The order of narrative discourse: Problems of Chinese historiography and fiction.
详细信息
- 作者：Lu ; Hsiao-peng.
- 学历：Doctor
- 年：1990
- 毕业院校：Indiana University
- CBH：9109715
- Country：USA
- 语种：English
- FileSize：13250159
- Pages：357
文摘
The dissertation is a study of the interrelations of Chinese historiography and fiction as two kinds of narrative discourse that had a very close relationship in the Chinese literary tradition. The study begins by situating the problem in the context of contemporary Western literary theory on the issues of narrative,history,and fiction. Special attention is given to the ideological,discursive,and institutional factors that have played a role in the definition and characterization of narrative discourse in both the East and the West. The views of Plato,Aristotle,Thucydides,Francis Bacon,Bakhtin,Foucault,Althusser,and Hayden White among other Western theorists on related issues are examined. In China,historical writing was the privileged discourse for epistemological,aesthetic,and ideological reasons. Consequently,historical interpretation was the predominant mode of reading narrative. Its assumptions and methods were carried into the interpretation of fictional texts as well. Extensive discussion is devoted to the Chinese system of bibliography and literary classification,and to the theories of history in Liu Chih-chis Shih-tung and Chang Hsueh-chengs Wen-shih tung-i. The views of the hsiao-shuo commentators in the Ming and Ching are also considered whenever they are relevant. The second half of the dissertation is devoted to the literary analysis of the genre of fictional biography from the Tang period 7th to 10th century) to further illustrate the complex relationship between historical and fictional writings. The formal model of the fictional biography was the historical biography. The biographical form provides a convenient point of intersection to measure both the affinity and contrast between history and fiction. In telling tales of the supernatural and the fantastic,fiction deviated from and subverted the thematic and ideological parameters established by historical discourse. The stories tended to resist historical and allegorical interpretation. Selective fictional biographies by Li Kung-tso,Shen Chi-chi,and Liu Tsung-yuan are closely studied. The conclusion is a consideration of how changing critical paradigms have determined the shape of the study of Chinese narrative in the last few decades.