A Research On Jinyong's Martial Art World

Jinyong's Wuxia (martial arts) novels represent a climax of Chinese folk literature in the 20th century. The rich cultural information they contain is not only a collective parade of traditional Chinese culture by himself, but also bears in it some modern view featuring western value. The combination of modernity and tradition in his novels leads to his outstanding achievement and therefore provides us with an interpretive paradigm of surveying present transitional society and its social and moral values.Errantry, chivalry and martial community (Jianghu) are not only core concepts in Jinyong's stories, but also key elements that arouse cultural association in his readers. They serve as an efficient tool in exploring the mental and value layers as well as the signification of his books. The author chooses martial community as a starting point in this paper and traces its origin. He discusses the relationship between errantry and the world the swordsmen live by analyzing the features, social orders and structure, and ethical consciousness with a view of revealing a Utopia in Jinyong's works. The author emphasizes in his paper that errantry is first of all the main subject. However critics hold different views about its origin. The author expresses his own opinion after reviewing the origin,development and differentiation in the first Chapter. And then he mentions a concept which often causes ambiguity among Jinyong's researchers, the Jianghu. The author tries to clarify the concept of Jianghu from its linguistic source and semantic evolution. Furthermore, he compares and contrasts the differences and similarities in Jinyong's works with other martial art novelists and points out their commonality and idiosyncrasy. In addition, the paper states further that the martial community shares with the lay world some correlations as well as differential characteristics, the most conspicuous of which is the chaos and disorderliness of the martial community that is not law-abiding and order of its society is maintained purely by errant rules which are derived from errantry spirit and civilian ethical principles. In conclusion, the relationship between errantry and chivalry constitutes the analogy of relationship between man and nature, and society. The alternatives and fate of an errant hero symbolizes the fate and future of mankind. The agony, confusion and escapism the errant swordsmen endures in their adventures which is expounded in Chapter V under the title "Errantry and its Tragedy" mean to prove that in the mental agony, escape from the society, the errant heroes are doomed to failure.