Chinese Humorous Literature Before Tang Dynasties

Humorous literature is a distinctive part of literature, but it was alienated to the orthodox literature and had not been estimated properly for a very long time in history because people paid little attention to humor and buffoonery. When comparing to the west scholars studying the western comedy and burlesque poets, it is a great pity that there have been no important books on Chinese humorous literature up till now.The thesis aims to scientifically arrange and comb the humorous literature works before Tang Dynasty, and discuss the humorous literature in various times combined with the social ethos, mentality of scholars and literature changing so as to reveal the panorama of humorous literature in addition to analyzing the humorous works. The first three parts will discuss the humorous literature from three important history eras. Humorous literature was in the rudimentary from the very beginning to Han Dynasty, and some humorous writers' works laid a solid foundation for the whole humorous literature. In the latter period of East Han Dynasty, the open social ethos made the humorous literature have the first peak. And the humorous works became more in South and North Dynasties. At that time, humorous literature not only remained the true qualities of humor and buffoonery, but also gave prominence to the entertainments and artistry. Because of the humorous works were distributed in various types of literature, it will be difficult to analyze them scientifically according to history eras without any mistakes. The last part of the thesis arranges the humorous works in three types of literature, which are letter, fiction and folk song & proverb, so that the whole humorous literature before Tang Dynasty will be revealed properly and some humorous works in special periods will be interpreted in detail.