A Study On The Prize - Winning Essays Of New Novels In The Late Qing Dynasty

As one of the new hotspots of novel study in the late Qing Dynasty, up-to-day novel competition was an activity for soliciting article with awards held by Fryer in 1895 after a long term preparation.The competition was successfully held and finally 20 pieces of novel were selected as the award-winning articles, among which 15 pieces still exist today and are collected in the volume 1-5 of New Age Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty.This article studies these 15 pieces of works based on the characters of article soliciting activity.The thesis is divided into three parts:introduction, text and concluding remarks, and the text is divided into 3 chapters.It can be found that as novels, they are especially characterized by the mode of subject selection and conception, ideology tendency, setting of characters, and linguistic characteristics. It is neither lack of originality and innovation, nor has obsolescence.Compared with the requirements of article soliciting of Fryer before competition, most of these award-winning articles cannot be completely in conformity with the requirements. In terms of articles without winning a prize, their advantages are highlighted, but fail to constitute a specific and clear selection standard.Combined with the rankings of these award-winning articles as well as the Fryer’s personal experience before and after the competition, the reason that they are awarded as the winning articles may probably be related to that they were more suitable for the needs of "Teaching Material of Oriental Studies", which is required in teaching in America.The "novel aesthetics’", which is corresponding to the selection standard, can only exert limited influence on the novel concept of late Qing Dynasty. However, the selection work itself is still of great value.The exchange process between the authors of articles and the novel concept of Fryer is therefore completed. Some of the articles selected from award-winning articles also influence the novels of Late Qing Dynasty in other forms.