On The Ancient Chinese Novel Rhythm

As the high-class expression of formalistic beauty, novel rhythm expresses the vivid and methodic sentiment inside the novel life, and novel rhythm will be helpful to keep readers' interest by stimulating their attention. In terms of the vital significance, it is necessary to pay extra attention to novel rhythm. It is a pity that current study of the theory of novel rhythm, especially the study facing rhythm theory of Chinese ancient novel, is comparatively unsubstantial, which open a biggish study space for us.In order to avoid taking unilateral study means and guarantee getting riper andwider domain and thinking, the first chapter of this paper is applied to integrate Chinese and occidental thinking of study, and to combine occidental narration study which attaches importance to data analysis and systems analysis of academic elements, with Chinese classical novel criticism which pursues improvisational expression and poetic visual analysis. In the process of study, it is emphasized that we should analyze Chinese classical novels carefully at first, and should always pay attention to the characters of traditional culture during studying the presence and development of the rhythm theory of Chinese ancient novel.After comparing music rhythm to novel rhythm, the author establishes a dynamical system of novel rhythm which is composed by rhythm speed and rhythm power. The second, the third and the fourth chapters are used to analyze the expressive mechanism of rhythm speed and rhythm power. Among those three chapters, the second and the third chapters focus on the basic expression ways of the four kinds of rhythm speeds, including fast rhythm expression, jumping rhythm expression, slow rhythm expression and inactive rhythm expression. Generally speaking, fast rhythm expression and jumping rhythm expression can make the speed of novel rhythm fast, while slow rhythm expression and inactive rhythm expression are effectual ways to stay the speed of novel rhythm. The different interlacement and alternation of all above four kinds of rhythm speeds make daedal narration rhythm. Being differ from the data analysis used in rhythm study of occidental narration theory, the analysis aimed at the several kinds of rhythm-speed expressions in this paper focus on the configurable and rhetorical function of every speed mode, especially on the dynamic evolvement of their own and the corresponding relationship to the development of novel conception. In the fourth chapter, the author combines aesthetic psychology of the writers and of the readers to probe into the accumulation, the release and the changing course of rhythm power by using "the trend of writing manner" in Chinese ancient literacy criticism as intermediate and by setting up "the height of human emotion's locomotion" as the standard to evaluate.The fifth chapter focuses on the holistic control towards novel rhythm. The holistic study towards some appointed works should start with the analysis of the total story time, and the holistic rhythm can be scaled by comparing the total story time with the total narration length. As for the extrinsic representation, the layout of Chinese ancient novel rhythm looks like an olive with a thin head, a thin tail and a fat waist. Except for the total story time, subject matter is also an important element restricting the holistic rhythm. With regard to this point, it can be clearly visualized when we compare History Novel rhythm with Human-Feelings Novel rhythm.The sixth chapter is used to seek the expressive characters of Chinese ancient novel rhythm which root in the Chinese traditional aesthetic thinking. The first section of this chapter focuses on the simplex and linear growth of the expression of Chinese ancient novel rhythm, and from two aspects including "establishing the rhythm order by setting up time order" and "establishing single venation of rhythm", the author studies how ancient novelists make complex and tangle-some rhythm expression to be simple and well-ordered. The section of "dialectic of rhythm control" focuses on how novelists can avoid stiffness and disorder in the expression of Chinese ancient novel rhythm. During the concrete process of plot development, Chinese ancient novelists pay special attention to pursue the corresponding combination of plots of different aesthetic style, and by combining those opposite and also coexisting elements, such as masculinity with femininity, development with stillness, ceasing with moving, sparseness with denseness, they unify activity and order of novel rhythm.