The Research On The Studies Of Robert E. Hegel On The Reception And Communication Of Chinese Fictions In Ming And Qing

The Chinese fictions of Ming and Qing always attract the scholars at home and abroad so that the research achievements on this area have been made obviously. Although the Sinologists in the USA did not start to do research on the fictions of Ming and Qing as early as those in other countries did, they have made great progress since 1960s. Robert E. Hegel is one of the Sinologists who were born in the first decades of last century. His research trajectory on the fictions of Ming and Qing accords with the total trend of the Sinology field in the USA. From mid-1980s to the first several years of 21 century, D. Hegel has published his research achievements on the reception and communication of fictions in Late Imperial China. Based on D. Hegel's works published during this period, this thesis aims to represent and comment on his research achievements.This thesis is made up of 4 chapters. The brief introduction before chapter one is to help understand the basic information of the research on Chinese fictions of Ming and Qing in the USA and of D. Hegel himself, as well as the aim of this thesis. As the main parts of the thesis, chapter one firstly represents the research trajectory on Chinese fictions of Ming and Qing of the Sinologists in the USA, including the research emphasis of each period and some important works. Then, this chapter introduces D. Hegel himself and his research achievements on Ming and Qing literature. Chapter two and chapter three represent D. Hegel's research achievements on the reception and communication of fictions in Ming and Qing. As for the reception of the fictions in Ming and Qing, D. Hegel's emphasis is on the analysis of reader and two important factors which have impact on reading fictions, ---illustrations and commentaries. In the aspect of communication, D. Hegel discusses the main medium---"book" and the publishers' great effort in circulating the fictions at that time. Chapter four is to find out the characteristics of D. Hegel's research and point out the lack in it. As the conclusion, the last part of this thesis points out the inspiration that D. Hegel's research gives the Chinese scholars.