Ancient Hangzhou Novel Study

Hangzhou fiction includes colloquial and classical Chinese fiction that takes Hangzhou as the background of the stories. Traditional Hangzhou fiction flourishes during the Song and Yuan Dynasties and the end of Ming and the beginning of Qing Dynasty. Classical Chinese fiction of Hangzhou before the Song Dynasty can only be taken as quasi Hangzhou fiction, for Hangzhou is mentioned occasionally and thus has no distinctive regional characteristics in the fiction. Hua-pen (the short story in the vernacular) flourishes during the Southern Song Dynasty. Compared with that of the Northern Song Dynasty, hua-pen of this period develops in many aspects, for example, the places of storytelling increases and the consciousness of the style also improves. Plenty of hua-pen of the Song and Yuan Dynasties are preserved till today. At the same time, classical Chinese fiction representing the urban life of Hangzhou people comes out, such as zhi-guai (tales of mystery and the supernatural), zhi-ren (tales of eccentric persons), chuan-qi (tales of the marvelous) and miscellanea. With the collection and publishing of hua-pen in large number, the short stories in the vernacular flourish once again during the end of Ming and the beginning of Qing Dynasty. At that time, there appeared some Hangzhou native writers who wrote pseudo hua-pen and also produced lots of fiction about the West Lake. Zhanghuiti (novels with each chapter headed by a couplet), especially "the Four Masterworks" of the Ming novels, has some relations with Hangzhou, because the writers' native places, the process of the novel-writing and the contents of novels associate with Hangzhou more or less. The fiction such as jian-deng xin-hua (a collection of short stories written by Qu-you), xi-hu you-lan zhi-yu (Records of Scenes of the West Lake), jin-shi shuo (About this Life), xin qi-xie (New Tales of Humor), which were written by the natives of Hangzhou, become representative works of classical Chinese fiction. Hangzhou plays an important role in the history of traditional Chinese fiction.The characteristics of Hangzhou fiction are as follows: the backgrounds of the stories concentrate on the West Lake, Qian-Tang River, the city gate and Buddhist temples; the stories usually take place during the Southern Song Dynasty, which reflects the authors' capital complex; the customs in the fiction vividly represent the daily life of Hangzhou people; the descriptions of the city life show the heavy commercial atmosphere of Hangzhou. The writers had great interest in the regional tales and took rareness as the artistic criterion. They collected materials both in colloquial and the classical Chinese form. As far as the framework is concerned, Hangzhou fiction varies in length and form. The Buddhism not only provides materials for the stories, but also helps develop the framework of "three lives" (preexistence, this life and afterlife). The most distinctive feature in language is the use of Hangzhou dialect, which helps portray the characters in the fiction.