First of all, Dream of Red Mansions is a masterpiece with great influence. From the Qing Dynasty to the present, and even in the future, there will be countless readers. They love the Red Mansions and lament the Red Mansions. Everyone can find themselves in the Red Mansions. What you love or even believe in, then the interpretation of such a work has long been freed from the limitations of time, but goes deep into human nature and into the soul. I can’t tell what this thing is, and I don’t have the right to say it. In short, its meaning is great.
Secondly, he had a great influence on people, so it has the tension and appeal of literature.
Then some of his views will sink in. Then his anti-feudal influence will expand, far exceeding the value of a book a hundred and a thousand times.
So, how did he spread this anti-feudal nature? (It should be noted that the value of Dream of Red Mansions is far more than anti-feudalism) He is not preaching, but touching people with emotion. He uses the power of emotion to awaken conscience and awakening in people's hearts. There are many women written about in Dream of Red Mansions. Each of them has lovely qualities and talents. They are the embodiment of beauty and the only light that can be seen in the dark age of the 18th century. However, under the cruel suppression of feudal society, They perished one by one, which was so painful and sad, which further showed the cruel nature of feudal society.
To sum up in one sentence, it is to destroy beautiful and valuable things for people to see, and to use such a profound tragedy to expose evil (this meaning is not just to expose evil). This is the anti-feudal nature of Dream of Red Mansions, and Bao Dai’s love tragedy is the most painful part (and the most important) of it.
I suggest you read Dream of Red Mansions published by Yuelu. There is a foreword written by Shu Wu, which is very profound. I also summarized it from there, and there may be some deviations, so reading Shu Wu will make it clearer.
In the art of writing about people, "A Dream of Red Mansions" has made a major breakthrough compared with previous novels. Its innovative performance is multi-faceted and colorful. The current research on "Dream of Red Mansions" can be said to have achieved certain achievements, but its profound artistic achievements still need to be explored in more depth and detail. Now I will briefly discuss the new developments in the art of writing people in "A Dream of Red Mansions".
When writing about people, the author of "A Dream of Red Mansions" either placed the characters in a specific artistic atmosphere or a specific living environment, or directly used some profound poems (including lyrics and music) to highlight the characters' spiritual world. Created various artistic conceptions. "The foil of artistic conception is the comprehensive effect of artistic conception, atmosphere, interest and interest." These methods are actually poetic methods and artistic expression methods, thus reproducing the spiritual outlook of the characters.
1. The author of "A Dream of Red Mansions" inherited and developed the writing method of blending scenes of ancient Chinese poetry and opera. He was good at creating a more profound and broader artistic conception, and placed the characters in a specific artistic atmosphere. It highlights the inner emotions of the characters and gives readers a strong infection.
The novel writes about the first spring in Grand View Garden. Almost everyone in Grand View Garden felt the warmth of spring. In this prosperous atmosphere, Bao Dai's love is also developing smoothly. It was not long after entering the Grand View Garden. One day in mid-March, Baoyu took "The Romance of the West Chamber" with him, walked to Qinfang Gate Bridge and sat on a stone under the peach blossoms, savoring it carefully. When he saw the "array of falling reds", a gust of wind passed by. , blowing most of the peach blossoms off the tree, and falling all over the books and the floor. Baoyu carefully picked up the petals, came to the edge of the pool, and shook them into the pool. Unexpectedly, on his shoulders was Lin Daiyu, who was hoeing the flower gallery. He came over and said, "It's not good to leave it in the water. You see, the water here is clean. It just flows out. Where there are people, it's dirty and smelly, and it ruins the flowers." She suggested collecting them in silk bags and burying them in a flower grave, where they would become clean with the soil over time. Here, the artistic conception of the lyrics of "The Romance of the West Chamber" is integrated with the scene in front of us. The fallen flowers are colorful and flowing red, which makes people feel a strong sense of spring. The protagonist's mood of cherishing flowers and spring and his disdain for the world are also euphemistically revealed. Next, Baoyu expressed his feelings through the wonderful words of "The Romance of the West Chamber". He said: "I am just a 'sorrowful and sickly person', and you are the 'beautiful man who overwhelms the country and the city.'" In such an environment, atmosphere and interest, their love seems extraordinarily beautiful and pure.
