Abstract: The Golden Lotusnarrated the life of an upstart and represented the daily life of Late-Ming dynasty by the story that happened in Song dynasty and had great status in Chinese literature history. Because that the novel gave a vicious and disastrous portrait of the environment and human suffering of that times, it would be regarded as a tragic novel. However, there was no tragedy according to the western concept of tragedy and The Golden Lotus was not the exception. The paper believes that The Golden Lotus has tragic factors but not is a tragic novel. It discusses the problem in the aspects of Chinese ancient natural environment, the Buddhism influence, the stereotyped narrative pattern of happy ending of Chinese ancient literature …show more content…
(Fang, Y.2007)There is also researcher believes that The Golden Lotus has pluralism topics which includes the worldly affairs, the Buddhist outlook on life and the sex. (Bai, L. 1999) The topic of The Golden Lotus is the reflection and analysis of the human nature especially the evil of human being. (Ma, Z. 2014)There is also the scholar believes that the novel has the topic of the religions of Buddhism and Daoism. The religious topic provide the novel with the morality, the clue of retribution for sin and the special narrative mode. (Wei, C.1999)The papers mentioned above compose the representative opinions about the topic of The Golden …show more content…
The paper On the Social Meaning of The Golden Lotus Tragedy (Zhu, J. 1992), The Discussion on the Tragedy of Classical Novel The Golden Lotus(Dong, F.1991), The Great Tragedy of Society, History and Human Nature: the New Understanding of the Topic of The Golden Lotus(Wang, B.1994) and the paper Understanding the Tragic Consciousness of The Golden Lotus in the Death of Li Pinger(Yang, M.1995)etc all believe that The Golden Lotus is a tragic novel. Although I do not think The Golden Lotus is not the novel of tragedy, the papers mentioned above provide some valuableresearch materials for the article in the following discussion.
2. The Golden Lotus is not tragic novel
2.1 There is no tragedy in ancient Chinese literature history in an accurate sense
There is no tragedy in ancient Chinese literature history in an accurate sense. At least, the theory of the tragedy is proposed by the philosopher Aristotle of ancient Greece based on the development of the drama in his times. If one applies the theory in the analysis of Chinese literature mechanically, he or she would find it is unsuitable for Chinese literature. Chinese literature has the totally different background from that of the western literature, such as in the aspects of culture, religion, politics, economy and history
Emperor of China; Self Portrait of K’ang-hsi should not be read as a textbook or as a completely true historical
The Death of Woman Wang, by Jonathan Spence is an educational historical novel of northeastern China during the seventeenth century. The author's focus was to enlighten a reader on the Chinese people, culture, and traditions. Spence's use of the provoking stories of the Chinese county T'an-ch'eng, in the province of Shantung, brings the reader directly into the course of Chinese history. The use of the sources available to Spence, such as the Local History of T'an-ch'eng, the scholar-official Huang Liu-hung's handbook and stories of the writer P'u Sung-Ling convey the reader directly into the lives of poor farmers, their workers and wives. The intriguing structure of The Death of Woman Wang consists on observing these people working on
What is a tragedy? A tragedy is a drama in which the protagonist is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances. In the play Othello, William Shakespeare uses the literary device characterization in sequence to convey that Othello’s tragic flaw is the main reason that brings Othello to his downfall --- death. The causes of the tragedy of Othello are Othello’s gullibility to Iago, jealousy of Desdemona’s affair, and male pride.
Abusch, T. (Oct-Dec 2001). The development and meaning of the Epic of Gilgamesh: An interpretive essay. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 121(4), 614-622.
In The Death of Duke Ching of Chin, the author provides readers with an enthralling anecdote of the death of Duke Ching in 581 B.C.. The narrator describes the death prophecy of Duke Ching with as much detail as the life he had lived as a ruler. The author’s detailed description of the dream experienced by Duke Ching presents the themes, symbolizing significant aspects that would lead to his death. An ogre came to him in his dream, seeking revenge for the death of its grandsons. The shaman’s prophecy said that he would die before the time of the new grain. He then fell extremely ill and was diagnosed with a disease that is situated above the diaphragm and below the heart. He dreamt about his illness in the form of the two little boys and the physician confirmed it. The presence of the day ping-wu symbolizes the false prophecy the duke believed he had been told too by the shaman, and sentenced him to death. The duke started to eat the grain, however, his stomach swell up and he went for the privy. Fatefully, he fell down the hole and died.
