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The Chinese novel has been an important genre of the Xiaoshuo genre in Chinese literature since the 14th century .

First novels of Chinese literature such as The Three Realms , The Robbers of Liang Shan Moor and The Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en still refer to historiography and historical tales. The Three Kingdoms are still written in Wenyan , while subsequent novels were written in Baihua .

The Jin Ping Mei was a novelty as a moral novel and a novel from private life .

Important categories of the novel that existed in the Ming period are historical novels, robber novels, mythological novels, and erotic novels . These novels were called chapter novels (Zhanghui Xiaoshuo) and came from the oral narrative tradition, the traces of which can be clearly demonstrated: The novels are divided into detailed episodes with numerous protagonists , individual chapters appear as independent, connections are made by individual heroes or groups, and the individual chapters appear at the end as a moment of tension that is not resolved. These novels do not represent stories or connections of motifs, but the characters change constantly and thus connect in different relationships to the plot. The topic of the novel is thus illuminated from a variety of perspectives. Furthermore, the narrator is always present in these novels and a characteristic of the characters is not the mental process, but dialogue and action.

In the Qing period, there were other categories of novels, romance and family novels , detective novels and chivalric novels . From the 17th century onwards there were also novels about talented young scholars and about pretty girls from good homes.

In the 18th century, Wu Jingzi wrote The Path to the White Clouds (Rulin waishi), a satirical novel, and the climax of Chinese fiction was The Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin .

From the end of the 19th century, the first socially critical novels were written, which referred to Liang Qichao’s reform ideas and formed the forefront of the modern novel. Likewise emerged sentimental entertainment novels "Mandarinenten- and butterfly Literature" (Yuanyang Hudie pai) and key novels .

Examples of writers who introduced the modern novel in the 1920s were Mao Dun , Ye Shengtao , Ba Jin, and Lao She . There were strong western influences in modern Chinese fiction, such as: B. Change of narrative perspective , change of time levels, psychological narration, description of the stream of consciousness , absurd and illogical, abstract and alienated elements. Likewise, these modern novels were strongly influenced by autobiographical and subjective features and the figure of the tragic hero .

From 1949 onwards, the Communist Party of China focused the novel on teaching examples and behavior that was worth emulating. The focus here was on resolving a conflict through a positive hero, which was tied to didactic and daily political considerations. It is a normative aesthetic that was largely overcome with the reform policy after the cultural revolution from the 1980s. This literature then also had an international impact and appeared multifaceted and no longer standardized. From this time on, new fictional genres such as the letter and diary novel , science fiction , news novels and entertainment fiction emerged in Taiwan and the People's Republic of China .

Famous writers of the modern period of the Chinese novel include: B. Zhang Jie , Wang Meng , Wang Anyi , Mo Yan , Yu Hua and Gao Xingjian .

literature

Volker Klöpsch, Eva Müller (Ed.): Lexicon of Chinese Literature. CH Beck, Munich 2004.

Roman (China)

See also

literature