Wei Novel Transmutation

Story production in Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties linked the past and future in Chinese novel history. During this period, story as an embryo form of novel had gotten a considerable development in form and content, which foreshadowed the appearance of literary tales in Tang Dynasty. This dissertation illustrates the development and evolution of story in Wei Jin Northern and Southern dynasties, giving an outline and evolution rules of the story. The dissertation is composed of three chapters. Chapter one is about stories in the periods of previous Qin Dynasty, Han Dynasties, Three Kingdoms and Western Jin Dynasty. Chapter Two devotes to stories of Eastern Jin dynasty and Sixteen Countries. Chapter Three concerns stories of Northern and Southern Dynasties and Sui Dynasty.Story in Han Dynasty, Three Kingdoms and Western Jin Dynasty initiated novel production in Chinese literary history. Novel's concept and form together with its official record came into being at this time. Especially the concept of novel in Han Dynasty had a far-reaching influence. Various kinds of stories like records of fantasy and celebrity, autobiography, etc. all came about at this period. Stories of Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties also were confined to these types. Artistically, stories of this time were immature, but a few attained certain artistic height.Eastern Jin was a turning point for the development of story, because in Northern and Southern Dynasties, story as an artistic form thrived. Mainstream of story was in the south-Eastern Jin, where stories multiplied in quantity. Stories about celebrity, fantasy and Taoism popped up, and stories of Buddhism came out too. Only the geographical and botanical stories decreased. All these pushed story of Eastern Jin to a boom. A representative story of this period was Tale of Searching Deities. Apart from that, conception of story developed too. Whereas In the North, story was not as flourish as that of in the South. The one worth noting was Wangjia's Tales of Supplements.In Chinese novel history, Sui Dynasty was an era swallowing every artistic property of various kinds of stories. Stories of Southern Dynasty were outstanding in both quality and quantity, Recorded Utterances of Celebrities, Supplement For Tale of Searching Deities, Collection of Youming and a Tale of Hongxiang were their representatives. Stories about ghosts and Buddhism developed the fastest at this time and stories about Taoism still kept its booming. Among stories about celebrity, miscellanies were the best. Stories of Southern Dynasty surmounted previous dynasties and its northern counterpart (Northern Dynasty). In Northern Dynasty, story was not an important literary form and the quantity was small. The only one deserving attention was a Record ofJialan in Louyang. Stories of Sui Dynasty were as colorful as that of Southern Dynasty, getting some new features which were not found in that of Southern Dynasty, though they had not achieved the same artistic elegance as thatof Southern Dynasty. Stories of Sui Dynasty paved the way for the flourish of Tales of Tang Dynasty. Records of Unjustly Treated Ghosts by Yan Zitui and Talking about a Shallow Lake by Yang Songjie were the best.However, there were some demerits in stories of this period. These stories were collectively created works rather than individually created ones. They were elegant lacking strength and sublimity. Most of them were written in classic Chinese rather than colloquial one. And their styles were mainly short stories rather than novels. These points were shortcomings of stories.General speaking, Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties were times of disorder, but were times of harvest for stories. The flourish of novel of later days would be impossible without the development and achievements of stories in these periods. The progress in concept, content and form of story in these periods ushered in the boom of Tales of Tang Dynasty...