On The Tradition And Modernity Of The Travels Of Lao Can

This thesis studies the tradition and Modernity of The Travels of Lao Can.Though the novels of the late Qing Dynasty contains many characteristics of China Classical Novels,it also shows new features.This thesis will discuss the historical transition of the national imagination,lyric modality and the criticism of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China.Therefore,unlike previous studies on literary techniques,this paper tends to discuss the tradition and new changes of novels in a pluralistic perspective.As for the word "Modernity",it is a theoretical discourse of special significance in the study of modern literature in China,referring to the new changes of Chinese literature in the past hundred years.It is similar to the "Modernity" in the western academic discourse on the presupposition of the distinction between "tradition" and "modern".But from the perspective of context,they are very different.This article holds that The Travels of Lao Can,while retaining many traditional features of Chinese classical novels,has also showed some new changes.These changes can be brought into the "modern" view.From the perspective of national imagination,the novels shows the change from "Tian Xia" to Nation-state and Great Harmony.This change began with the change of Lao Can's gazing of self.He constructed the original nation-state imagination in the sea.But this imagination has been interrupted.In the "peach mountain",which symbolizes the political ideal of Confucianism,Huang Longzi prophesied that the revival of Chinese civilization is the complex of the great harmony and the nation state.This phenomenon is a common feature of novels in late Qing Dynasty,showing the entanglement and confusion between tradition and Modernity.Secondly,from the perspective of lyric modality,there are many lyric descriptions in the novel,which reflect "Xing" and "Yuan" in Chinese classical poetics.There is a transfer from the political significance to the personal emotion about the connotation of "Xing" and "Yuan" after Confucius.The lyric modality in the novel embodies this tendency,but it also shows many changes.In the novel,"Xing" is both a modern version of the traditional system of rites and music and a weak response to the political scheme of the late Qing Dynasty,while "Yuan" continued the reflection and challenge of scholars in the late Ming Dynasty about the "history" of the Dynasty's rotation.This change leads to alienation in the novel,which break the "a self-contained lyric vision" of "the complementary structure " or "the principle of parallelism" in Chinese classical novels.Finally,from the criticism and acceptance of the novel in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China,some traditionalists praise the divination of the novel,but some advocates of the May Fourth New Literature,such as Hu Shi and Ah Ying,believe that the novel is scientific,realistic by modern vernacular Chinese.unlike the old school,Hu Shi and Ah Ying thought that the novel is very much like the May Fourth New Literature,but they was confused about the content of the divination in the novel.They subconsciously think that the theme is the most important part of the novel,and fail to see that the divination in the novel is a expression of literary imagination.This imagination of sincere emotion like Schiller's aesthetic game,which is the literary modernity the May Fourth New Literature pursuit.