A Research Of The Intertextual Relationship Between Historical Novels By Jin Rongzhi And China-Korean Culture

This paper makes an in-depth research on historical novels written by Jin Rongzhi, a famous Chinese Korean novelist, through a comprehensive methods and perspectives, which includes various of literary theories such as comparative literature, structuralism, and new historical. Especially an intertextual research between Jin’s historical novels and Sino-Korean Cultural is explored.Jin Rongzhi was born in 1925 in a prestigious town——Yeongyang County, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korean. He went to the private school to study Han culture in his childhood. By traveling around many famous scenic spots in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, he enriched knowledge and developed wisdom. His reading and experience provided rich literary resources for his future novels. At the age of 15, leaving homeland, he followed his parents and went to Heilongjiang Province, then they settled there.He went to middle school and teachers’school in Heilongjiang Province. In the early 1940s, he published literary works on Man-Korean Daily and other newspapers as well as magazines. After liberation in 1945, he became a teacher in secondary and middle schools. At that time, he engaged in literary creation in his leisure time. Just as he began to show his outstanding talent in literature, he was labeled as Right unjustifiably, resulting in political persecution on him as long as 22 years. It was not until the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee he got rehabilitating exonerating. He began to focus on historical novels after re-writing. During 7 years from 1979 to 1986 (he died of liver cancer in 1986), he created three long historical novels (A Sad Thing of Love, Xue Niangzi, and An elegy of Li-Dynasty) and over 10 middle-short historical novels including Shadowless Tower, Gathering Flesh, Venting Anger, and so on. Writing resources of Jin Rongzhi’s historical novels come from three aspects; first, literature and oral materials related to ancient history and culture of North Korean; second, literature and oral materials related to history of cultural exchanges between China and North Korea in the past; third, the author’s emotion accumulated from his own living experience. Therefore, there exist intertextual relationship between all of the above resources and Jin Rongzhi’s historical novels. That is to say, there exist intertextuality between Jin Rongzhi’s historical novels and historical literature of the Korean Dynasty. Dual-cultural features mixing Chinese and North Korean are reflected in Chinese Korean Literature.Most of the historical novels by Jin Rongzhi drew materials from important figures and events of Korean Dynasty ancient history as well as ones of cultural exchanges history between China and North Korean, so his novels has a close intertextual relationship with history and culture of Sino-Korean. The intertextuality includes two aspects; one is the intertextual novels with ancient notes, folklores and tales; for example, the long historical novels A sad thing of Love, Xue Niangzi, and the middle historical novels Shadowless Tower, Silk to Repay the Kindness. These unofficial historical novels took the overwhelming majority; the other is the intertextual novels with official history; for example, the long historical novel An Elegy of Li-Dynasty, which took the minority in novels by Jin Rongzhi.In spite of this, Jin Rongzhi, on the principle of realism, tried his best to reach the real. In order to gain realism, he described not only the historical background, but also paid attention to deal with authenticity and richness of details in novels rather than borrowing history materials romantically. Furthermore, the unofficial historical novels by Jin Rongzhi strive to authenticity of history through smooth language. Also the language in Jin’s novels reflected the features of that time. These characteristics originated from his perspective to historical novel. He took the historical novel as the serious work towards historical heritage and traditional culture, emphasizing that the historical novels should reflect the truth of a specific historical period.The long historical novel An Elegy of Li-Dynasty (manuscripts) by Jin Rongzhi was written according to faithful history stories. The works was written in the history background of the extremely chaotic and complicated domestic and international social historical situation in the end of Chosun Dynasty, which was controlled by Heungseon Daewongun (1820-1898) and Queen Min after Gojong’s enthronement. The works, with sober and objective perspective and realistic strokes, described some historical famous figures including Gojong, Heungseon Daewongun, Queen Min, Jin Yujun, Jeon Bong Jun, Yuan Shih-kai and Ito hirobumi, as well as historical events including Gyeongbokgung Palace Construction, Suppression of the Catholic Church, Treaty of Kanghwa Island, The Seizure of Power by Queen Min, Imo Incident, Return of Heungseon Daewongun, Gapsin Coup, Betray by Japan, Peasant Revolt in 1894, Sino-Japan War in 1894, Queen Min killed by Japan Ronin, Japan-Russian War, Retirement and death of Heungseon Daewongun, Revolution in 1894 and The introduction of the Korean Empire.The imagination of Joseon Dynasty’s declining rapidly and Korean people’s suffering from struggling in the death line were reflected authentically. This works has the feature of official historical novel, which includes 30% virtual,70% reality.Jin Rongzhi was the most outstanding historical novels in the literature history of Chinese Korean. He has written many kinds of literary works in his short literary career; He also wrote many realistic theme works of fiction (long novel The valley of the woman; short story Cuckoo crow night). But his historical novels were the most impressive, having the highest value and status in the history of Chinese Korean literature.He can be called the "father of the Korean historical novel China".