On the Relationship between Ancient Fictions and Early Poetical Notes

Poetical note is a unique style of Chinese critical theory,flexible in form and rich in content.Since Ouyang Xiu,the scholar of Song Dynasty,made the division between poetry and fiction,poetical notes led a path of independent development,gradually evolving from fictions,its matrix.But early poetical notes still recounted the story about the poems and sticked to the principle of providing for chatting materials.Poetical notes share a similar style with anecdote fictions,so it is hard to define both exactly.The complicated relationship between ancient fictions and early poetical notes result from the ambiguous conception and complex content of ancient Chinese fictions and poetical notes' succession from anecdote fictions in form and content since Wei and Jin Dynasties.