| Abstract |
During Wan-li period there were some novels published at Jinglin and Jianyang bookshops. These books were divided into two columns of words, which were different from the traditional novels with pictures in the upper and words in the lower column. This thesis is focused on the study of the forms, contents, pictures and styles of these novels in order to understand why these books were edited in such way and who the readers were. After research I was found that there were romances in the main column and there were many different kinds of literary works such as jokes, poems, old proses and poetic couplets etc in the other column. They were similar to encyclopedia. These novels could be edited only for the intellectuals instead of the ordinary readers. One reason they read these novels was romances could be a way to escape from the frustration in their real lives. And the other reason is that different kinds of contents were very helpful to their official examinations. So while they enjoy reading the romances, they could also take a look at the other contents and prepare for the examinations. |
