The Comparative Study Of"Three Words" And "Decameron"

As a collection of short stories，Three Words, although published in the year1621-1627, iscollected and compiled by Feng Menglong, embodying his concept of novel and his dream ofrectifying the general mood of society. Furthermore, the stories have a wide range of sources,covering not only the old stories of Song and Yuan Dynasty but also stories based on classicalnotes, legends, historical stories, drama, and social rumors. Far from a simple work composedin a day or in an hour, it reflects the features of Chinese culture and the era during a ratherlong historical period. Decameron, created in around1350, is the important works of theRenaissance period. In writing, Beccaccio create a complete form of short stories throughenriching the plot, summarizing reality, describing the scene, shaping the character anddepicting psychological activities, on the basis of a simple narrative of short story in theMiddle Ages. Many plots are borrowed form the literature of ancient Greek, Roman,Medieval, India, Asia and Arab, absorbing and drawing upon social legends and anecdotes ofthat time in Europe, including Britain, Germany, France, Italy and other countries. With awide coverage of content, Decameron embodies social and cultural characteristics in the earlyperiod of western Renaissance. Therefore, both works are the reflection of the writer’ idea andthey carry and reflect national culture and ideas of their own time. Though Three Words ispublished two hundred years later than Decameron, similar background contributes to strikingsimilarities in the source of the subject, in plot structure, in themes and in all aspects of idea.Each has become a pioneer in eastern and western enlightenment literature. A comparativestudy of two works is carried out, not only because the two works are produced in a momentwhen a great change takes place in the nation’s history, namely the so-called ideologicalemancipation, a rebellion against tradition; but also because they fully embody the culturetheir represent, reflecting great national cultural differences as well as many similarities.From the perspective of the concept of novel, chapter one of this paper comprehensivelycompares the differences and similarities in Three Words and Decameron and discusses thenational cultural factors that influence the differences and similarities. It also analyzes Feng Menglong’s and Beccaccio’s concepts of novel under the influence of this concept and theirreflection in Three Words and Decameron. Both eastern and western theories of the novel aremature after the maturity of the style of novel. Many studies, carried out in the period of MingDynasty in China and western Renaissance, focus more on the independence of the novel’sstyle, the recreation of the novel and the choice and social function of the content rather thanthe artistic quality. This chapter represents the differences and similarities in Chinese andwestern concept of a novel through exploring the origin of Chinese and western concept ofnovel and take this chance to give a detailed description of the respective background of thecreation of Three Words and Decameron in order to conclude that Feng Menglong andBeccaccio have large identicality and minor difference in the pursuit of popularity, truth andrecreation of art.Chapter two compares the difference and similarity of the concept of deposition in thelate Ming Dynasty and Italian renaissance from the perspective of the concept of deposition.The eastern and western concept of deposition originate from different cultural soil, thereforeThree Words and Decameron have differences in praising or criticizing wisdom and stupidityand in the concept and representation of sex and love, such as the difference in the attitudetowards clandestine love affair and clergy’s attitude towards love affairs. However, becausethey both are produced in an era where humanity is awaken, secularism is deep, thousands ofyears’ imprisonment is loosening and humanity is being emancipated. They have manysimilarities in the concepts of love and sex such as great importance attached to the fun of theworld, hedonism, luxious clothes and food, love affairs, business and profits and wisdom andcreation etc, especially both works show the full approval of the universally virtue and harshcriticism of the odious quality.Chapter Three combs the description of death in detail and summarizes the concept oflife and death represented in the two works in order to find out the evidence from theperspective of religion and philosophy and compare the similarity and difference.Three Wordsand Decameron both show the poised attitude towards death, namely in the period of middleand the late of Ming Dynasty and Italian Renaissance. Both Chinese and Italian accept the objective truth that man is mortal, which indicates human’s concept of life and death hasseparated from the concept that objective factors dominant human’s life and death, which is areflection of the transcend opinion about death and attitude of bravely facing death in easternand western religion and philosophy. However, different ethical disposition leads to differentliving habits and pursuits of life and also contributes to the great difference in the concept oflife and death reflected in Three Words and Decameron,such as different opinions aboutnatural death,different pursuits of the length and quality of life, different attitudes towardssuicide,and different concept of familial and individuality and of “communication betweenhuman and God”“exchange between human and God” and “difference between human andGod”. This chapter seeks to combine eastern and western cultural heritage to give areasonable explanation to the differences.Chapter four compares Three Words and Decameron from the perspective of MikhailBakhtin’s carnival theory. Though there exists great differences between eastern and westernculture, they both contain factors of carnival culture. This paper approaches from theperspective of carnival culture, compares the carnival culture, carnivalism’s function andrepresentation in two works and gains certain enlightening thoughts during the process ofexploring the similarities in differences and differences in similarities.Typology Research Theory thinks that in the development of human society and exposedto a similar era circumstance, different countries and nations, even completely segregatedfrom each other, can generate common taste of art due to the same or similar ideology, beautyappreciation and aesthetic experience. Many similarities in Three Words and Decameron arejust a concrete example of the phenomenon of common art taste formed in this similar erabackground.An advantage of this paper lies in the division into four parts. This paper carries out thecomparison and research from different perspectives of the concept of novel, the concept ofdeposition and the concept of life and death, which almost cover the idea of two works. Thena comprehensive view of western and eastern culture according to the carnival theory is givenso that the vertical and horizontal angles are integrated. Furthermore, this paper also demonstrates some creative opinions about the different origins of the carnival culture inwestern and eastern culture, different representation in the two works and other differences ineastern and western carnival culture.