ART AND WORLD IN THE CHINESE SHORT STORY: 'SAN-YEN' COLLECTIONS IN THE LIGHT OF WESTERN CRITICAL METHOD

The hua-pen is the form of short vernacular Chinese fiction that flourished from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The three collections known as the San-yen, published in the 1620's, include 120 of the best of these stories written by various authors of several periods. The art of the San-yen stories has not been well studied; traditionally vernacular fiction was held in disdain and modern scholars have usually chosen other approaches. This thesis is an exercise in the application of Western critical method--especially the analytical method developed by the New Critics in America--to an overall appraisal of the narrative art of a major Chinese genre.;Another formal feature of the hua-pen that might bewilder a non-Chinese reader is what some Western critics call "the peculiar realism" of Chinese fiction. It is a manner of representing reality which blends human experiences with otherworldly phenomena. This fusion of realism and supernaturalism reflects the Chinese worldview in which the ceaseless communion between the living and the dead is seen as an integral part of the total reality. For a hua-pen writer, the return of the dead to the human realm signifies disturbances in the cosmic order as a result of grave human misdeeds. The interplay of the two worlds produces a symbolic insight into man's existential problem as manifested in political, social or moral breakdown.;The most conspicuous formal feature of the hua-pen is the narrator who employs a storytelling method and rhetoric derived from traditional Chinese oral fiction. Typically, he begins with a preamble (introductory poems or tale), which serves as an anticipatory comment on the main story. The prologue is echoed by an epilogue, usually a poem summarizing the meaning of the story. Gnomic couplets or poems are also used at intervals to heighten crucial incidents. In this way a rhetorical framework is established, encasing the whole narrative and functioning as a moral norm by which the characters' behavior can be measured and judged. The dramatic action of the story ("the fictional microcosm") is set within the normative superstructure ("the rhetorical macrocosm"). As a result, a hua-pen author is able to control firmly the meaning of his story and to convey his vision forcefully to the reader.