap form,too. Legendary hero novels combined the Song Yuan story-telling scripts, the YuanMing opera,unofficial history and oral traditional story together, then organized to provide a foundation to the later drama or legendary novels. Through the infusion of national awareness, these novels produced a broad impact among ordinary people. The literary theories of the novel critics promoted the creation of hero legendary.The novel critics,such as Yuan Yuling, Jin Shengtan,Jin Feng, etc, valued fantasy most in Hero Legendary creation and made it distinguished with the History Books strictly,which complied with the law of the Hero Legendary creation,thus leading the hero legend novel creation to a road of healthy development.The development of urban commodity economy,not only created mass readers of the popular literature, but also got prepared for the material conditions for the prosperity of the popular literature,namely the printing and publishing industry boom.Under the conditions of constant mint-marked Hero Legendary novels and expanding of the readers,the Hero Legendary novels boomed.The Ming and Qing Dynasties were a period characterized by political corruption,collusion of corrupt officials,the treacherous court officials in power and persecuting loyal and upright ones,which deeply affected the creation of Hero Legendary novels,by which novelists praised heroes,condemning the evil counselors,showing a distinct political tendency in legendary hero novels. Both Wang yangming's theory about feudalism and literature in the middle of Ming dynasty and the enlighten mental thought in early Qing Dynasy play a large role in promoting the development of legendary novels.