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I looked for information on novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties to see if they are useful
Novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties
The Ming and Qing Dynasties were a prosperous period in the history of Chinese novels. Since the Ming Dynasty, the literary form of novels has fully demonstrated its social role and literary value, breaking the monopoly of orthodox poetry and prose, and achieving a status alongside Tang poetry, Song lyrics, and Yuan opera in the history of literature. The Qing Dynasty was a period when Chinese classical novels flourished and declined and transformed into modern novels.
Novel developed along with the prosperity of urban commercial economy. Before and after the Song Dynasty, the development of handicrafts and commerce brought prosperity to the city, providing a venue and audience for the development of folk rap art. The ever-expanding citizen class's demand for culture and entertainment greatly stimulated this development, thus giving rise to new Literary style - storybook. Huaben is the original text used by the speaker. There are different genres such as history telling, novels, public cases, ghost stories, etc. It has begun to take shape in the scale of novels. In the process of spreading in the future, new creations are constantly added and gradually mature. The economic development and printing industry in the Ming Dynasty provided material conditions for novels to break away from folk oral creation and enter literati's written creation. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, vernacular novels officially entered the literary world as a mature literary style.
Novel of the Ming Dynasty The novels created by the literati of the Ming Dynasty mainly fall into two categories: vernacular short stories and novels.
The novels of the Ming Dynasty can be roughly divided into four categories according to their themes and ideological content, namely historical novels, novels about gods and demons, novels about world affairs and novels about public cases. Representative works include "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", "Journey to the West", "Jin Ping Mei", etc. "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is based on Chen Shou's "Three Kingdoms". It was adapted and performed by various speakers, and was written by Luo Guanzhong at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. At the beginning, there were no chapters, with only 24 volumes and 240 chapters. The current edition of 120 chapters was revised by Mao Zonggang in the early Qing Dynasty. This book vividly describes the complex history of the war between the heroes in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the rise of the Three Kingdoms, and finally the unification of the world by the Sima family. It has a grand structure, spectacular scenes, and many characters. Some characters are quite distinctive and become representatives of a certain type of characters, such as Cao Cao, Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, etc. But in general, "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" focuses more on narrating historical events than literary creation. The characters tend to be stereotyped, and the language is half-literary and half-white, showing traces of the evolution from history to literature.
"Water Margin" is either written by Shi Naian or co-authored by Shi Naian and Luo Guanzhong. It describes the majestic story of 108 people led by Song Jiang during the Xuanhe period of the Northern Song Dynasty who were forced to go to Liangshan to "do justice for heaven". The history of Song Jiang's affairs is very brief. The original version of the Song Dynasty has titles such as "Green Faced Beast", "Flower Monk" and "Warrior". The story of Water Margin has been circulated among the people. By the time "The Legacy of Xuanhe of the Song Dynasty" records Song Jiang and other thirty-six People gathered in Yiliang Mountain, and the prototype of "Water Margin" had already begun. The story of Water Margin was processed and written into a book by literati on this basis. "Water Margin" has a twists and turns, strong storytelling, and is good at portraying characters in narratives. Li Kui, Wu Song, Lin Chong, Lu Zhishen, etc. have become well-known literary figures among women and children, but there are more fictional elements than "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms". It is China's first full-length novel written in popular spoken language and has great value in the history of literature and Chinese language.
The mythological novel "Journey to the West" is based on the Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang's journey to Tianzhu (India) to obtain Buddhist scriptures. It was adapted by Wu Cheng'en on the basis of folklore and related scripts and dramas. The book is rich in imagination, romantic in technique, and humorous in language. It is a unique and excellent work among vernacular novels. The book creates two popular literary images, the magical Sun Wukong and the timid and selfish Zhu Bajie. The image of Sun Wukong is an artistic summary of the people’s outstanding qualities such as their courage to fight against evil forces and their fearlessness of difficulties. It also entrusts the people’s victory over The beautiful ideals of evil forces.
Published in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, "Jin Ping Mei Ci Hua" occupies an important position among vernacular novels. It was the first work to get rid of the traditional themes of heroes and gods and instead express real daily life. The author mentioned Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng. The predecessors suspected that he was Wang Shizhen, which is not credible. In recent years, Tu Long, Li Kaixian, and Jia Sanjin have also said it, but they lack strong evidence. The book draws on the story of Ximen Qing and Pan Jinlian in "Water Margin" as a clue, and is turned into a long book with hundreds of chapters. Although it is set in the Song Dynasty, it reflects the daily life of northern city residents in the 16th century. The author is familiar with the life of the people and the language of the citizens. He describes the human emotions and the world in a detailed and vivid way, and his language is vivid and vivid. However, the book contains many natural descriptions of bureaucratic landlords indulging in their carnal desires, which affects the value and popularity of the book.
In addition, the more famous Ming Dynasty novels include Xiong Damu's "The Northern Song Dynasty", Guo Xun's "The Legend of the Heroes of the Ming Dynasty", Xu Zhonglin (or Lu Changgeng)'s "The Romance of the Gods", Dong Shuo's "Journey to the West" and Xizhou Sheng's "The Story of Awakening Marriage", etc., all occupy a certain position in the history of Chinese literature.
