The Study Of "Psychism Of Guqin" Stories In The Ming And Qing Dynasty

In the ancient times, Guqin was not only an elegant entertainment for the intellectuals,but also it contained significant spirits. The studies of Guqin spirits were more abundant in thelyric literatures, but relatively weaker in the narrative literatures. The Guqin spirits, whichembodied in the narrative literatures, was often appeared along with some supernaturalphenomenon. And this fact consistently appeared in Chinese narrative literatures in decades.In this essay, the stories which depicted using the supernatural spirits of Guqinwere defined asthe “Psychism of Guqin”. The study in this essay was based on the stories of the “Psychism ofGuqing” in the ancient times’literatures. The purpose of this study is to investigate thematerialized apotheosis of Guqin which was reflected in the “Psychism of Guqin” stories, andto analyze the inheritance and transformation of this type of stories in the literatures of Mingand Qing Dynasty.The study of this essay mainly used thematic approach to classify and investigate themotif and origin of the “Psychism of Guqin”stories. The essay contained five parts. TheIntroduction was the recent researches and summarizations of the culture of Guqin and thesupernatural phenomenon in Chinese ancient literatures. The “Psychism of Guqin”storiesconsisted of both Guqin culture and supernatural culture. However, the study which combinedthe two cultures was still rarely seen. Recently, the investigations of supernatural culture thatwas based on the ancient literatures mostly took the narrative literatures as its subjectivestudies. On the contrary, the investigation of Guqin culture put its emphasis particularly on thelyric literatures. In the researches of the narrative literatures, the interests were mainly focusedon the individualized discussion of Guqin culture in the literatures and operas such as “LiaoZhaiZhi Yi”,“A Dream of Red Mansion” and “Romance of the West Chamber”. As a result,the study in this essay which focused on the combination of both Guqin culture andsupernatural culture in the “Psychism of Guqin” stories was innovative and worthwhile. Thefirst chapter illustrated the materialized apotheosis of Guqin among the traditional Chineseintellectuals. By the means of arranging the Guqin spirits in the past dynasties’ literatures, andthe exceptional affection of Guqin in Guqin related documents, this chapter went a stepfurther to analyze that the reasons of the materialized apotheosis of Guqin were embodied inthe apotheosis of the ancient ceremonial and musical culture, the supernatural narrations ofGuqin in the myths and Guqin theories, and of course the “truth conveying” characteristic ofGuqin itself. The second chapter investigated the “Psychism of Guqin” stories that born in theliteratures of Ming and Qing Dynasty. The inheritance of the “Psychism of Guqin” stories was expressed as the inheritance of two basic motifs—the “Hunted Guqin” and the “SupernaturalLove of Guqin”. Moreover, this chapter analyzed the distinguishing features of the type ofstories and the particularappearance that each motif bore in Ming and Qing Dynasty. The thirdchapter focused on the transformation of the “Psychism of Guqin” stories in Ming and QingDynasty. The study deemed that there were two new motifs of “Psychism ofGuqin”-story-study that arose in Ming and Qing Dynasty—“Guqin Spiritualism” and “GuqinChallenge between Human and Ghost”.“Guqin Spiritualism” took the form of the mysteriouspossession of Guqin by the supernatural powers; and “Guqin Challenge between Human andGhost” was depicted as the spirits of Guqin seeking its bounding masters or human and spiritsfalling in love because of Guqin. The fourth chapter gave an account of the origin andtransformation of the “Psychism of Guqin” stories. It generalized that this type of storesoriginated in the mystery and supernatural literatures of Wei and Jin dynasties.This type ofstores shows the worship of Guqin;social environment and the psychology of intellectuals.The conclusion summarized the main thesis and the argument、mrasures and academic valueof this study.