A Study Of Novels Involving Pirates In The Ming And Qing Dynasties

The Japanese Pirate refers to Japanese swarms invading other countries territory. Due to the specific geographical cause, areas along the Chinese coastline had been frequented by the Japanese Pirates in the past, devastating. The Japanese Pirates were very active in Ming dynasty--- During Jiajing years, thousands of them invaded, encroached and occupied dozens of cities one after another year, as destroyed economy, politics and culture of Ming deeply and jeopardized people. Japanese Pirate descriptions are easily found in literature, as an important contemporary social issue, which contributed to the prosperity of Ming novels. The author sorted out about 30 kinds of Japanese Pirate novels. The present academic research is mainly focusing on the separate novels, but not systematically whole research; meanwhile, the research content usually expressed as an abstract conclusion, less in the deeply discussion on the artistic achievements and values. So the exploring of the Japanese Pirate of Ming-Qing period in novels, not only give a new method of exploring of the novels of Ming-Qing period,but also put forward the supplement to the research of the Japanese Pirate in history.There are four chapters in the thesis. The first chapter is an abstract investigation on the Japanese Pirate of Ming-Qing period according to the history record, exploring the background of those novels; through the analysis, this chapter is concluded as the perennial problem is not only within Ming dynasty, which could be comprehended as a series of issues and as materials on literature-history proof; meanwhile, the author sorted out these novels by publishing time and introduced the related aspects on editions, presenting a new perspective.The second chapter makes a total research on the Japanese Pirate issues in Ming-Qing period, as three aspects:first, the serious Pirate problem caused the devastating state; second, the corrupted politics caused the collapse of military discipline; third, soldiers and civilians saved nation. In these novels, descriptions on the destroying of people’s life are profound and the first section is mainly about the seriousness of the Pirates problem and the disaster of the people; as a social problem, it is a result of domestic strife and foreign aggression, the novel also commented on the reason of frequent Japan pirate problem. The second section of this chapter discussed on the political corruption and collapse of military discipline; facing up to the foreign invasion, the discipline should be rebuilt, and soldiers and civilians joined into the fighting against Japanese Pirates under patriots’leading. The third section mainly analyzed the content of salvation of the nation by soldiers and civilians.The third chapter included a classification and analysis on the vivid images related to the Japanese Pirate issue. For its variety and different identities, the images are divided into the Japanese pirates and the anti-pirates. During Jiajing years, sources of Japanese Pirates are complicated, which includes not only Japanese, but also Chinese. This chapter discussed the images of Japanese Pirates separately and studied the both, mainly as the real Japanese Pirates, who were amuck bandits and the fake Japanese Pirates, who were Chinese and their double identities:victims and perpetrators.The fourth chapter is on the research of Ming-Qing Japanese Pirate novels’ artistic features. The Japanese Pirate issue, as a historical problem, was strengthened in the aspect of subjective sensation by the weakening historical sense of fabrication in the novels. Therefore, the artistic analysis are mainly on the special setting in plot, skills of mix of the fiction and reality and the language styles.On the base of the above four chapters, the author expounded the researching value of the Japanese Pirate in Ming-Qing period, which lies the double senses of the theoretical and the practical. This could promote the anti-Japanese Pirate novels’ from socially study to the further historical investigation, and through the comparison between the novel contents and history records, the features of the anti-Japanese Pirate people and their spirits could deeply understandable. The analysis of the related materials is a solution of the controversy on the different nations’ communication under the global economy background, as well as the leading and comparison values.