In China the novel did not develop until the dynasty (e.I 201-1 3fiS). The Chinese clas sify their novels under four heads: usurpation and plot : intrigue and love: superstition: and roguery. These romances abound in action, but eharaeterization is less developed. As examples of Chinese fiction, which is of vast extent, there may he mentioned the San huo ehih yen i of Lo which is historical: the Simi Ili of Shill Nai-an( ?). a picaresque novel: and the Hsi eta Chi, which is lensed on the travels of (q.v.) in India. The ling dynasty, which followed the Mongol, produced many romances, most of which are by unknown authors.
Fiction developed in Japan earlier than in China. The first novel of importance is the Genji Monoyatari, a long moaner of love, taiuiun valuable information regarding so ciety about A.D. 11100, fore Ibis t here had been a number of lion0yitiri. or narratives, many of them novelistic in character. such as the Takelori.
l'isuho. and mato. In the seventeenth century Japanese fiction revived after a long period of decline, and though pmnogeaphic in the writings of Saikaku, was purified in the romantic novels of Kindel). Bakin. and Tanehiko. The masterpiece of Kioden is the hind:mina ioshi. a of roguery. of all was llakin, who achieved his best in his l'unzi baritsuki. published in 1s05. although his work is disfigured by extravagancies and impossibili ties—a statement ‘Nhieli holds good of another work of his. perhaps the most famous of all ,Iapanese novels, the llakkenden. which recounts the adventures of eight heroes of semi-eanine birth, who typify the eight cardinal virtues.
The ancient tlrecks had their popular tales, about which little is known. After the glory of their art had departed, there arose in the first centuries of the Christian Era a class of rhetoricians who eomposed long romances in prose. They belonged not to Greece proper, but to Alexandria and the cities of Asia The basis of their romances is an erotic tale. Ac cording to the usual plot, boy and girl lovers are separated, and after countless perils on land and sea among pirates and thieves, they are finally united. There is no attempt at likeness to truth; all is governed by chance. Such are the loves of Theagenes and Chariclea, in the .T,thio pica (fifth century ?), written by a certain llelio dorus. The -Et/iopica is one of a group of romances to which belongs The Marvellous Things Beyond Thule, by Antonins Diogenes (second century), containing an account of a voyage to the North Pole, travels in the sun and moon. and of a descent into Hades; the Babylon ice, by Jam bikinis the Syrian (second century) ; the Ephesiaco, containing the germ of the story of Romeo and Juliet, by Xenophon of Ephesus (third century ?) ; Apollo»ins of Tyre (existing in a Latin version of the fifth century), the original of Shakespeare's Pericles; and Clitophon and Leacippe, by Achilles Tatins of Alexandria (fifth century), abounding in marvels and hor rors duly explained, as in the romances of Ann Radcliffe. Standing by itself is the pastoral
Daphnis and Chloe of unknown authorship, sweet, decadent, and sensuous. The extravagances of Eastern Greek romance, which must have been similar to those of Antonius Diogenes, were satirized by Lucian (born e.120 A.D.) in his True History. Lucian takes his hero into the belly of a whale, on to the morning star. and to the Elysian Fields. A more pronounced realistic aim is found in the (,'olden Ass of the African Apu leins (q.v.), written in Latin. Imbedded in its sensuality is the beautiful fairy tale of Cupid and Psyche. Ancient realistic fiction threw off all restraint in the Sotiricon of Petronius Arbiter, which describes the debauchery of Roman society under the first emperors. To sum up. antiquity gave to the new nations of Western Europe moralized prose tale, a romance constructed on the lines of the epic. an artificial pastoral. the burlesque, and the sketch of contemporary man ners.
Through Arabic literature, as well as through other channels still obscure. Christian Europe be came acquainted with Oriental fiction. The first finished Arabic stories were based on Persian models. Even during Mohammed's life-time, Nadr ibn Harith recounted at tales told by Persian merchants, and under the early Ab bassides the poet al-Lahiqi rendered into Arabic verse the Iranian tradition of Ardeshir and Anosharvan. To the same period belong the lost translation of Bidpai by Rozbill (also called 11)11 all MugatIa), an ancient version by al-Kisravi of the Sindbad story, which version has not been preserved, and ibn Babuya's rendering of the Binbrhist legend of Barlaam and .losaphat (q.v.), which has come down to us. The native Arabic short story was not, however, altogether neglect ed. although the hooks of al-Jahiz (died S69). Aim Bekr ibn abi 'd-Dmiya (died S94). and Muhsin al-Tamil:hi (died 997) are of little importance for the history of the novel. The novelettes in Amide were more remarkable for quantity than for quality, and the erotic poems and stories of al-Sarraj (died 1106) summed up this class of literature during the Ommiad and early Abhas side periods. Arabic fiction culminated in the thirteenth century in the collection of The Thou sand Nights and One Night, usually called the Arabian Yiyhts (q.v.), and in the romance of -Inter (q.v.).