Course Description

The History of the Chinese Novel.
In this course, we read original texts of the Chinese novels.
You will find great funs from them, and through it, you will understand the development of the idea of Chinese literature.
The themes which we pick up in this course, as follows:
The original meaning of Chinese word “xiaoshuo（小説）”.
The first-ever form of novel in Chinese history, which called “mystery records（志怪）”.
Its evolution in Tang dynasty, “unusual telling（伝奇）”.
The one-man story-telling show（講談）which very flourished in Yuan and Ming dynasties, and its novelization（章回小説）.
“The Four Great Novels（四大小説）”.
……and so forth.