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Chinese Long Fiction (Critical Survey of Long Fiction)

Introduction

In surveying some six centuries of the Chinese novel, from the first major accomplishment, Sanguo yanyi (fourteenth century; The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, 1925), to the novels of the present, some important distinctions must be observed.

Definitions and Traditions

First, a Chinese novel’s style depends on whether it belongs to the tradition of the “old novel” (jiu xiaoshuo)—written before the launching of the Literary Revolution in 1917—or to that of the “new novel” (xin xiaoshuo), written after 1917....

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