| Literature should reflect the life and thinking of people. However, the writer holds that Chinese traditional literature is to a extent limited in its object of description and subject of creation. Therefore, it is necessary to observe and study the ancient folk literature for a correct understanding of ancient Chinese people's life and thinking. "Shuo Chang literature" is one of the representatives of folk literature. Writer holds an all-round study of Shuo Chang literature should start from two aspects, i.e. the literature works and performing art. It is of high necessity to raise the status of Shuo Chang literature in the history of traditional literature in order to look at the history of traditional literature from a new angle and to get a deeper understanding of Chinese literature. From this aspect, the discovery of "Ming Cheng Hua Kan Ben Shuo Chang Ci Hua"(referred as Shuo Chang Ci Hua below) in Jiading County, Shanghai in 1967, is extremely significant in the Chinese literature history. Shuo Chang Ci Hua embodies works during Cheng Hua year 7 to 14 in Ming dynasty(1471~1478) which was printed by Yongshuntang in Beijing. Now it is kept in Shanghai Museum and regarded as a treasure of Shanghai. Many scholars disputes about the variety and classification of works in Shuo Chang Ci Hua. Considered of its art expression form and main subject, in this thesis it is divided into three classifications for study, i.e. three kinds of historic stories, eight kinds of detective stories and two kinds of religious stories.This thesis first reviews the existing research achievements of other scholars, as well as the process of discovery of Shuo Chang Ci Hua. Chapter 2 describes its background and is divided into three sections. Section 1 analyzes the Shuo Chang Ci Hua; Section 2 studies its writers and readers; Section 3 describes the function of the drawings in the book. Chapter 3 introduces the features of the contents. Its main subject on the surface describes the Confucian view of value and Buddhist view ofmorality, while reflects in depth the opposition and sarcasm on the feudal governing class. The combination of Daoism and folk belief gives the stories a more mysterious and romantic color. There are also many descriptions of ethnic customs such as fortune-telling, divipation, dream-reading, Yuanxiao festival, Hanshi festival, wedding, sacrificial rites, etc.. Chapter 4 is divided into three sections. Section 1 describes the respective features of narrative structures of each classification, i.e. historic stories, detective stories and religion stories. The narrative structure of historic stories features in 4 levels, i.e. start, development, climax and ending. The narrative structure of detective stories consists of two kinds. One is traditional 3-level structure, the other is 4-level structure, i.e. happening, development, climax and ending, "happening" here means "happening of the case"; "development" means "discovery and indictment of the case"; "climax" means "process of solving the case"; "ending" means "settlement of the case". The two religion stories feature in a 3-level structure on the surface, but their internal structure can be analyzed with dual structure, a feature in Korean Pansori, which means to organize the story with a repetition of tense and relax. Section 2 further analyzes the respective narrative structures of each story, and reaches the conclusion that there is a formula of narrative structures. Section 3 describes the differences among the narrative structures, which reflects that the structure is not simple, but full of changes to make the story more attractive and colorful. Chapter 5 emphasizes on the art features of Shuo Chang, and researches rules of forming character's images. Though Shuo Chang Ci Hua features in a combined style of prose and verse, but the part of Chang is more important. Further study of way of using Shuo and Chang reflects their respective functions. The part of Shuo has four functions, i.e. connecting different cases, providing clues and predi...
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