출판문화의 보급과 지식의 성격, 그리고 17세기 時事 小說

Abstract

This paper is intended to show how the widespread diffusion of printing culture influenced and promoted commercialization of contemporary knowledge and information, and how character of novel and role of novelist revealed in 17c current-affair novel. According as printing culture was prominently diffused after 16 century, publisher of Jiangnan area published whatever were worth getting a profit, such as books for examination, canon, anthology of poem and prose, calendar, travel guidebook, medical book, etc. We can find that contemporary knowledge and information in this trend were commercialized through 17c current-affair novel. Current-affair novel could appeal to reader by dealing with several contemporary and political events at issue. Author of current-affair novel rewrote classic Chinese records and style, and created new vernacular novel which were appropriate for the middle classes of society. Publisher and author advertised their current-affair novel by emphasizing realistic events, annalistic record, collection of vast data. But in fact they revealed character of commercial author by mixing historical fact and fantastical fiction, and by combining political events with love story of character and details of social life. Current-affair novel helped to make reader form ‘imagined society’ by providing them with contemporary knowledge and information like mass media such as newspaper and magazine these days. The character of current-affair novel's author approximated to a popular historiographer, or documentary writer who records contemporary and political events and people, rather than an author who has artistic sense and sharp insight. But current-affair novel showed us that character of novel began to have clearly increasing trend to reconstruct contemporary society and life with the spread of printing culture.