Jen Pear

As one early example of Chinese romance novels describing genius and beauty at the end of the ming dynasty, Iu-KiAO-Li was considered as a conscious creation for its fresh and elegant way to talk about love in comparison with the vulgar style of Jin Ping Mei. Its emphasis on freedom of marriage and brave pursuit of love had influenced the writing style of this kind of novel afterwards; and its view of mate choice advocating intelligence of women had set up a new example for this kind of literal creation.Although the critics always held a negative view against romance novel describing genius and beauty, Iu-KiAO-Li had a profound impact on the literature in the later ages for its contribution in bringing light literature from vulgarity to popularity. At present, the academic world has done some researches on certain respect of Iu-KiAO-Li, however the novel has been inadequately discussed as a whole. So that a comprehensive elucidation and re-organization of relevant researches seems to be just in need. On the basis of previous researches, the author presents a comprehensive discussion and investigation about Iu-KiAO-Li from respects of formalism and literary and art aesthetics. The thesis falls into three chapters.Chapter 1 is designed to identify the version, time of publication and the author of Iu-KiAO-Li, on which early relevant studies concentrated. On the basis of a thorough literature review in this respect and the her own interpretation of novel text, the author concludes that Iu-KiAO-Li was finished in the late ming dynasty and early qing dynasty, Dalian Libratory preserves the earliest version known by now and the author was most probably Zhang Yun.Chater 2 discusses the genre construction of characters and its significance. Iu-KiAO-Li broke the traditional mold of romance novel which held that a talented guy should be matched with a beautiful lady by proposing a new view of marriage which suggested that talent is of the same importance as it is to men. Such breakthrough was completed by the genre construction of characters. The author elaborates on the reason and significance of genre construction used in Iu-KiAO-Li by offering detailed analysis on its distinguished way of portraying the characters of the genius and the beauty and comparison with other characters in similar literatures.Chapter 3 talks about the narrative features of Iu-KiAO-Li through analysis on the novel's overall architecture, philosophical groundwork, narrative mode and poetry using. The author suggests that the overall architecture and philosophical groundwork of Iu-KiAO-Li extend from exterior narration into a deeper cultural and psychological dimension, which formed a typical circular way of traditional Chinese writing. The novel leaded the plot to develop by constantly setting obstacles and then solving them. In addition, the novel employed four types of poetry, serving as the medium between the genius and the beauty as well as controller of the narrative rhythm..