The Study On The Stories In ChiBeiOuTan

My paper is mainly divided into five parts.The first part is to review the research situation about the artwork ChiBeiOuTan and reveal the significance of the complete, systematical researches did on it. I will comment on the past research in the following three aspects. In the first aspect, I mainly focus on researches made by scholars of Qing Dynasty. Their criticism about it was limited. In addition, these scholars focus mainly on moral and historical value of this artwork, rather than on its artistic value. The second aspect is about the review of researches on ChiBeiOuTan in novels history and commentary monographs after 1949. In this period, the literature value of ChiBeiOuTan gradually went into researchers'view and played an important role in many novel commentary monographs. These criticisms were all short, but their research sights were wider and deeper than before. And they try to analyse the conditions of different versions, the creation reasons, as well as moral and artistic value. It is a pity that these explanations were short and superficial. The third aspect is about the review of disquisitions on this book. The number of these disquisitions is limited and they lack for comprehensive analysis of the whole book. Besides, they all put too much emphasis on"Fantastic Thing"or the relationship between ChiBeiOuTan and LiaoZhaiZhiYi. Because ChiBeiOuTan's has its unique status in novel history of Qing Dynasty and there is little recognition on this book at present, this paper intends to study the story parts of this book. And I hope to stimulate attentions of researchers on the literature value of this great artwork.The second part is to analyze the creation background of ChiBeiOuTan. Firstly, I will study the social environments and family background that Wang Shizhen had lived, and try to find out reasons why so many monstrous stories and also views about the literature origins had appeared in this book. The reasons include the following two aspects: one is the rigorous literature web of Qing Dynasty, and the other is Wang Shizhen's discreet personality born from his bureaucratic family of the Ming Dynasty. Furthermore I will study the whole life experience of Wang Shizhen and creation background of his artwork and find out reasons why he was so absorbed in novel creating and eventually finished the famous ChiBeiOuTan. Finally, I will analyse the creating background about the artwork and make a solid foundation for the following discussion about the literature value of this book. In brief, the appearance of ChiBeiOuTan was not an accident. It was not only the result of social reality but also the result of Wang Shizhen's own pursuit of literature.In the third part, I will accurately count the number of the novels in this artwork and classify them carefully as well as analyses their social and cultural values. There are three kinds of novels in this artwork. The first kind is the novels about building personage's images, which lies a large part. This part analyses these novels from three points of view: the work of recording events, the work of recording words, and the work of recording jokes. There are five different characters in this kind: forth righting men, honest men, supernatural beings,unordinary men and loyal women. The second kind is the novels of recording fantastic stories, which takes more than 50 percents of all and has the greatest literary value in this book. According to their different contents, this kind of novels can be divided into four patterns: spirit and ghost, samara and retribution, oneiromancy and divine, rarity and strange happenings. At the same time, these novels also have a certain influence on the great artwork LiaoZhaiZhiYi. The last kind can be defined as legendary stories. This kind of stories includes loving novels, chivalrous novels and social novels. Although these novels have a small number of the book, they are all wonderful works.In the fourth part, I will study and analyze the artistic value of the novels in ChiBeiOuTan. We can analyse it in the following three respects. First of all, it is the form of the short stories which imitates the style of novels in WeiJin Dynasty. Wang Shizhen was very strict in obeying the formula for creation of the novels in WeiJin Dynasty. These novels are usually short and pithy, which reflect the reality well. Secondly, characters in these novels are all vivid and lively. I will talk about the artistic value on characters'building of ChiBeiOuTan from three viewpointst: living portrait, vivid words and deeds, harmonious atmosphere. Thirdly, I will analyse the terse and fresh language in this book. This language style is based on the poet status of Wang Shizhen and the theory of"Shenyun"which he was initiated. I will talk about this point in the following three respects: the narrative language, the descriptive language and the characters'words.The last part is to analyze the status and the function about ChiBeiOuTan in novels history of Qing Dynasty briefly. The appearance of ChiBeiOuTan changed the literature style of Pu Songling'LiaoZhaiZhiYi which wrote the fantastic stories with the magnificent writing style. And its appearance awakened the literature style of Ji Yun'YueWeiCaoTangBiJi which imitated the style of novels in WeiJin Dynasty. So ChiBeiOuTan play an important role and have a unique value in novels history of Qing Dynasty.