Study On Scholar’s Mentality In Xiaxie Novels Of Early Period In The Late Qing Dynasty

The late Qing Xia Xie novel, also called“the courtesan novel”,refers in particular to the school of novel describing lives ofprostitutes and playactors and springing up during Dao Guang andXian Feng periods in Qing Dynasty. Early in the rising of such novel,novelists would like to describe the emotional entanglementbetween gifted scholars and beautiful ladies in“A Dream of RedMansion”style and narrative mode of gifted scholars and beautifulladies. They entrusted their feelings of life as they freely expressedtheir happiness and sorrow with the strong tendency of idealization,which formed the Xia Xie novel of“rosy”style that is named the earlyXia Xie novel in the late Qing Dynasty in order to distinguish from thelate Xia Xie novel of Shanghai school.Constrained by the particularity of the novel, the late Qing Xia Xienovel always is the weakness of the ancient novel study. As to thestudy on the late Qing Xia Xie novel, most people contemporary putparticular emphasis on the single novel, especially on the late QingXia Xie novel of Shanghai school represented by Sing-song Girls ofShanghai, while studies on the schools of the whole early and lateQing Xia Xie novels are less. As a school of novel highlighting thespiritual pursuit, the late Qing Xia Xie novel wrote lives of scolars’ indulging in dallying with prostitutes and playactors as well as thehard choices and spiritual ups and downs of scholars of onegeneration in the tremendous historical changes. From the studiesavailable now, there is hardly any achivement in exploring scholar’smentality from the inside of Xia Xie novel. On that account, based onthe the textual details of the Xia Xie novel, this paper will interpretethe scholar’s mentality in the novel by combining the specificconditions of historical and cultural changes in the late Qing Dynasty.However, due to the huge number of late Qing Xia Xie novels, differenttones between the early and late works and the writer’s limited timeand energy, this paper chooses the scholar’s mentality in early Xia Xienovels in the late Qing Dynasty as the research object, expecting tointerprete the relationship between the traditional concept and theliterary and culcural narration, and to comprehend the developmentof sholar’s mentality and coping strategies in the turbulent late Qingfrom different perspectives, by means of probing into the scholars’complex mentality during this period. This paper is divided into threechapters. The gist of each chapter is as below:Chapter 1, the intimate connection between early Xia Xie novelsin the late Qing Dynasty and the scholars’mentality. Early Xia Xienovels in the late Qing Dynasty and the social and cultual contextwhere scholars lived are briefly introduced, the concept of“scholars”defined and the interaction between early Xia Xie novelsin the late Qing Dynasty and the scholars’mentality analyzed indetail.Chapter 2, tradition and anti-tradition: the ambivalence ofscholars in early Xia Xie novels in the late Qing Dynasty. Through various performances of scholar’s adhesion to and alienation fromtradition and of their vacilation in between, the ambivalence ofscholars in early Xia Xie novels in the late Qing Dynasty is revealed.Chapter 3, self-injury and self-help: scholars’ self-compensation inearly Xia Xie novels in the late Qing Dynasty. Analyze why the sholarsruin their own ambitions and how to save themselves in various ways ,revealing the mentality of self-compensation of scholars in the lateQing Dynasty when they were marginalized by the society.