Study On Travel Novels In The Ming And Qing Dynasties

Travels, as a common social phenomenon in ancient China, have important cultural significance and this point can be particularly shown in the literary works that represented by the novels. Travels as the themes that favored by the novelists, widely exist in the novels with different themes in Ming and Qing Dynasties. However, for a long time, there still exist some biased and superficial understandings about this theme in the researches and discussions of the literary world. Therefore, this paper will separately list the novels on travels which have distinctive characteristics to systematically discuss their text features and developing trend. Besides, this paper will aslo clarify the intrinsic relationships among all the categories that involved in the novels on travels within the overall scope, so as to redefine and reinterpret them in detail.This paper can be divided into five chapters:Chapter One mainly reviews the changing process of the novels on travels before Ming Dynasty. Taking all the historical periods before Ming and Qing Dynasties as the research scope, this chapter briefly analyzes the novels on travels during these periods, so as to grasp the evolving rules of these novels and understand their text features under different cultural backgrounds as well as preliminarily identify their values in the history of ancient Chinese novels. In addition, after grasping the established norms of the novels on travels in the overall context, this chapter also illustrates and demonstrates the basic features and aesthetic styles of some typical works.Chapter Two mainly discusses the novels on travels of Ming Dynasty that represented by Water Margin and A Journey to the West. Throughout the history of the novels on travels in Ming and Qing Dynasties, the novels which take knight-errants or gods and demons as the leading roles can be considered as one unique style and they are not free from the influences made by Water Margin and A Journey to the West. Water Margin reveals the reality with legendary colours and depicts the knight-errants with travels. It has vivid artistic features and lays the foundation for the later creations of novels, possessing high aesthetic value and cognitive value. However, A Journey to the West has more advantages in the structures, and descriptions about exotic things and the design of characters, plotsand viewpoints, etc.. It should be said that both of them act as the exemplary roles and have profound influences on Chan Zhen Yi Shi and Xi Yang Ji and the other novels on travels.Chapter Three mainly discusses the novels on travels of Oing Dynasty. Oing Dynasty is the last feudal dynasty in China and also a last golden period of the ancient novels. The advocation of novels also brings the rapid development of the novels on travels in Qing Dynasty. With the passage of time, the categories ruled by the novels on travels in Qing Dynasty become various. Many different kinds of novels which take travels as the themes begin to appear, such as Flowers in the Mirrors and Ye Sou Pu Yan which are comparable with Water Margin and A Journey to the West. In addition, the novels on travels with classical Chinese styles also reach their peak Qing Dynasty and some works of higher quality appear.Chapter Four will discuss that travel novels in late qing dynasty out alone. Is China a special meaning in late qing dynasty period of history. In the conventional wisdom and enlightenment thoughts, under the joint action of traveling novel in this period both in terms of narrative mode, substance content by timely the influence of social environment and cultural atmosphere, with significant meaning of innovation, and connected with the traditional travel novels. In the late Qing Dynasty, there also exist a lot of travels in the adventure novels, the condemnation novels and the science novels and so on. The most representative one is The Travels of Lao Can. Influenced by the objective conditions (culture and historical background, etc.) and subjective conditions (creative vision and aesthetic approaches, etc.), the descriptions of travels in The Travels of Lao Can in some ways get rid of the bondage of the old styles and ways of thinking. In contrary, they have certain modernity and to some extent have close contact with traditional novels on travels. Through the inheritance and deconstruction of the traditional novels on travels, the novels on travels in late Qing Dynasty establish an indispensable status in the history of such novels.Chapter Five focuses on analyzing the novels on travels in the cross-cultural field from the perspective of comparative literature. Firstly, it breifly makes a comparison between Chinese and western novels on travels from the16th century to the early20th century. Then it takes the typical western novels on travels as the research objects to make a comparison with such novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Finally, it separately analyzes the travels in The Wizard of Oz and A Journey to the West, so as to comprehensively compare their similarities and differences in narrative characteristics. In addition, for further understanding the unique stylistic characteristics and literary significance of Chinese novels on travels, this chapter also explores the specific causes that resulting in a lot of differences between Chinese and western novels on travels from the natural environment, social structure, cultural background and literary styles and so on.