Comparison And Study On Notes Of Yuewei Cottage And Xinqixie

Notes of Yuewei Cottage and Xinqixie (it was originally titled Zibuyu), respectively written in classical style by the Great Two Masters of Qing Dynasty, together with Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling, are entitled The Great Three Classical Language Novels of Qing Dynasty, exerting a extraordinary influence on the history of Chinese Classical Novel.Notes of Yuewei Cottage consists of 6 books in luanyang Xiaoxialu, 4 books in Rushiwowen, 4 books in Huaixizazhi, 4 books in Guwangtingzhi and 6 books in Luanyangxulu, totally 24 books and 1224 stories included. Again, Xinqixie consists of 24 books in Xinqixie and 10 books in Xuxinqixie,totally 1022 stories included. The two made their first appearance in public in Qianlong or Jiaqing era of Qing Dynasty. During that time, Lixu declined but both Puxu and Investigation flourished. Infected by social ethos, Jiyun and Yuanmei fustigated Lixu through their novels, impugning false and absurd Daoxu; the caroling of Qianlong and Jiaqing prosperity didn't lull their reason and thoughts, and although ghosts and fairy foxes were portrayed, they were viewfinders of social fashion, by which various dark-sides, contradictions as well as the absurd phenomenon in the real world were reflected or revealed.As Classical Language Novels, the two follows the type of Six Dynasty; the themes show the features of social life and the authors' substances, inflecting the two masters' different philosophy of life and ideas; as for style, they carry on the features of the traditional classical novels but differ from each other; the causes of such sameness and differences are complicated, they have something to do with culture, fashion, the writers' life experiences, interests, even with some special facts: Jiyun lived a respectable and honorable life, made his novel are best known and studied, however, the enormous influence of Yuanmei's literature achievements made scholars neglect his accomplishments and values.Although the two are either well-known as one of the Great Three Classical Novels of Apparition in Qing Dynasty, they are distinctively treated by scholars in a long term, for they issues a large quantity of writings on Notes of Yuewei Cottage, but comparatively less on Xinqixie. In my opinion, it is necessary to compare and study the two classical language novels in order to summarize classical language novels' features and fruits when traditional culture came to an end. Therefore, I am to survey the two masters' aims and the peculiarities of their works through comparison and study, in the hope of better inheriting and studying the culture of Chinese classical novel.