The Contemporary Regression Of Chinese Classical Narrative Tradition

The Protagonist is Chen Yan’s third novel after The Story of Xijing and The Stage Shifters.It was first serialised in the 11 th issue of People’s Literature in 2017,and published in January2018,totaling 780,000 words.The Protagonist can be described as a magnificent realistic novel.As a professional writer with nearly 40 years of experience in Qin Opera,Chen Yan has accumulated rich creative materials in the life of the troupe,and polished his ability of storytelling to a higher level.The Protagonist rewarded the 10 th Mao Dun Literature Prize in2019.This testifies to the success of Chen Yan’s creation principle of “telling Chinese stories in a way that is suitable for Chinese people to read”.Chen Yan’s admiration for Chinese classical principles and traditional culture,becomes the foundation of this thesis.Therefore,from the perspective of Chinese narratology,the tradition involved in this thesis mainly include the historical biography tradition,the classical novel tradition and the folk art tradition represented by story-telling and opera.Chen Yan’s absorption of classical narrative resources can take into account two dimensions of form content and value content.He takes Qin Opera as an important clue for the layout of The Protagonist,inherits the writing principle of historical biography and the narrative strategy of vernacular novel,continues the narrative ethics with Confucian values as the core,which reflects the "holistic influence" of Chinese classical narrative tradition on contemporary writers.The study of The Protagonist not only enriches the current research on the author Chen Yan,but also provides some reference for the continuation of the dialogue relationship between traditional resources and contemporary novels.