Deformation Narrative And Narrative Deformation Of Pre - Qin Mythology

Metamorphosis is a form of artistic creation, given birth by the enlightenmentperiod of human culture. It is not only a fantasy as a result of the collision betweenlife experience and artistic imagination of the penetration of primitive people’smythical think, and a blossom of appreciation of the beauty in bizarre images, it isalso a reflection of the general life notion, primitive religious beliefs of primitivepeople. What’s more, it is a cultural-psychological structure which condensesintegrity of nationalities. Metamorphosis has a long history in Chinese literature,which can be traced back to the myth of pre-Qin dynasty. Myth, which is a “peak” inthe artistic creation of pre-Qin dynasty, is huge in terms of quantity, and ischaracterized by metamorphosis. Consequently, the thesis takes metamorphosis,which takes up the main body of myth, as the objective of the study, and tentativelyproposed two concepts: narrative of metamorphosis, and metamorphosis of narrative.The thesis tries to lead in from the perspectives of the subject and narratives,discussing narrative types, narrative patterns and rules governing narrative at length.It is made up of four parts.The introduction part is a preliminary exploration of narrative of metamorphosisand metamorphosis of narrative of pre-Qin dynasty, including the deliberation overthe methodology and identification of the three core notions of the thesis.Metamorphosis is a kind of phenomenon in which human beings and heterogeneousspecies (animals, plants, lifeless objects and natural phenomena) inter-transformbetween homogeneous species and heterogeneous species based on some kind of way,in positive or negative situations due to some special cause or any other unknowingcauses. Narrative pattern refers to the stories narrating the inter-transformationbetween human beings and heterogeneous species, covering the layer of stories andnarratives. Stories are oriented towards the contents of narrative pattern, and they takethe inter-transformation between human beings and heterogeneous species as thefocal point. Meanwhile, narratives lay emphases upon the studies on the manner ofexpressions concerning metamorphic utterances of pre-Qin dynasty’s myth, so they are closely related to the pattern of narratives. Metamorphosis of narrative producedon this basis, aims to comprehensively investigate the time of generation, the usageand change of all patterns of narrative of metamorphosis based on qualitative-analysisand quantitative-analysis approaches.Chapter One, the patterns of narrative of metamorphosis of myth in pre-Qindynasty-and they can be classified into six types and seventeen sub-types according tothe contents and characteristics of stories in pre-Qin dynasty’s myth. Totemmetamorphosis is a kind of inter-transformation between human beings and totemobjects which can be represented by animals, plants and natural phenomena, and ithas two sub-types: dynamic totem and static totem. Imagination metamorphosis is akind of subjective image that is a direct analogy on the basis of objective image orthrough some cutting and integrating work on it, and can be classified into two types:hyperbole and analogy. Affection metamorphosis is one in which a mover, stimulatedby some form of emotional factor, driven by inner desires, undertakes metamorphosiswillingly or unwillingly when faced with unexpected plight. It refers to four sub-types:revenge, resentment, scare and compensation. Dream metamorphosis refers to a seriesof metamorphosis related to dreams, and it is featured by two sub-types: omencontained in dreams and connotation contained by dreams. Function metamorphosisis one activity in which a mover adopts metamorphosis to achieve the goals ofexercising witchcraft, executing punishment and avoiding risks. Evolutionmetamorphosis is a kind of comprehensive mode, which put a mover into adiachronic dimension for investigation.The chapter two is narrative pattern of pre-Qin dynasty’s myth. It is aninterpretation of narration on the forms of metamorphic utterances of pre-Qindynasty’s myth and the functional framework of metamorphic stories. On the onehand, it is a study on the grammar of metamorphic narratives, under the help of GreyMaas’ semiotic theory, by means of deducing-inducing, to illustrate the “sixdimensions” metamorphic grammar generated in the course of the metamorphicactivities given by human beings and heterogeneous species to movers. On the otherhand, it is an exploration into narrating structure. According to Eastern and Westerntheories of narratives, the narrating structure of pre-Qin dynasty’s myth can be classified into three types: round-circular type, linear-single type and numerical type.At the same time, it analyzes the syntax (5W or3W) and characteristics of eachstructure in combination with the contents of myth. Thirdly, it offers an analysis onthe perspectives of narrative of metamorphosis, narrating the usage andcharacteristics of omnipotent perspective and the limited third-person perspective ofmetamorphic stories. Fourthly, it interprets the time of narrative of metamorphosis,including the controlling over the order and duration of narrating.Chapter three is the overall dimension of metamorphosis of narrative of pre-Qindynasty’s myth. It explores the whole changing rules of narrative of metamorphosisby means of extracting and synthesizing. On the one hand, it analyzes the transectionof metamorphosis of narrative, taking myth literatures such as ‘And Language’,‘Legends of Mountains and Seas’,‘Legend of Spring and Autumn Century’,‘Zoranzi’,‘Legend of Yi Yin’,‘The facts’, and ‘Poetry of the South’ as objective,doing qualitative and quantitative analyses on the myth concerning the pattern ofnarrative of metamorphosis, summing up the total number of each pattern of mythand analyzing their use of frequency, in an attempt to figure out the time of generation,development and evolution of the patterns of metamorphosis of narrative. On theother hand, it deals with the thorough line of metamorphosis of narrative, in otherwords, it is a summary on the myth of Qin and Han dynasties and legends of narrativeof metamorphosis, the odd stories of narrative of metamorphosis in Wei and Jin etcdynasties, the magic novels of narrative of metamorphosis in Yuan and Mingdynasties, as well as modern fantastic narratives of metamorphosis which is greatlyinfluenced by narrative of metamorphosis of pre-Qin dynasty’s myth in diachronicdimension.