『李公案奇聞』 初探

Abstract

『Li Gong’an qiwen』 is a Gong’an fiction published in The 28th year of Guangxu(1902), the end of Qing Dynasty. This novel has been mentioned several times in Chinese literature history, but full scaled study has not been conducted yet. Therefore, this study conducts the basic exploration work on 『Li Gong’an qiwen』, a Gong’an fiction in the end of Qing Dynasty. The overview of event, characteristics and narrative characteristics along with overall bibliography information, such as authors and editions are reviewed. The most important achievement of this work depends on the narrative technique. Since western detective fictions were translated and published in the end of Ching Dynasty, traditional Gong’an fiction authors gradually had felt a sense of crisis. 『Li Gong’an qiwen』 is evaluated to be a work that already accepted the techniques of the then-popular “detective fiction”. Of course, the author may not have attempted to depart from tradition based in terms of enlightenment. It is believed that the struggle of the writer who could not simply resist the tide of the times has brought this result.