An Interpretation of Compilation Purpose of SHEN Qi feng’s

The book Xieduo: A Collection of Short Stories was compiled in the style of self reflection by SHEN Qi Feng in his late years. He adopted the narrative strategy of telling stories concerning himself. He placed those into his works: the reflection of adolescents’ bad habits, disdain for the people who play up to the magnates, desolation of living off others, and the depression that reading was useless. These were put in Xie (narration) and Duo (morals at the end of a story). The stories were characterized strongly by self-comparison. And he revealed them a lot. This, of course, has exerted great influence on the compilation and choice of the subject. Such stories constitute over a half of the book. Therefore, the book was entitled “Xieduo” which firstly expressed SHEN’s own will and enlightened others. The difference from what he intended to express in his early years through collecting stories concerning strange things and immortals the decree that stories turned out to be useless, is that his works in his late years mostly involved the lessons. Accordingly, this work was compiled to be exhortation oriented.