Ancient Myths and the Construction of Regional Literary History--The General History of Sichuan Literature

摘要

The literary study of ancient mythology is a rational and necessary prerequisite for the study of the general history of Sichuan literature in the Pre-Qin period, though it can go beyond the study of literature. Compared with other Chinese regional literatures such as Jing-Chu literature, the insufficiency of the literalization of the early Ba-Shu myth, to some extent, devalues the Ba-Shu literature in the Pre-Qin period and affects its consistence. When dealing with the influence of ancient mythology on the development of Chinese regional literature, including Sichuan literature, we need to analyze the inherent impact of regional mythology on the developing literature using a three-step process: restoring and summarizing the mythological pedigree, uncovering the “conceptual structure” of the mythology, and explaining the impact of the mythology on the developing literature. This paper uses this three-step process to construct the general history of Sichuan literature.