The Research On Brothel Novels Of Song Dynasty

As an important component of brothel literature, brothel novels in Song dynasty reflectthe real brothel life. They not only shaped many vivid and bright figures with differentpersonalities, but they also revealed the colorful brothel life in Song dynasty for latergenerations. Brothel novels in Song dynasty have extensive social capacity and profoundcultural foundation.The core part of the brothel novels in Song dynasty is the figures of the prostitute. Theywere numerous, had different characters and belonged to different types. Some valuedfeelings and loyalty, some attached great importance to chastity and virtue, some were secularand feisty, and also some were patriotic. Compared with Tang dynasty, prostitutes in Songdynasty were also beautiful and versatile; they had the same tragic fate and the wish toconvert. But they also had some new features, for example, their self-consciousness graduallyawakened, they began to pursue the meanings and values to be a human being, and theygained the courage to revolt against fate and go after the true love, etc.The brothel novels of Song dynasty couldn’t come into being without the certain socialcultural environment that they lived by. There are lots of elements influenced the creation ofbrothel novels, such as the basic state policy-“admiring literature and restraining militaryforce”; highly prosperous commodity economy; the rising of city and citizen stratum; colorfulsocial life as well as the unique “Song dynasty’s culture”, for example, the prosperity ofneo-Confucianism, the flourish of religion, the emerging of Song poetry and so on. All ofthose elements together brought the obvious tendency of secularization for brothel novels, andmade them inundated with neo-Confucianism and religion color. As a result, brothel novels inSong dynasty have a strong lecturing tone and a significant different art style compared withTang dynasty.The creation of brothel novels in Song dynasty also has a close connection with literati’scultural mentality which generated in that certain environment. Dallying with prostitutes prevailed in Song dynasty, which helped generate the brothel complex, and then stimulatedliterati’s passion to create brothel novels. Nevertheless, the prosperity of neo-Confucianism,especially the thought-upholding justice and annihilating desire-had increasingly permeatedmen’s mind and the constraint of the concept-writing delivering ethics-put the literati in adilemma between emotion and reason, and thus lead to the mind distortion of male writers inSong dynasty, which resulted in the production of distorted brothel novels.The brothel novels in Song dynasty were created by male writers. Those writers shapedprostitute figure from the male prospective and according to the male aesthetic standard, theyendowed the prostitutes with humble social status and the novels are filled with the thoughtthat “male superiority to female”. Male gender discrimination and oppression against femalecan be seen everywhere in those novels. Therefore, brothel novels in Song dynasty were theoutcome of masculine consciousness as well as the symbol of female’s tragic fate in thepatriarchal society. In the meantime, these novels show the awakening of femaleself-consciousness, their courage to pursue for independence, freedom, fortune and the libertyof love and marriage, etc. So this kind of novel also has a certain historical progress as anexistence of literature.