The continuity of the martial arts novel in China makes its origins significant. The early martial arts novels also demonstrate the mutual influence of generic categories that are usually treated separately. My study contextualizes the martial romance novel Green Peony (Lu Mudan , 1800) through its manipulation of the oral tradition, popular fiction, and the great Chinese novels.; While most studies of martial arts fiction begin after 1850 with Sanxia wuyi and Ernu yingxiong zhuan, I argue that the martial arts novel began in the oral tradition in the late eighteenth century. The formula also drew on other popular fiction, including the "brilliant and beautiful" romance (caizi jiaren), the historical novel, and court-case fiction (gongan). I examine ten unstudied novels from this period, showing how these influences interacted in the formation of a new genre of popular fiction.; Scholars recognize the influence of the oral tradition on the novel in China, but most research has focused on the great Ming novels and thus has been limited by lack of data. I have discovered the actual oral-derived antecedents for Green Peony and The Picture of the Heavenly Leopard (Tianbao tu). The two sets of texts allow me to investigate how the oral tradition and the novel interacted. The implications go beyond exploring the long-standing question of the oral origins of the novel to examine the changing concept of the novel in China.; Green Peony parodies the conventions of the genres it draws upon, and in so doing makes genre itself the topic of the novel. Both the author and the characters play with conventions. Because the codes which form the core of previous novels---brotherhood, filiality and propriety---are prescriptive, characters either play roles based on them or use them to manipulate others. Rituals in Green Peony parody the values they should reinforce, but also play out the hidden potential in scenes from the Ming masterworks. Thus Green Peony functions as meta-fiction. It shows that literary reflexiveness is not exclusive to the elite novel. Readers accustomed to reading fiction with commentary demand meta-fictional sophistication in popular fiction as well.
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