Researches On Legendary Novels In The Song Dynasty

Legendary novels in the Song Dynasty are deeply rooted in its specialpolitical, economic and cultural backgrounds, which is an indispensableimportant link with its relationship with legends of the Tang Dynasty, justas the Song poetry in the Tang dynasty, is in front of a magnificent fantasy,insurmountable mountain and sigh with deep feeling only under the dazzlingaura of Tang legends. This article focuses on combing and analyzing of thelegends of Song Dynasty, discusses the social status which brought aboutdeep influences on the legendary novels and shows the overall styles andfeatures of Song Dynasty’s legends.Full text includes seven chapters.The first chapter of the paper is the analysis of cultural mentalityof the author which mainly seek basis from the history books, notes, letters,preface and postscripts, combined with some works reflecting politicalposition, value orientation that focuses and deeply analyzes of showingloving care for legendary writer of Song Dynasty, and senses ofresponsibility and mission. The territory of Song is never as vast as Tang’s and often suffered from invasions from other nations and fallen into enemyhands. And that strengthened the sense of crisis which made the novelistsshow the attitudes of sympathy and pity and conveyed the pains of driftingfrom place to place homeless and miserable. In addition, there are somelegendary writers who are devout Buddhist and they made great efforts todeify the religion they believed so as to achieve the purpose ofself-teaching and mass-teaching.The second chapter is historical themes.The target object thehistorical themes describe is mostly about the emperors, generals andpremiers of previous generations and the queen and maids of the Court. Whatthe novelists choose mostly is the king who failed and was defeated, whichis taken as a mirror for the successors who draw lessons from them to avoidfollowing the same disastrous road. There are also some novels containingmore rich contents which can broaden the readers’visions and enrich ourunderstanding of the history. The third chapter is marriage themes.The themes about love and marriageaccount for more proportions in the Song legends, vividly expressing thecharacteristics of the times. The development of social ideas of SongDynasty makes great impressions on the protagonists in the love story aboutneo-Confucianism. Therefore, there came upon a number of heroines into thereaders. While condemning the fickle heroes who fail to be loyal to theirloves, the novelists are eager for the true love and also praise the partiesin the love story who are persistent, responsible and undertaken for thelove. What makes deep impressions on the readers in Song legends is mostlywomen, some of whom are prostitutes fallen into the bogs and fairy fox ghostswho have the artistic features of romanticism.The fourth chapter is gods and spirits theme. The theme of gods andspirits mainly includes the following several cases: Buddhist karma, storyof divine power; story of Ghosts and goblins, story of omen and prophecy.Although the doctrines between Confucianism and Buddhism are different,their ways of pursue of abandoning the evils and doing goods lead to thesame destination. The theme of Gods and spirits constitutes of three worlds:fairyland, the man’s world and the nether world. Fairyland is the specialspace that Taoists try to flaunt in order to arouse the common people’sendless yearning. The nether world is a place to punish sins where brutalpenalties are used to alert the common people to abandon the evils to dogoods.Chapter5of the paper is about the exploration of artisticcharacteristics of Song legends. Legendary novels of Song Dynasty hadmeticulous environmental descriptions. The people in Song Dynasty havetreat learning and legends exactly have synthesis of various styles,emerging the phenomenon in which the novels are based on talents andlearning and greatly decorated with verse, ditties, odes and songs. It maybe said that the descendants get both praise and blame.Chapter6of the paper discusses the issues of the appreciation of thebeauty and shows the aesthetic pursue on the shaping of characters. Thecity stratum in Song Dynasty is growing stronger and stronger and all kindsof folk arts also rise quickly which greatly effect on the legendary novelsand make them present the secularization tendency. Chapter7of the paper is about that the legendary novels of Song Dynastyis the inheritance and development of the novels of Tang Dynasty and theinfluences on the later generations.