A Study Of The Fables On Liezi

For a long time, the Liezi has not been fully appreciated because it has always been considered as an apocrypha. However, its literary merits still shine.The Liezi contains a large number of fables with great literariness. Therefore, the Liezi, together with the Zhuangzi, are considered as the representatives of the pre-Qin fable literature. This paper focuses on the study of the literary merits of the fables in the Liezi.This paper contains three parts. The first part contains two sections. The first section briefly discusses the development of the Chinese fables and the distinctive features of the fables in the Liezi. The second section is introduction reviewing the present researches and the origin and development of the Liezi.The second part discusses the literary merits of the fables in the Liezi. This part contains two sections. The first section discusses the contents of the Liezi from the perspectives of the controlling idea of "emphasis on vacuity", the profound life philosophy, the wonderful science fiction and the fresh new myths and legends. The second section discusses the artistic features of the Liezi from the perspectives of the rich imagination, the characters with distinct personalities and the twisted yet completed story plots.The third part is the comparison between the fables in the Liezi and the Zhuangzi from their ideologies and literary forms.