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Chinese crime fiction
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Chinese crime fiction
Chinese crime fiction (Chinese: 犯罪小说; pinyin: fànzuì xiǎoshuō) is an umbrella term which generally refers to Sinophone literature concerned with the investigation and punishment of criminal acts. In mainland China the most popular subgenre is "detective fiction" (Chinese: 侦探推理小说; pinyin: zhēntàn tuīlǐ xiǎoshuō; lit. 'detective deduction stories', often abbreviated to 推理小说 tuīlǐ xiǎoshuō or 侦探小说 zhēntàn xiǎoshuō).
In the 1950s, crime fiction was dominated by "legal system literature", which included legal system poetry, crime reportage, and works about civil conflicts. The 1980s saw the rise of the less progressive-sounding public security literature, which marked a shift from the ancient and respected "court case literature."
From 1896, Sherlock Holmes was translated into Chinese. During the 1890s-1920s, European-style detective fiction was popular in China.
Between 1949 and 1977, no work of fiction told of crimes committed by the gentry. Crimes were also not reported by the press as the socialist system was not supposed to foster crime. Sherlockian novels were then characterized as capitalist and low grade, arguing they aroused base passions for sex and violence.
During the Song and Ming dynasties, crime fictions varied in themes. Gong'an (crime-case) fiction and swindler stories were considered the most popular subgenres. Written in colloquial rather than literary Chinese, they nearly always featured district magistrates or judges in the higher courts.
The gong'an genre was among the new types of vernacular fiction that developed from the Song to the Ming Dynasties. The plots usually begin with a description of the crime (often including realistic detail of contemporary life) and culminated in the exposure of the deed and the punishment of the guilty. Sometimes two solutions to a mystery were posited, but the correct solution is reached through a brilliant judge.
In the Song Dynasty the growth of commerce and urban society created a demand for a new kind of crime fiction–namely gong'an fiction that focused on entertaining the upper and merchant class. One of the most celebrated heroes of such tales was Judge Bao Zheng, or "Dragon Plan Bao," who was originally based on a historical government official. Featured in hundreds of stories, Bao became the archetype of the incorruptible official in a society in which miscarriages of justice in favour of the rich and powerful were all too common. Not all crime stories have happy endings, and some were evidently written with the aim of exposing the brutal methods of corrupt judges who–after accepting bribes–would extract false confessions by torture and condemned innocent people to death. In some tales, the crimes are also exposed with the aid of supernatural forces.
In the Ming dynasty, the social influence of the merchant class steadily increased as a result of the development of capitalism. As a result of their change of social status, the merchant class demanded more literary entertainment, thus crime fiction featuring merchants as main characters thrived. These stories particularly focused on the way merchants handled money.
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Chinese crime fiction
Chinese crime fiction (Chinese: 犯罪小说; pinyin: fànzuì xiǎoshuō) is an umbrella term which generally refers to Sinophone literature concerned with the investigation and punishment of criminal acts. In mainland China the most popular subgenre is "detective fiction" (Chinese: 侦探推理小说; pinyin: zhēntàn tuīlǐ xiǎoshuō; lit. 'detective deduction stories', often abbreviated to 推理小说 tuīlǐ xiǎoshuō or 侦探小说 zhēntàn xiǎoshuō).
In the 1950s, crime fiction was dominated by "legal system literature", which included legal system poetry, crime reportage, and works about civil conflicts. The 1980s saw the rise of the less progressive-sounding public security literature, which marked a shift from the ancient and respected "court case literature."
From 1896, Sherlock Holmes was translated into Chinese. During the 1890s-1920s, European-style detective fiction was popular in China.
Between 1949 and 1977, no work of fiction told of crimes committed by the gentry. Crimes were also not reported by the press as the socialist system was not supposed to foster crime. Sherlockian novels were then characterized as capitalist and low grade, arguing they aroused base passions for sex and violence.
During the Song and Ming dynasties, crime fictions varied in themes. Gong'an (crime-case) fiction and swindler stories were considered the most popular subgenres. Written in colloquial rather than literary Chinese, they nearly always featured district magistrates or judges in the higher courts.
The gong'an genre was among the new types of vernacular fiction that developed from the Song to the Ming Dynasties. The plots usually begin with a description of the crime (often including realistic detail of contemporary life) and culminated in the exposure of the deed and the punishment of the guilty. Sometimes two solutions to a mystery were posited, but the correct solution is reached through a brilliant judge.
In the Song Dynasty the growth of commerce and urban society created a demand for a new kind of crime fiction–namely gong'an fiction that focused on entertaining the upper and merchant class. One of the most celebrated heroes of such tales was Judge Bao Zheng, or "Dragon Plan Bao," who was originally based on a historical government official. Featured in hundreds of stories, Bao became the archetype of the incorruptible official in a society in which miscarriages of justice in favour of the rich and powerful were all too common. Not all crime stories have happy endings, and some were evidently written with the aim of exposing the brutal methods of corrupt judges who–after accepting bribes–would extract false confessions by torture and condemned innocent people to death. In some tales, the crimes are also exposed with the aid of supernatural forces.
In the Ming dynasty, the social influence of the merchant class steadily increased as a result of the development of capitalism. As a result of their change of social status, the merchant class demanded more literary entertainment, thus crime fiction featuring merchants as main characters thrived. These stories particularly focused on the way merchants handled money.