| New Age Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty was the production about the social ills of the late Qing which were concerned by Fryer.In1895, Fryer published "call for new age novels "in "Shun Pao"and " The Chinese Globe Magazine", then he received some entries, there were148presentations when compiled and published in2011, including55fictions and98non-fictions, there were15winning novels,the other35presentations were not winning novels,the non-fiction types included poetry, dramas, essays and arguments.Thus, the New Age Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty were not all novels.New Age Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty was a production of the times,which produced by social environment with internal worriess and external miseries in late Qing Dynasty. The career of newspaper and periodicals were flourishing during the Late Qing Dynasty,The thought of western learning penetrates eastward infiltrated gradually and the Qing government was corrupt and incompetent,which promoted the prosperity and development of the late Qing fiction.The outbreak of Sino-Japanese war in1895,touched Fryer who was preaching in China for34years,he loved China and has long been engaged in scientific translation, religious communication, social welfare and undertakings,he published "call for new age novels" in"Shun Pao","The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal " and "The Chinese Globe Magazine",he hope that fiction could touch people’s hearts and variation customs.The rise of this new novel essay competition has affected more than half of China, received a total of162manuscripts, covering twelve provinces. The activity setted off a wave of emancipation to criticize and expose opium,eight-legged essay and foot binding with the encouragement from Fryer.Contestants reproduced the horrors of opium various,the literary expedition bitterness and women with bound feet plight in19th century by personal experience,or travel horizons,or historical events for the reader.The hazards of opium not only harmed people’s physical health, but also leaded families, shattered country, also the Chinese official was putrefied, the finance was dried up and the military became more cowardly.The poison of eight-legged essay not only imprisoned writers thought, but also blocked the advance of science which became a stumbling block to impede the progress of China during the industrial revolution continue flourishing in the West.The prevalence of foot-binding in China for more than a thousand years,which not only devastated a generation of Chinese women’s bodies and souls,but also impacted of the national overall quality.In order to eliminate the three disadvantages,the competitors had proposed practical recipes for salvation,they called for establishing the opium quit office and natural feet will in China, also they wanted to reform China’s education system, the others suggested that China should learn the advanced science, made a positive foreign policy and advocated western religion beliefs. New Age Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty contained rich contents,recorded the public life of the late Qing Dynasty, imperial examination process, folk culture and even the Taiping Rebellion, Chinese envoys diplomatic and other parties, which could be described as one of the"album" about Chinese society in19th century.New Age Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty had148presentations which included different kinds of stylistic features.It contained novels, argumentative articles, as well as poetry, dramas, song lyrics, slangs and other forms of hybridity style, its stylistic features could be grouped into two categories,one was the traditional novel style, mainly elaborated the three traditional styles:the travel style, the biographical and allegorical novel style; the other one was the argumentative essay style,which discussed three kinds of argumentative essay style:opera style, poetry style and hybridity style. The artistic features of New Age Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty was colorful, it could be summarized two artistic characteristics of the narrative realism and popular features plain language.The value of the New Age Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty not only because of it had really reproduced the harm of opium, eight-legged essay and foot binding.But also because it provided lots of dates in late Qing about the the history,the lower intellects values, the development of the newspapers and western religious dissemination system.Although these new novels at the time haven’t been published in a timely manner, but just observed the impacts of the timing and scope, this event were seven years earlier than Liang’s"new novel"and eight years earlier than the late Qing Four Novels, it have indelible impacts for people’s ideological enlightenment and the emergence development of "new literature".It was the reason why the scholars continued to study and explore the New Age Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty.Of course, there were some limitations and shortcomings due to the different standards of Fryer, the short writing time, the impact of scholars’ own ideological limitations and many other factors.The main performance was that low level of creative works, lacked of innovation, most still used the old body; thin themes,narrow ideological content,formulaic of characters,these also needed objective treat when researched and evaluated the New Age Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty. |
