Xiaoshuo

Xiaoshuo ( Chinese  小說  /  小说 , Pinyin xiǎoshuō  - "little story") refers to a prose form of Chinese literature . This form of literature, generally by Western literary scholars "Chinese novel called" grew out of oral tradition and enjoyed as opposed to poetry or artful essay in ancient China in a low esteem, since they verschriftlichter vernacular and not in classical Chinese was written . With this little story it was no fame, no office to win. This originally derogatory term Xiaoshuo became over the course of time the generic term for narrative prose and novels in general, but in books like Die goldene Truhe ( Wolfgang Bauer and Herbert Franke ) it is also used specifically for short, memorable narratives that are closest to the correspond to the western understanding of novellas. In addition, a distinction is made between written (see for example the Jingu qiguan collection ) and slang ( Tang period, 7th – 9th centuries) narratives, which only found a written form in the 12th and 13th centuries.

The generic name for the modern novel, which is also known as Xiaoshuo in Chinese, also comes from this tradition.

See also: Oral Tradition , Roman (China)

literature

• Wolfgang Bauer and Herbert Franke (eds.): The golden chest: Chinese novels from two millennia . German paperback publishing house, Munich 1966.