The Historical Romance In The Ming And Qing Dynasties And The Imaginative Theories Of Novel

The thesis is an attempt made to analyze the interaction between the historical romance in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the imaginative theories of novel, as the fictional theories generalized from the literary creation affect the historical romance and enhance its steadily development and perfection. Meanwhile, the research done in the course of creation of the historical romance provides the imaginative theories with abundant theoretical materials.The imaginative theories on the meaning of literary style were established and the mature literary style emerged as a result of the interaction between them. Based on the analysis of the relationship between the historical romance and the imaginative theories, this thesis explores the process of development of the historical romance from brief historical narration to artistic integration of the historical facts and imagination, and the evolution of the imaginative theories from its birth to maturity.This thesis consists of three parts, which are illustrated and elucidated with logical organization.The beginning is the preface, which briefly states the significance and perspective of the thesis. Since the historical romance is the first school of Zhanghui novels and fiction is the chief feature of novel in contrast to history, a study made to combine them will certainly lead to profound new findings, when approached from the perspective of tackling the interaction between the historical romance and imagination.Part one is about "the definition of romance". An investigation is made to probe the evolution of " romance" by differentiating two concepts, that is, "historical romance" and "romance" and define the intention and extension of the historical romance. Subsequently, the rule that the historical romance is expected to not onlyrespect the historical facts but also integrate artistically the historical facts and imagination is specified in terms of style in light of both the writer's literary creation and the reader response. Moreover, it is desired to be original in the portrayal of historical figures and events.Part two focuses on "the imaginative theory of fiction before the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the writings under the guidance of this theory". Fiction before the Ming and Qing Dynasties is divided into three categories according to the timeline and property, namely the concept of fiction in the subject of catalogue established in the pre-Qin and Han Periods, the concept of fiction represented by the Tang legend, the concept of fiction represented by the art of "speech" in the Song Dynasty. The theory of imagination concerning the three categories is expounding respectively with respect to the ideas about fact and fiction contained in them and the writing guided by these three categories. The research involved in this chapter concludes that the theory of imagination prior to the Ming and Qing Dynasties were not developed.Part three elaborates on "the interaction between the imaginative theory and historical romance in the Ming and Qing Dynasties" in two aspects. The first concentrates on the influence of the imaginative theory on the writing of fiction by tracing the whole course of the historical romance from its birth, development, flourish to decline, during which the writing of historical romance is developed from popular narration of history to popular novel characterized by the integration of artistic imagination. The second one puts great emphasis on the special contribution of the historical romance to the imaginative theory. A specific analysis of the historical romance in respect to its exploration of the question of fact and fiction is conducted in three stages: adaptation of ping-hua in the formative years, establishment of the style of historical romance during its development and flourish, and diversion of it when being in decline. The conclusion drawn is that the specialcontribution of the historical romance to the imaginative theory consists in both its differentiation of the truth of literature from the fa...