Based on my understanding of the text, something I modern society that compares to the lotus plant could be described as any impairment causing substance that allows for mental manipulation of dullness of the senses.
Ever since, I wondered whether this impression was correct. The goal of this thesis is to satisfy this curiosity and to determine, through textual and visual analyses, if the 1986 television series also carries a Confucian message, or whether it was solely produced for entertainment purposes. This leads to the following research question:
The interdependency between Wu and Buddhism blooms as early as her overtaking of the imperial rule of China. As resourceful and violent as Wu is in securing her title, demonstrated by the empress’s exploitation of the “secret police force to monitor dissident factions,” she is also cunning in gathering support from the ordinary masses, such as the Buddhists and their followers (Bentley 290). She “generously patronize[s] Buddhists, who return the favor by composing
The Sun of the Revolution by Liang Heng, is intriguing and vivid, and gives us a complex and compelling perspective on Chines culture during a confusing time period. We get the opportunity to learn the story of a young man with a promising future, but an unpleasant childhood. Liang Heng was exposed to every aspect of the Cultural Revolution in China, and shares his experiences with us, since the book is written from Liang perspective, we do not have a biased opinion from an elite member in the Chinese society nor the poor we get an honest opinion from the People’s Republic of China. Liang only had the fortunate opportunity of expressing these events due his relationship with his wife, An American woman whom helps him write the book. When
Tragedy is a common genre in many plays especially in Shakespeare works. A tragedy is a play that has a catastrophic event that ends with an unhappy ending or the main
Book I as he demonstrates a way of detecting a man’s true conviction to his moral and
When we think of the tragedy, we think of something bad happening to someone. This cannot be a tragedy. To know what tragedy is we have to take a look at what Arthur Miller thinks of as tragic.
When hearing the word Tragedy, it would not be surprising if several different individuals would immediately think of several unique examples of the word. Perhaps one is an opera enthusiast who immediately thinks of Puccini’s La Boheme. Another is a war enthusiast that thinks about History Channel’s new episode highlighting the harshest and bloodiest battles of World War One. Even a third one obsessed with Greek mythology could generate a handful of examples of tragedy. Tragedy, like love or comedy is a universal theme that can be used to entertain, enlighten and excite its audiences. William Shakespeare, a world renown writer, was a master of this genre writing works, including Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and Hamlet. Another lesser known
We have covered the general accounts of human nature found in Confucianism and Taoism in light of the historical backdrop of the Period of Warring States. Use your responses to the following general questions below as an opportunity to refer either to the Smith text and accompanying assigned scriptures(s), Smith video(s) on China, Confucianism, and Taoism, or any additional material covered in class. Look ahead to the next question on the chun tzu in order to plan on avoiding repetition of answers verbatim within each essay if there are areas of potential overlap.
Tragedy as a form works differently than modern drama when compared to the ancient Greeks. When it comes to modern drama, the main character is usually an ordinary person, someone who is middle class. Where as with Greek tragedy, the main character is someone important and noble, such as a king or queen. Modern drama revolves around everyday problems such as social, economical, or personal conflicts. Greek Tragedies seem to be very linear. It’s mostly about the hero making a bad decision from the beginning of the play, which leads to his or her downfall in the end. Although, they were of higher ranking, ancient Greek’s beliefs made the main character powerless to avoid their fate, which was controlled by the gods. As far as conventions go, Greek Tragedies are very unified. The tragedy of the royal protagonist will go through only one time span, a day or less, one setting, and one story. In a modern tragedy, however, the ordinary protagonist’s story goes through multiple realistic settings and a realistic time line. Also, the story would contain multiple plots, which may contain flashbacks.