Chenwei And The Simulating Story-Telling Novels Of The Ming Dynasty

As one of the traditional mystical cultural forms,Chenwei got developed and popular in Western Han and Eastern Han Dynasties,having a large influence on the politics and culture of Western Han and Eastern Han Dynasties as well as those in Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties.Since Sui Dynasty,Chenwei had been repeatedly suppressed by the ruling class,so it gradually declined.However,divination didn’t disappear despite generations of damage and prohibition,but it entered the folk as an ideology,and formed a special cultural morphology.The divination culture is closely related to the narrative literature,and the races of divination could be usually found in the later narrative literature works.It is rather remarkable that the simulating story-telling novels of the Ming Dynasty focus on daily lives of the citizen class and reflect the folk styles.The study of the simulating story-telling novels of the Ming Dynasty could not only explore the influence of divination on novels but also the survival status of the divination culture in the society of the Ming Dynasty,this has underestimated significance..This paper mainly studies Chenwei in the simulating story-telling novels of the Ming Dynasty.This paper classifies the divination content of the literary works into six types such as prophecy,divination and anthroposcopy,as well as explores the specific manifestation forms of the divination phenomenon and the causes.Finally,this paper discusses the literary functions of Chenwei in the simulating story-telling novels of the Ming Dynasty.The functions of divination in novels are mainly shown in two aspects:Firstly,Chenwei gives play to the intentions of novels,and the author conveys to readers the thoughts of being predestined and karma through the divination power.The novel patterns that use divination for structural planning could be roughly classified into two types:following the destiny and fighting against the destiny and the traces of being fully predestined could be found in such novels.The narrative functions of divination are mainly reflected in three aspects in novels:Firstly,Chenwei plays an important role in shaping the novel characters,which not only adds the divination signs to the appearance description of characters but also shapes some typical images such as necromancers with unusual talents.Secondly,the divination helps to foreshadow,set up suspense,construct the plot and push the plot development.Thirdly,Chenwei is characterized by rich and exotic stories,not only enriching the literary imagination of novels but also adding legendary and magnificent colors to literary works.