Construction And Interpretation Of The Classic Legend Chinese White Snake

The Legend of White Snake is one of the most popular tales in China and it’s also one of the most popular legend among Chinese people. It is known as a classic legend because of its numerous audience, long history and wide spreading. Classic is constructed for a long time for it experiences a long and complex process, which results from the joint effort of several factors.It is worthy searching for the reason why the legend of White Snake still shows a positive developing trend and a stable position as classic, although we are now in the historical context of the integration of the global economy, the increase of industry, and the gradual withdraw of farming civilization. Here, the writer discussed it in three parts: the legend itself, the relationship between ontology and the contemporary inheritance; and gave a cultural interpretation of the classicalization of legend, hoping it could be helpful for the development of more folkloric legend. This paper firstly put forward its definition of specific "folk literary classic" from general "literary classic" according to the previous scholars appropriate opinions and the author’s own understanding. Then it offered a concrete analysis and also a theoretical proof to fix the classic position of White Snake.In the second part of the paper, the author divided and interpret the evolution, development, transmission and inheritance of the legend White Snake according to the different media it relied on. It is pointed out that the oral narration form of White Snake actively existed in the public by folk legend White Snake and folk song White Snake. Oral narration was the starting point of White Snake, and also the "foundation" for the promotion of it. Narration in written form which based on oral narration utilized folkloric original story to proceed writers’ narration. The intervention of popular literature made the plot of White Snake twist and turn, the characters vivid and lively; the intervention of elite literature then made the legend bear the characteristics of the times and speculative meaning. The combination of the two lead the legend into the developing direction of "elegant upgrading". Film and television works of White Snake used the legend White Snake as the prototype, and disposed it in films and televisions by modernization. This pattern adapted to the recreation mode of modern people and stabilize the the classic position of White Snake. Although network narration of White Snake rose lately, but its impact was great. The openness and virtuality could be considered as the return of folk for White Snake. The modern forms on the internet such as hypertext fiction, forum, sequel, caricature and spoof, etc were all applied in the transmission and inheritance of the White Snake, which deepened and extended the intergenerational inheritance mode of it.In chapter three, the author stated that the cultural characters the legend bore was the essence and motivation of classicalization. The legend of White Snake, in forms of marriage between creatures of different species, was a metaphor of the human beings’ living condition and ideal pursuit. Love between people and freaks in the legend profoundly showed out the deep thinking of human beings toward life and human nature, and also concretely revealed the pursuit and yearning of freedom, equality, marriage and carnival of human beings.The fourth chapter mainly discussed the artistic path of White Snake. The author acknowledged that White Snake was promoted as classic for the following three reasons: first, the shaping of typical characters such as White Lady, Xuxian, Xiaoqing and Fahai, through which the bittersweet, love and hate could be seen; second, the structure of narration——the Binary structure, such as "setting ban" and "violating ban","goodness" and "evil","strong" and "weak", which ran through the whole process of White Snake; third, the narrative angle of the legend, which sufficiently embodied the archetypal narration, the "interactive" narration of "small tradition" narration and "great tradition" narration. The classic was constructed by the joint promotion of the three methods.Chapter five mainly discussed the representative creators and works in different historical periods. This paper expected that Feng Menglong functioned a lot in the series connection and secularization of White Snake. The main contributions of Huang Tubi and Fang Chengpei were their transformation of the artistic forms of White Snake and their bringing-in and digging-out of two themes of "predestine relationship" and "unreasoning love". Comparing with Huang Tubi, the contribution of Fang Chengpei highlighted on the beautifying of White Lady, Fang Chengpei almost faded all the evil spirit of White Lady by adding the chapters of "Duan Yang","stealing grass","night talk" and "tower park", etc. The biggest contribution of Lu Xun and Tian Han was that they pulled the old legend into the discourse system of "revolutionary struggle", which implant the theme of "revolt" into White Snake."New White Snake" and "Green Snake" were two different paradigms at present, the former one was an imaginative expression of ideal harmonious life, and the latter one was a counterattack of traditional patriarchal discourse system, which reexamined males in the perspectives of females and initiated the pattern of modern lust writing.The sixth chapter deeply investigated the acceptors of the legend White Snake by the theory of Reception Aesthetics. It found that it not only functioned in the transmission and inheritance, but also had important functions in the construction of new connotations. They could even control the direction of the development of White Snake. More important, the acceptors were sometimes composers or narrators at the same time. Moreover, a few among the acceptors might become the finders of the legend, who can promote the classicalization of White Snake relying on their social status, academic prestige and individual charm, etc. The seventh chapter mainly discussed the present meaning of White Snake, which specifically revealed in "cultural spirit","historical existence" and "material wealth". As for the continuation of White Snake, the author stated that it could turn to three levels: government, public and industry. The government could guide the media, standardize social behaviors and give corresponding support to the projects necessarily; the public might keep up the inheritance of legend by spontaneous behavior narration and conscious organization.In the conclusion part, the author gave her understanding of the classic construction and interpretation. The classicalization of White Snake resulted from the joint effort of folk literature, popular literature and elite literature; from the game of folk discourse, mainstream discourse and even religious discourse; from its acceptance of various paradigms for further interpretation of its essence for its characters of "all rivers running into sea" and "keeping pace with the times"."As a cultural prototype, White Snake still has exuberant vitality. It has not been finalized yet, and it still waits for some creative disruptors, which aims at finding new vigor of traditional prototype from the subversion and deconstruction of itself "; as part of the public life practice, it still has the affinity of "with the people", which actively exists among the people by continuous evolution and development.