Research On The Evolution Of White Snake Story

The "Tale of White Snake" is one of the most famous tales of China. It was a long period containing a lot of information of culture, folk custom and social ideological trend to form such a tale.From Stone Age's dragon-snake worship to the antique snake god myth, history of China's culture concerning snake is glorious. In some stories of Wei-jin Zhiguai, animal sprites turned into human beings to had relation with secular peoples, and such stories developed in Tang Dynasty. The first story of white snake - "Li Huang" -was produced in Tang Dynasty. However, it was in Song Dynasty the white snake story firstly related to Xihu. The story of Huaben and samely named Zaju "Xihu San Ta Ji" is considered the embryonic form of the Tale of White Snake. The earliest tale about the "Tale of White Snake " exists today is "Bai Niangzi Yong Zhen Leifeng Ta" in Ming Dynasty's works "Jing Shi Tong Yan". The plots of the tale were still increased in Qing Dynasty.There are always disputes about "Bai Niangzi Yong Zhen Leifeng Ta'"s production age. This article thinks it was created in Ming Dynasty for the consideration of its characteristics of the geography names, customs, clothing, text, etc. Compared with "Xihu San Ta Ji" and related with the historical evidence of San Ta's destruction, the author believes that the story of Leifeng Ta is evolved from the store of San Ta Ji because San Ta's destruction San Ta Ji lost its basis. Therefore, "Bai Niangzi Yong Zhen Leifeng Ta", even the Tale of White Snake can only be produced after San Ta's destruction, in Ming Dynasty.The most basic difference between the Tale of White Snake and the former white snake stories is its sympathy to the white snake. Though the white snake stories of Tang and Song are terrible, in China, snakes are loathed, and respected as well. That can be proved by antique worship, the believing of snake being good omen, storiesabout snakes' repaying debts of gratitude, etc. This kind of contradictory can be traced back to the dual characteristic of Great Mother, and snake is just the symbol of goddess. Snakes' low status is related to that of women's. But the belief of "the masculine and feminine elements are balanced" in China enable snakes to obtain more tolerance. The ideological trend of late Ming Dynasty affects literature during which love was praised and the status of women was enhanced. Meanwhile, ideas such as "everything has its soul", "everything is equal" developed as well. All those factors promoted the appearance of sympathy to snake.In the west, there is also a story about the snake sprite, the plots are strikingly similar to that of "Tale of White Snake", which is the narrative poem "Lamia" written by English poet John Keats. "Lamia" was originated form India, which provide such a possibility that the Tale of White Snake also has the external factor. This issue is also discussed in the article.