Research On Critique Reception Of "Strange Tales Of Liaozhai"

Qing Dynasty saw the brilliant classical Chinese novel "Strange Tales of Liaozhai", which marks a new peak of China's classical Chinese novels creation. During its creation and the afterwards spread process, people began to accept it. The novel critique, as one of the most traditional and most important acceptance modes, is the record of broad reading feelings on receptors reading recepts, reading capriccioso and appraisement of the works and so on, is the most direct and finest embodiment of the receptor's reading attitude and literary views, which bears a very important part in the reception history of "Strange Tales of Liaozhai". The research on reception of "Strange Tales of Liaozhai" critique will help us to understand the novel theory hereinto, comprehend the literary spirit of different periods, get to know the different attitudes of different readers towards "Strange Tales of Liaozhai" in the spread process and the newly emerging significance under the participation and care of the readers. However, the novel critique of "Strange Tales of Liaozhai" has long been lagging behind other masterpieces as "Water Margin", "A Dream of Red Mansions" and so on. The existing research on critique of "Strange Tales of Liaozhai" is far from comprehensive and systematic, and most of them carry through the discussion from the traditional novel research angle. This paper tries to analyze the reception characteristics of the commenter systemically, from the standpoint of reception theory, and analyze the reception reasons of commenter in details, so as to master the reception track of "Strange Tales of Liaozhai". The main part of this paper can be divided into four chapters:Chapter One, Brief Introduction of Reception Situation on Qing Dynasty Critique of "Strange Tales of Liaozhai". The first part of this chapter will briefly introduce the novel critique. Critique, being a form of literature criticism with Chinese characteristics, firstly appeared in the Tang dynasty, which became prevalent until the Ming and Qing Dynasties when the famous commenter as Jin Shengtan, Li Zhuowu, Zhang Zhupo and so on, while the critique of "Strange Tales of Liaozhai" became an important component of the novel critique in the Qing Dynasty as well. The second part will give a brief introduction on critique of "Strange Tales of Liaozhai". Besides the innominate words of country men or folks, the reception traces that have been handed down can generally be divided into two categories: one belongs to the critique that was made when Pu Songling was alive or after his death, mainly speeches of Pu Songling's friends and family or some fragmented and casual Preface and Postscript and so on, such as that of Gao Heng, Tang Menglai Yu Ji and so on; the other is the professional writers comment, such as that of Wang Shizhen, Fang Shuyan, Feng Zhenluan, He Shouqi, Dan Minglun and so on. Hereon, the paper will put emphasis on the analysis of speeches of Pu Songling's friends and family or the Preface and Postscript.Chapter Two, Reception of Wang Shizhen towards "Strange Tales of Liaozhai". This chapter firstly described the friendship between Pu Songling and Wang Shizhen, then summed up the reception characteristics of Wang Shizhen towards "Strange Tales of Liaozhai" and finally analyzed the reasons of such reception characteristics. Life had never been easy to Pu Songling who had different position with Wang Shizhen. But out of accidental fate, the two began to communicate due to literary writings, while Wang Shizhen gave certain comments on "Strange Tales of Liaozhai" from the content, ideas, characters, forms and so on. Despite a few veiled words, Wang Shizhen held a positive attitude towards "Strange Tales of Liaozhai" on the whole. The reason might be inseparable with Wang Shizhen's poem thought, literature concepts and status.Chapter Three, Reception of Feng Zhenluan towards "Strange Tales of Liaozhai". The first part of this chapter describes the reception characteristics of Feng Zhenluan towards "Strange Tales of Liaozhai", while the second part focuses on the causes of his above reception characteristics. The interpretation and induction of Feng Zhenluan on the grammar of "Strange Tales of Liaozhai", the master of the fictional novel, the affirmation on the characterization way of "The Logical Sequence of Human Beings and the Disposition of Nature", and the exertion of the critique way of "Comparison between the Confucius Classics and History " all reflect the high standard of a professional commenter. All these achievements are closely related to the ethos in Qing Dynasty of advocating the practice of Classical Chinese, the critique theories of vernacular novel in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and his correct understanding on style of the novel.Chapter Four, Reception of Dan Minglun towards "Strange Tales of Liaozhai". At first this chapter briefly sorts out the whole life of Dan Minglun, and then makes analysis and induction on the reception of Dan Minglun to "Strange Tales of Liaozhai", and finally analyzes the causes of his reception characteristics. Similar to Feng Zhenluan, Dan Minglun made professional analysis on characterization, thought, understanding of fictional novels, as well as grammar of "Strange Tales of Liaozhai". The experience of Dan Minglun, the ethos of putting Confucius Classics and history into practices in Qing Dynasty and the ethos of advocating the practice of Classical Chinese and so on all played an important role in his formation of expectation vision.