From chapter 29 onwards, the novel focuses on describing the contradictions and pain of Bao and Dai's love. The climate at this time is also particularly irritating. After the thirty-fifth chapter, the emotional entanglement between Bao and Dai was resolved. As their love matured, it entered a peaceful stage. At this time, the weather also changed to refreshing and quiet. But then, the conflict between their love and the feudal environment became more acute, and finally could not be resolved. At this time, it turned into infinite desolation, and a strong tragic atmosphere emerged. "Dream of Red Mansions" thus brilliantly uses atmosphere to highlight the inner emotions of the characters, creating a high artistic conception and making the love descriptions in the work more powerfully contagious.
It was a scorching noon in spring. The Grand View Garden was shaded by trees, filled with the sound of cicadas and no one said a word. It was a peaceful atmosphere. Baoyu came under the lush rose trellis and saw only one person. The girl squatted under the flowers, crying quietly while using a hairpin to draw words on the ground, "keep drawing one point and one tick", "***18 strokes", "I have finished painting one after another, and I have painted dozens of A 'qiang'". Suddenly a cool breeze passed by, and a shower of rain fell on the ground. The girl was completely soaked by the rain, and she didn't know it, but she kept drawing and drawing on the ground. ... This girl is a senior official. Her silent thoughts and infatuation for her lover Jia Qiang are vividly expressed through this special artistic conception. How touching! No wonder Baoyu is fascinated by it, and readers must be fascinated by it too!
On the moonlit night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Grand View Garden is really "moonlit with colorful lanterns, popular cigarettes, and crystals are dense and shapeless." In the Tubi Villa, people drank wine, chanted poems and composed poems, and had a great time. Suddenly, a flute sound was heard, whining and lingering, and then turned into a desolate sound. Listening to this sound, everyone could not help but feel desolate and lonely. Daiyu and Xiangyun left everyone and came to the "Concave Crystal Pavilion". They sat on Xiang Fei's bamboo bed under the rolling shed:
They saw only a bright moon in the sky and a watery moon in the pool, competing up and down. The brilliance is like being in the Shark Chamber of the Crystal Palace. When the breeze passes by, the sparkling blue waves on the surface of the pool are paved, which is really refreshing. This is the artistic conception of the moonlight night couplet specially created by the author for them, which is in line with the lonely mood of these parentsless girls. Although this "Thirty-Five Rhymes of a Couplet about the Scenery of the Grand View Garden on Mid-Autumn Night" is not a famous piece, there are also good lines that fit the night scene and the characters' mood, such as "The Shadow of the Crane Crossing the Cold Pond" by Xiangyun, and "The Flowers Buried in the Cold Moon" by Daiyu "Yin", this "bleak and strange" sentence is their most poetic self-portrait.
In "A Dream of Red Mansions", there are many wonderful places like this that express feelings in scenery and blur meaning and scenery.
2. The author of "A Dream of Red Mansions" placed a group of children in the unique living environment of the Grand View Garden to highlight their character and temperament and reveal their spiritual outlook.
The Grand View Garden has a unified style and sentiment, while each courtyard has a unique artistic conception and environmental atmosphere; they complement each other and complement the spiritual temperament of their respective owners.
The Xiaoxiang Pavilion where Lin Daiyu lives is an exceptionally quiet and elegant courtyard. There are hundreds of green bamboos in front of the window, and the clear spring water flows around the steps of the house and under the bamboos. This is a symbolic and metaphorical place specially arranged by the author. (Zheng Banqiao once said: "The body of the bamboo is thin and strong, its branches are proud of the snow, and they are connected to the sky. It is like a scholar and gentleman who is so heroic and unconquered.") Lin Daiyu's character is just like the green bamboo. Thin, strong, aloof, and unconquered. It is not difficult to see that the Xiaoxiang Pavilion not only gives the green bamboo a symbolic and metaphorical meaning, but also uses green as the keynote. The Xiang curtains on the ground, the quiet embroidery room and the faint fragrance emanating from the blue screen windows, and the long sighs of parrots on the corridor create a desolate and beautiful poetic and pictorial realm. This realm is not only completely consistent with Daiyu’s temperament, but also it is In turn, the image of Daiyu is made more beautiful and moving, which is particularly thought-provoking.
The Yihong Courtyard where Jia Baoyu lived is based on red. The courtyard is surrounded by pink walls, surrounded by green willows, two sugarcane tang plants, red fragrant green jade; carved objects in the room, or "flowing clouds" "Hundreds of paintings", or "Three Friends of Suihan", or landscape figures, or collared flowers... It is really a cluster of flowers, exquisite and clear, and the bedroom is like a woman's embroidery room with gold powder and pearlescent light.
