Yingying Zhuan
The ''Biography of Ying-ying'' (), also translated as the ''Story of Yingying'', by Yuan Zhen, is a Tang dynasty ''chuanqi'' tale. It tells the story of a relationship conflicted between love and duty between a 16-year-old girl and a 21-year-old student. It is considered to be one of the first works of fiction in Chinese literature. Role in history of Chinese literature Yuan Zhen pioneered psychological exploration and possibilities of plot development. His tale mixed narration, poetry and letters from one character to another to demonstrate emotion rather than describe it, making it in one sense an epistolary novel. The work was also innovative because its characters, in the terms suggested by E.M. Forster, are "round" rather than "flat", that is, unlike the characters in the earlier ''zhiguai'' or ''zhiren'' tales, are not built around a single idea or quality, but have the power to surprise readers. Recent critic Gu Mingdong suggests that with this tale, Chinese fiction "came ...
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