The rise of public case novels describing unjust prosecutions in the Ming Dynasty was a product of social and political corruption in the late Ming Dynasty. The more famous ones include "The Biography of Mr. Hai Gangfeng's Official Cases" by Li Chunfang, "The Romance of Bao Xiaosu's Hundreds of Public Cases" by Anonymous, and "The Official Cases of Mr. Bao Xiaosu" by Yu Xiangdou, etc., which praise the famous upright officials Bao Zheng and Hai Rui. , Kuang Zhong, etc. However, most of the plots are bizarre and tortuous, artistically rough, often mixed with superstitious descriptions, and promote feudal ethics and moral concepts.
The Ming Dynasty’s vernacular short stories also had a good harvest. Feng Menglong compiled "The Ming Yan of the World" (an "Ancient and Modern Novel"), "The Tong Yan of Warning the World" and "The Heng Yan of Awakening the World", collectively known as the "Three Words", which are included in the Song, Yuan, and Ming Hua editions and the Xihua edition. One hundred and twenty articles.
The themes are mostly taken from history or legends, including old works from the Song and Yuan Dynasties, as well as drafts from the Ming Dynasty. After being polished and processed by Feng Menglong, they reflected the thoughts, life and tastes of the civilian class at that time, and had a great influence on later generations of vernacular novels and operas. It is often referred to together with "Sanyan". The equivalent ones are "The First Moment of Pai Ben Surprise" and "The Second Moment of Pai Ben Surprise" compiled by Ling Mengchu. They are collectively called "Er Pai". Each has forty chapters, one of which is repeated. , a drama, actually seventy-eight chapters. "Er Pai" is not as ideological and artistic as "San Yan", but it was created by Ling himself, and the material selection standards and language style are relatively consistent. In addition, there are more than ten kinds of novel collections written by Ming Dynasty such as "Shi Nods Nodding", "Drunken Awakening Stone", "West Lake II Episodes", etc. But the achievements are inferior to "Three Words" and "Two Pai". In these short stories, the theme of love and marriage plays an important role, and exposing the sins of the ruling class and the darkness of politics is also an important theme. However, there are also a considerable number of works full of dross such as beautifying the ruling class and promoting feudal ethics and superstition of ghosts and gods.
Novel of the Qing Dynasty The class contradictions, national contradictions and struggles in the ideological and cultural fields of the Qing Dynasty had a profound impact on the creation of novels. The period from the early Qing Dynasty to the Qianlong period was the heyday of the development of Qing novels. Compared with the previous generation, the quantity and quality, content and form, style and genre have all developed greatly. The novels of the Qing Dynasty were basically the creations of literati. Although there were references from history, legends and other materials, the works were mostly based on real life and fully reflected the author's personal wishes. They were also more sophisticated in structure, narrative and character description. The state of maturity. "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" and "A Dream of Red Mansions" produced during the Qianlong period pushed the creation of classical Chinese novels and vernacular novels to their peak respectively.
Although there have been new works in classical Chinese novels since the Tang Dynasty, such as "Yi Jian Zhi", "Jian Deng Xin Hua", etc., most of them have simple narratives and insufficient literary talent. Extraordinary peaks. The author Pu Songling uses classical Chinese like vernacular and is quite expressive. Most of the protagonists in the novel are fox ghosts, but their images are cute and full of human emotions.
It represents the highest achievement of classical Chinese novels.
"A Dream of Red Mansions" is a classic of Chinese realism literature. The author, Cao Zhan, also known as Xueqin, is from Zhengbai Banner in Manchuria. Three generations of the Cao family lived in Jiangning and worked as weavers. Later, they were confiscated and the family declined. The book is based on the life of the Cao family, with the love and marriage tragedies of Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu, and Xue Baochai as the main clues. It describes the history of the Jia family from prosperity to decline, and reflects the inevitable collapse of China's feudal society in its final stages. and preliminary democratic ideological tendencies. "A Dream of Red Mansions" has a meticulous plot, real details and beautiful language. The author is good at depicting characters and has created many artistic images with typical personalities, such as Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu, Xue Baochai, Wang Xifeng, Qingwen, etc., and has achieved outstanding artistic achievements. However, Cao Xueqin only wrote the first eighty chapters of "A Dream of Red Mansions". The last forty chapters in the current version are generally considered to be continued by Gao E. There were many sequels to "Dream of Red Mansions" in the late Qing Dynasty, but most of them were sequels to Diao.
In addition to "A Dream of Red Mansions", the more famous novels of the Qing Dynasty include "The Scholars", "The Story of a Marriage that Awakens the World", "The Wizard of Oz", "The Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties", and "The Complete Biography of Yue Shuo" , "The Story of the Fairy", "Flowers in the Mirror", "The Legend of Leifeng Pagoda", etc. The story-telling novels include "Drunken Awakening Stone", "Five Colored Stone", etc. Li Yu's "Silent Play" and "Twelfth Floor" are representatives of the artistic achievements of vernacular short stories.
From the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, more than 300 novels and tens of thousands of short stories were produced. These works reflected all aspects of social life at that time with unprecedented breadth and depth, and became the main literary style for the people to understand society and entertainment life. Chinese vernacular novels, which originated from speaking and singing, have a single-line structure, attach great importance to plot, dynamically depict characters, vivid and catchy language, and unique style. The creative method of large-scale close integration between literati and the masses also provides a rare example for world literature. . These vernacular novels not only had a huge impact on later generations of Chinese literature, drama, and movies, but also had a huge impact on literary creation in Japan, North Korea, Vietnam and other countries. Excellent works among them have been translated into more than a dozen languages, contributing to world cultural exchanges. made important contributions.