Representation of the spatio-temporal narrative of The Tale of Li Wa李娃传

This paper posits a framework of digital models integrating spatial narrative theories to represent the narrative and its experience of a Chinese classical novel, The Tale of Li Wa, which has been diversely interpreted by literary critics and historians for approximately 900 years. In the proposed framework of “Time–Space–time–Space,” the spatio–temporal information derived from the text of the novel and its author is extracted and fused to map the instantaneous spatial pattern perceived by readers in the flow of read time, which helps contemporary readers re-understand the classical narrative and its context through a multi-possibilities, integrated, and in-depth approach. The paper presents one possible interpretation of the novel in the framework organized by the authors, illustrating the theme of growth with respect to the male protagonist in the capital Chang’an via the “what-how-why” model.