This kind of artistic conception highlights Baoyu's temperament as a son and daughter, "the face is like applying powder, and the lips are like applying grease", "the face is like peach petals, and the eyes are like autumn waves. Although he smiles when he is angry, he stares with affection", which also shows Baoyu's character. It is gentle, emotionally delicate, delicate and fragile, lacks masculinity, and shows more feminine beauty.
The Hengwu Garden where Baochai lived was surrounded by exotic grasses and fairy vines that became increasingly greener as the colder weather got colder. There were no flowers or trees at all, and it was cold and soft. The inside of the room was like a "snow cave". The medicine she often prepared was "Lengxiang Wan" is also surnamed "Xue". In the novel, one of the homophones is "snow". This series of "cold" images constitute the basic tone of Baochai's image and are also a hint to her character. She is self-denial and polite. Baochai is almost ruthless, so she gets the nickname "cold beauty".
Walking in the snow and admiring plum blossoms has been an important activity in gardens throughout the ages. The Grand View Garden cannot be without plum blossoms, and these plum blossoms are not in the Xiaoxiang Pavilion, Yihong Courtyard, or Hengwu Garden, but only in the Cuicui Temple where Miaoyu lives. Wen Zhenheng of the Ming Dynasty once said: "The petals of lonely people are like plum blossoms in a special room." Only plum blossoms are suitable for the company of Miaoyu, a woman who is lonely and self-admiring her fragrance. Plum blossoms also become the symbol of Miaoyu's appearance.
Li Wan’s Daoxiang Village is based on yellow. Outside, there are green fences and thatched cottages, yellow mud low walls, and beautiful vegetable flowers. It is endless. Inside, paper windows and wooden couches are all gone, and the precious atmosphere is wiped away. This kind of environment Not only is it in harmony with Li Wan's restrained and abstinent mood, but even the use of "Huan Ge" in the couplets is also in line with her family's emphasis on feudal women's virtues, who believed that women "were spinning wells and mortars as the most important thing", and she also " It is appropriate to know how to serve one's relatives and adopt a son.
Such unique and poetic landscapes are everywhere in "A Dream of Red Mansions". Against the backdrop of this peach paradise, the children in the garden are graceful and outstanding.
3. Directly use poems (including lyrics and music) with profound artistic conception to reveal the spiritual world of the characters and highlight the characters’ talents and style
The reason why the images of the children of Grand View Garden can be sublimated to the realm of wonder and beauty , and also benefited from the superb and magical use of exquisite poetry and songs. The poems and songs in "A Dream of Red Mansions" are an integral part of the novel's storyline and character descriptions, unlike other novels where the poems and songs inserted are dispensable essays. Although the poems and songs included in some novels play a certain role in describing characters, scenery, events and exaggerating the atmosphere, they are not as important as the main text. Some readers are impatient to read and skip over when they come across them, which seems to have no impact. . This is not the case in "Dream of Red Mansions". Most of his poems and songs are integrated into the plot of the novel. If you ignore it and skip over it, you will often not be able to understand the whole meaning of the text, or you will not understand it. Looking at that part of the plot, it is precisely because the poems and songs in "A Dream of Red Mansions" are subordinate to the needs of character creation and story description. Therefore, they often have profound artistic conceptions and are mostly full of individual characteristics. The poem is the person. To use the metaphor made by Comrade Mao Dun, it is called "pressing the head to make the hat."
It is not easy to write poems and lyrics about a group of very smart and talented sons and daughters. Moreover, each person’s work must be written in such a way that the poems are like the person they are and suit their respective personalities, characteristics, and Self-cultivation is bound to be doubly difficult. Daiyu wrote "Peach Blossom Journey", and Baoyu can tell who painted it at a glance. Baoqin lied to him that he wrote it himself, but Baoyu didn't believe it and said, "This tone of voice is completely different from the body of Hengwu." Baochai also said that Baoqin did it, and quoted scriptures to "persuade" Baoyu. Baoyu smiled and said, "Sister, I will never allow my sister to have such a mournful statement. Although my sister has this talent, she can't compare to Sister Lin who once died and made such a mournful message." These words show that when the author imitated the poems written by each person in the novel, he already had the "tone and tone" of each person in mind. The "Xiaoxiangzi manuscript" is definitely different from the "Hengwu style", and he is giving the characters a certain When considering these characteristics, we also take into account his behavior and the relationship with his life experience.
