Vernacular Novels And Simulating Vernacular Novels Seen From The Oral Perspectives

The ancient Chinese vernacular novels and simulating vernacular novels are literature styles which were derived from arts of talking and singing. They retain the oral performance trace from the arts of talking and singing clearly. This article regards the vernacular novels and simulating vernacular novels from the Song Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty as the object of study. It attempts to use the Western oral-formulaic theory, such as "formulae", coupled with study patterns of performance theory and thematology, trying hard to grasp the essential characteristic of the vernacular novels and simulating vernacular novels in the folk oral literature tradition. Meanwhile, it'll master the oral characteristic of vernacular novels and simulating vernacular novels, over the various editions'similarity and differentiation of them. Further, it discusses the influence which produced to the oral tradition by writers'intervention, in order to understand "the cooperation" between the writer and the folk storyteller millennia ago.The article is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is an overview of vernacular novels and simulating vernacular novels from Song Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, including their literature shape, extant condition and evaluation. The second chapter analyzes the oral-formulaic characteristics of vernacular novels and simulating vernacular novels, by unifying the Western oral-formulaic theory and the characteristics of Chinese ancient colloquialism novels. The third chapter analyses vernacular novels" editions of all forms, to grasp the distinctive unification between traditional feature and mutable feature of oral traditional materials. The fourth chapter expounds the transformation which writing logic gave to the vernacular novels, as well as oral tradition decline of ancient colloquialism novels since late Ming dynasty.