earticle

영어

Hai Rui(海瑞) in the Ming Dynasty represents upright officials in Chinese history along with Bao Zheng(包拯) in the Song Dynasty. The works of fictions addressing Hai Rui(海瑞) are 『Haigong'an(海剛峰先生居官公案傳)』, 『Dahongpao(海公大紅袍全傳)』, and 『Xiaohongpao(海公小紅袍全傳)』. The earliest version of 『Dahongpao(大紅袍)』 is a book published by Erjinglou(二經樓) in 1813, the eighth year of Jiaqing(嘉慶) Emperor Era in the Qing Dynasty, which is now housed in the British Museum. 『Dahongpao(大紅袍)』 continues the tradition of 『Haigong'an(海公案)』 and turned the story of Hai Rui(海瑞) into a chapter-divided full-length novel. The literary work describes realities of the society and political ideals in the Ming Dynasty, focusing on political confrontation between Hai Rui(海瑞), the upright official, and Yan Chong(嚴崇), a disloyal subject. In terms of novel types, 『Dahongpao(大紅袍)』 shows a combination of biography and political novel. First of all, the novel has three biographical characteristics: a structure of a beginning and end-correlation, a fictional biography, and a conversion from Gong'an Fiction to biography. Next, 『Dahongpao(大紅袍)』 also shows characteristics of political novel. Although it was based on historical figures, it did not cover historical facts and was fictionalized by containing lots of fictional elements. Considering its main framework, the literary work can be regarded as a political novel which used only the names of Hai Rui(海瑞) who represents the faithful subject and Yan Chong(嚴崇) and Zhang Ju-zheng(張居正) who symbolize the treacherous subject, addressing fierce conflicts between the two groups in the background of the royal court in the Ming Dynasty. The characteristics as a political novel are composed of the figures of the loyalist and the treacherous retainer, their political battles, and formal elements of the genre.