Baochai's poems are sung by Zhu Fang of the Haitang Poetry Society. Baochai's poems are subtle and profound, using flowers as metaphors for people, reflecting her steady, elegant, quiet, clean and self-satisfied inner world.
"Treasuring her beauty and keeping the door closed during the day" shows that she abides by the feudal women's virtues and is very reserved about her status as a wealthy daughter; "It is only when they are at the lowest level that they know the flowers are more beautiful" is not only a good line to chant the white begonia, but also completely fits her She is taciturn, law-abiding, likes to be simple and elegant, pure and unpretentious. She is not aware of things that others would find strange, which is why she has won the praise of everyone in the Jia family. Daiyu's poem is elegant and unique, using flowers to personify people, which is exactly the opposite of several other poems that use flowers to personify people. The ethereal, chic, noble, sad and affectionate images in the poem are the embodiment of Daiyu's thought and character. Xiangyun's poems flow naturally, are fresh and free, and have a certain connection with her forthright and forthright personality. Her poem "it is also suitable for the corner or the pot" is of course a praise of flowers that are suitable for everywhere, but it seems to express her love for Qi since she was a child. Luo Zhong was shy, but now he has taken refuge in the Jia family and is dependent on others. He does not care about the change of environment, but he has a "generous and generous" demeanor. Baoyu's poem uses the image of Bai Haitang to symbolize a troubled and sickly daughter. "The dawn breeze does not dissipate thousands of sorrows, and the long rain adds a trace of tears." Isn't it a portrayal of Baoyu's unforgettable thoughts throughout his life?
The author made Shi Xiangyun's poem "Ode to the White Begonia" "overwhelming", let Lin Daiyu win the first place among the poems in "Chrysanthemum Poems", and made Xue Baochai's satirical "Crab Ode" be promoted as the "swan song". It is also the author's careful arrangement that a certain temperament and life attitude of the chanter coincide with the characteristics of the thing being chanted or the most suitable poetic style for chanting something.
Daiyu composed three poems in a row at the "Chrysanthemum Poems" conference: "Ying Chrysanthemums", "Asking about Chrysanthemums" and "Chrysanthemum Dreams", overwhelming the crowd and winning the first prize in one fell swoop. The poem "Yong Chrysanthemum", which was rated as the most successful work, said: "The paper is full of self-pity and resentment, who can explain the autumn heart in a few words!" There are many poems: "The paper is full of absurd words, a handful of bitter tears; it is said that the author is crazy, Who can understand the taste of it? This is not the expression of Daiyu's resentful and lonely heart. When it comes to chanting about things and expressing emotions, I am afraid that no one can be more suitable for Daiyu’s life experience and temperament than the nobility and pride of the chrysanthemum. Therefore, she can express her thoughts and feelings more fully, truly and naturally than others. Her affectionate praise of chrysanthemums, writing about frost, and chanting to the moon are undoubtedly portraying herself.
At the poetry meeting in Grand View Garden, people wrote many poems, such as chanting white begonias and chanting chrysanthemums. It can be said that each person's works are generally in line with their temperament and writing skills, and each group of poems has the same purpose and taste. The Begonia poem describes the ice and purity of the Begonia flower, and the Chrysanthemum poem describes the eternal glory of the chrysanthemum. , "The Crab Rime" mocks the world. These poems reveal the feelings of the children, show their wisdom and talent, are the descriptions of their own character by the children, and are the wonderful artistic conception carefully created by the author.
In short, for any successful artistic image, its physical description is limited, but its meaning is often infinite. Cao Xueqin, the author of "Dream of Red Mansions", used his extraordinary talent and amazing perseverance to reproduce the spiritual outlook of the characters through the method of expression art. Most of the characters he created have full personalities and strong three-dimensionality. They have many aspects of aesthetic significance, showing that The characteristics of multiple qualities and meanings make round characters with distinctive personalities appear in front of readers. It has become an artistic peak in the history of the development of novels in our country. It is comparable to the first-class realist novels in the West and has distinctive national characteristics. It is a well-deserved masterpiece of our national culture and an artistic peak in the history of the development of novels. Therefore, Lu Xun said: "Since the publication of "Dream of Red Mansions", traditional thinking and writing methods have been broken." It's amazing! Fall in love with it! When we study this great literary masterpiece, we cannot ignore its unique artistic brilliance - a new innovation in the art of writing!