A Study On Characters In SHUO YUAN And Liu Xiang's Ethical Appeal

Liu Xiang was a learned scholar who was rich in thinking and extensive knowledge in the later Western Han Dynasty. He supported Han and ensured Liu all the time when he was an imperial kinsmen as well as literati and officialdom, but he couldn't get into the main center of government. However, adhering to the spirit of an important courtier, Liu Xiang played the role as a tireless advisor from the beginning to end. His writings were abundant, most of which were created with the reason that he wanted to advise the emperor loyally and tirelessly, such as Shuo Yuan. It was selected as the topic of this paper. In this paper, the writer try to analyze all ancient characters from different ranks and of different types in the book of Shuo Yuan, appreciate author's knowledge and self-cultivation; also try to probe into it's ethical connotation which is in deep hierarchy through the story surface, and explore the ethical appeal that the author like to convey in this book. Therefore, this paper has three chapters, which step by step discusses the characters, the ethical appeal engendered by characters, and the effect of the first two in literature and ethic, trying my best to have some extension on the basis of predecessors'study.Chapter One Unscramble the Characters in Shuo Yuan 370 characters in the book are classified into three types: monarch and marquis, literati and officialdom, and figures from bottom class; then their moral feature is the object of further study. Numerous and complicated historical figures were depicted as nature as though it were living, which is an accomplishment by the author's remarkable art of characterization. The author was adept in highlighting one's personality in some circumstances or in some contrast, and also was good at revealing it by setoff established and the technique to"see each other".Chapter Two Unscramble Author's Ethics as an Implication from Shuo Yuan In the process of researching characters, it is inevitable to realize that the author implicated his ethics in characters."Loyalty and filial piety","kindheartedness and justice","manners and thrifty", are the major contents of author's ethical appeal conveyed from the book and characters. In the entire book's image and language aspect, the author adopted three ways to convey his ethics: revealed directly, implicated wholly and implicated incompletely. On the other hand, author's ethics on the whole put up two big features:"be obedient to classics","be dialectical and flexible".Chapter Three Literary value and ethical effect of Shuo Yuan Shuo Yuan has been unscrambled from the literary and ethical point of view in former two chapters. Here will summarize it's literary value in depicting characters and affecting folk literature, and it's ethical significance ancient and contemporary age.