On the Status of "Outlaws of the Marsh"in the Development of Chinese Chivalrous Fictions

The development of Chinese chivalrous fictions saw three stages be fore Outlaws of the Marsh: 1)the appearance of Xia, the person adept in martial arts and given to chivalrous conduct, and the prevailing idea of Xia Yi, having a strong sense of justice and ready to help the weak; 2)the emergence of chivalrous literature, and 3) a rising tide of chivalrous literature. During the last years of Yuan dynasty and the first years of Ming dynasty, there appeared the first successful long chivalrous novel Outlaws of the Marsh in China. With its ideological and artistic contributions, Outlaws of the Marsil served as a solid foundation of further development of Chinese chivalrous fiction. It has also exerted great impact upon later chivalrous fiction as considering its subject matter, theme, plot construction, characterization and general mode of artistic creation.