A Study Of Qingshi

ABSTRACT: Qingshi, edited and commented by Feng Menglong in the Ming Dynasty, is an important collection of novels in classical Chinese. Feng Menglong classified more than 870 novels in classical Chinese from Zhou and Qin to the Ming Dynasty into twenty four categories with the main thread of "love". He did the compilation and appended his own comments on the selected novels. It is not only an indispensable book to study Feng Menglong's philosophy and thoughts on literature but also a window to understand the socio-cultural ideology in the late Ming Dynasty. Meanwhile there are many excellent love novels in classical Chinese in ancient China. Therefore, it is of great importance to study this book.This thesis makes a thorough and systematic study of Qingshi in terms of the background and conditions of compiling this book, the confirmation of the editor and commentator, the exploration of theme sources and the theory of emotional education, among which the last two are the main concern of this thesis.There are three conditions for the making of Qingshi. The highly prosperous printing industry is the first condition for this book to be printed. Moreover, compilation of novels in classical Chinese on a special topic sets up a popular compilation model for this book. Furthermore, the literature with reverence for love under the trend of revering love constitutes a good literature background for this book.To confirm Feng Menglong as the editor and commentator of Qingshi, the author makes an attempt 1) to sort out the literature in which Qingshi is said to be compiled by Feng Menglong, 2) to contrast the articles with others on the same theme in Qingshi and San Yan, 3) to compare the style, theme, way of categorization and comments in Qingshi,A Brief Collection of Ancient and Modern Jokes and Brain Trust, and 4) to differentiate two prefaces and the comments in Qingshi.To explore the theme sources of Qingshi, one main concern of this study, the author makes his efforts in the following three aspects. 1) The author attempts to verify the theme sources of every novel in Qingshi one by one. The theme sources of more than six hundred articles have been identified, which occupies about two thirds of the total number. 2) Then the author summarizes the characteristics of the theme sources in Qingshi. Two noticeable features are found. One is the theme sources are characterized by the generality and special particularity, that is, materials in Qingshi are selected from various sources but they center around the theme of "love". The other is that Qingshi has a particular liking for the book Tai Ping Guang Ji, Altogether one hundred and seventy novels in Qingshi, about one fifth of the total number, are found in Tai Ping Guang Ji. In addition, the author analyzes the recreation of the theme sources of Qingshi. Qingshi is a collection of novels in classical Chinese, but it is the result of the creative work of the compiler. This kind of creation is not only displayed by compiling and commenting on the whole book but also by reorganizing the materials, deleting and refining the plots, polishing the words and changing the titles as well.The theory of emotional education as the ideological significance of Qingshi is another important concern of this study. This thesis, from the new angle of "nature" and "love" in ancient times, studies Feng's theory of emotional education by comparing different attitudes toward "nature" and "love" in the feudal ethical code and the emotional education. This is mainly carried out at three levels. The first level is on the differentiation of "nature" and "love". There were three theories on this issue, namely, the theory of nature as source and love as presentation, the theory of nature as yin and love as yang, and the theory of nature like water and love like waves, all of which revere reason and depreciate emotion. This is the theoretical foundation for research into the difference between the...