In the Ming Dynasty, Hu Yinglin's "Shao's Mountain House" was divided into six categories:
1. intellectual monsters, such as Sou Shen and Yi Shu;
2. Legends such as "Swallow" and "Cui Ying";
3. Miscellaneous records, such as Shi Shuo and Yu Lin;
4. Congtan, such as Rongzhai and Meng Xi;
5. Debate, such as "rat pu" and "chicken ribs";
6. Proverbs, such as family precepts, are world models.
During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Ji Yun wrote the "Summary of Siku Quanshu", which divided the novels into three schools:
"A narrative trivia, a record anecdotes, a fabricated trivial language. 」
Novels in Qing Dynasty can be divided into seven categories: notes, satire, human feelings, intelligence, narrow evil, chivalry and condemnation.
1. Notebook novels are represented by Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio.
2. Satire novels are represented by scholars.
3. The novel of human feelings is represented by A Dream of Red Mansions.
4. Cai Zao's novels are represented by The Mirror Flower Edge.
5. The narrow sense of evil novels is represented by the scar of flowers and moons.
6. Chivalrous novels are represented by three chivalrous men and five righteous men.
7. The condemnation novel is represented by Travel Notes of Lao Can.
May 4th New Culture Movement
Jin Yong established a new format of martial arts novels.
Popular novels have become the representatives of novels in Ming and Qing dynasties, with themes taken from history, ghosts and gods, heroes, world situations and so on. The May 4th New Culture Movement promoted the new route of literary creation, and the types of China's novels also evolved. Intellectuals' understanding of the social function and literary value of novels has upgraded novels that used to be leisure books into tools to promote patriotism, change the atmosphere, enlighten people, attack politics and publicize revolution. This direction actually stems from the idea of reform in the late Qing Dynasty.
Reform novels, such as Lu Xun's The True Story of Ah Q and Diary of a Madman, social novels, such as Ba Jin's Home and Spring and Autumn Annals, and satirical novels, such as Lao She's Zhang Zhe and Zhao Ziyue, have brought a certain momentum to the New Literature Movement, while novels by Yu Dafu and Wen Yiduo have also introduced novel themes with romantic plots.
Russian literature has a great influence.
With the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, 1949 People's Republic of China (PRC) was born, and a new pattern of novel creation appeared. A large number of western novels, especially Russian literary novels, have greatly influenced the genre of China's novels.
Political novels and reform novels were the mainstream of novel creation in 1950s and 1960s. By the end of 1970s, the political movement had ended, and new changes had taken place in the creation and types of China's novels. Among them, the most prominent is the appearance of the novel Wound Literature.
Scar literature novels mainly describe the politics, society and people during the Cultural Revolution, all kinds of crazy phenomena and the pain they brought to people. Representative writers are Bai Hua's Beloved and Zhang Xianliang's Half a Man is a Woman. With the reform and opening up, the theme of social reform reappears in novel creation, among which Zhang Xianliang's True colors of men and Good Morning Friends are excellent works.
On the other hand, the development of literary novels has also produced some very important works since the May 4th Movement. Zhang Henshui founded the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, and his works include "Laughing Marriage" and "Golden Powder Family". In 1930s, Zhang Ailing began to write romantic novels, which was a fashion. Love in the City and The Story of the Golden Lock have had a profound influence on the female writers of popular novels in Hong Kong.
New martial arts novels
In terms of popular novels, Xiang Kairan's Biography of the Swordsman appeared, which was the first martial arts novel. The immortal novels created by Zhuan Xu Lou's Biography of the Swordsman of Shushan and Nineteen Heroes of Qingcheng Mountain are fascinating and representative, which integrate Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Later, Jin Yong's Biography of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man and Biography of the Condor Heroes established a new format of martial arts novels. Gu Long, on the other hand, took a different approach and introduced psychoanalysis into martial arts novels, which made him unique. It's a pity that he finally pursued means and became the last stream.
In addition, novels are divided into novels, novellas and short stories by length. Short stories (also called mini-novels) are also considered as a category.