A Historical Overview Of Chinese Mythology In New Period

Since21st century, the effort and exploration of hundreds of mythologists contributes to the development of Chinese mythology as a disdinguished subject. Chinese mythology, which has a history of more than a century, after all of its highs and lows, progresses and setbacks, has finally become mature and begun to shine through in this new century.In1978, when the policy of reform and opening-up came into effect, Chinese society entered a new development stage, the so-called "New Period". Since then, social sciences, including mythology, have begun a new phase of historical development. The historical study of myth and mythology has a fundamental and practical significance to mythology as a discipline. This thesis considers Chinese mythology in the New Period as an object of study. It attempts to provide an overview on this research work during the NewPeriod, which portraits the historical process in this field of study in30years. This thesis is divided to four parts to reveal its overview and conclusions. Chapter one gives a general review of the basic theoretical and interdisciplinary research of mythology. Chapter two comments the academic achievements of research in myth works in the New Period. In this chapter, it embraces not only the collection of mythological materials, but also research on the classification of Chinese mythology, such as thematic myth, mythological images, motif and so on. Chapter three introduces the thriving and splendid minority mythology, and also the study of myth in Taiwan and Hong Kong, which is quite distinct from that of Chinese Mainland. Chapter four summarizes the major achievements of myth and mythology in the New Period from the historical perspective.