MCLC: huaben xiaoshuo (9)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Lily Lee <l.lee at sydney.edu.au>
Subject: huaben xiaoshuo (9)
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It seems apparent that when certain stories became highly popular, there
would be a desire to preserve them for a wider audience and for a longer
period of time. There was always the risk that an oral tradition might be
broken through death of a master. The other factor may lie in the fact
that cheaper cost of printing in late imperial China made it feasible to
publish  material for a non-elite  audience. Both Feng Menglong and Ling
Mengchu were entrepreneurs in the publishing business. The path from an
oral to a written tradition is also seen in the tanci genre,

Lily