A Dream of Red Mansions is a novel with the style of chapters and chapters in ancient China, also known as The Story of the Stone. It is listed as the first of the four classical novels in China, and is generally believed to be written by Cao Xueqin, a writer in the Qing Dynasty.

Based on the rise and fall of Jia, Shi, Wang and Xue, the novel depicts the life of a group of beautiful women in the boudoir from the perspective of Jia Baoyu, a rich son, and shows the true beauty and tragedy of human nature. It can be said that it is an epic that shows the beauty of women from all angles.

The version of A Dream of Red Mansions can be divided into two systems: 120 "cost" and 80 "fat cost". Cheng Ben is printed by Cheng Weiyuan, while Fat Ben is an early manuscript copied and commented by Zhi Yanzhai in different periods. Fat book is the basic book of craft book. The first 80 chapters of this new edition of popular reading are examined according to the fat version, and the last 40 chapters are examined according to the course version, with the signature "Cao Xueqin, anonymous sequel, Cheng Weiyuan, finishing".

A Dream of Red Mansions is an earthly novel with world influence. It is recognized as the pinnacle of China's classical novels, an encyclopedia of China's feudal society and a master of traditional culture.

The novel encourages itself with the theme of "talking about love and recording things", only follows its logic, gets rid of the old conventions, is fresh and unique, and has achieved extraordinary artistic achievements. The special brushwork of "the truth is hidden and the village tells lies" has opened the brains of later readers and speculated for a long time. Later generations formed an outstanding school-redology around the study of reading A Dream of Red Mansions.

2. Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of China's classical Four Great Classical Novels, is China's first chapter-by-chapter historical romance novel. Its full name is Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms (also known as Romance of the Three Kingdoms), written by Luo Guanzhong, a famous novelist in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty.

There are several versions of the popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms, such as Jiajing Renwu Edition. By the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Mao Zonggang had rearranged the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, revised the wording and changed the poems. ?

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms describes the history of nearly a hundred years from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the beginning of the Western Jin Dynasty, mainly describing the war, telling the story of the warlord melee in the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the political and military struggle between Wei, Shu and Wu, and finally Sima Yan unified the three countries and established the Jin Dynasty.

It reflects the transformation of various social struggles and contradictions during the Three Kingdoms period, summarizes the historical changes of this era, and shapes a group of heroes of the Three Kingdoms.

The book can be roughly divided into five parts: The Yellow turban insurrectionary, Dong Zhuo's rebellion, competing among the heroes, the Three Kingdoms' separation, and the Three Kingdoms' return to Jin. On the vast historical stage, a magnificent war scene was staged. Luo Guanzhong, the author, combines the thirty-six strategies of Sun Tzu's Art of War between the lines, including both the plot and the strategy of Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the first novel, the first historical novel and the first literati novel in the history of China literature.

3. Journey to the West

The Journey to the West is the first romantic novel with chapters and sections in ancient China. There are hundreds of The Journey to the West published in Ming Dynasty, and there is no author's signature. Wu Yuju, a scholar in Qing Dynasty, first proposed that The Journey to the West was written by Wu Cheng'en in Ming Dynasty. .

This novel is based on the historical event of "Tang priest learning from the scriptures" and deeply depicts the social reality at that time through the author's artistic processing.

The book mainly describes the story of the Monkey King's encounter with Tang Priest, Pig Bajie, Friar Sand after his birth, and his disturbance to the Heaven Palace. He went west to learn from the scriptures, demonized all the way, and after eighty-one difficulties, he finally arrived in the Western Heaven to meet the Tathagata Buddha, and finally the Five Saints died.

4. Water Margin

The Water Margin is one of China's four classical novels. It is a chapter-by-chapter novel with the Sung River Uprising as the main story background at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, and it belongs to a heroic legend in genre. The author or editor is generally regarded as Shi Naian, and most of the existing periodicals have one or two people, Shi Naian and Luo Guanzhong.

The book describes the grand story that Liangshan heroes resisted oppression, and Shui Bo Liangshan grew stronger and surrendered to the court. After surrendering to the court, they suppressed tian hu, Wang Qing, Fang La and other political forces against the Song government, which eventually led to tragic failure.

It artistically reflects the whole process of the Sung River Uprising from its occurrence, development to failure in China history, profoundly reveals the social roots of the uprising, enthusiastically praises the uprising heroes' resistance struggle and social ideals, and specifically reveals the internal historical reasons for the failure of the uprising.

After the publication of Water Margin, it had a great impact on the society and became a model of China's novel creation in later generations. The Water Margin is one of the earliest Zhang Hui vernacular novels in the history of China, which is widely circulated and well known. At the same time, it is also one of the works with epic characteristics in China literature, which has a far-reaching impact on narrative literature in China and even East Asia.

5. Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio

Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio is a collection of short stories in classical Chinese by Pu Songling, a novelist of China in the Qing Dynasty.

There are 4,965,438+0 short stories in the book (Notes of the School Association of Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio) (494 Notes of Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio by Zhu).

They either exposed the darkness of feudal rule, attacked the decay of imperial examination system, or resisted the shackles of feudal ethics, and had rich and profound ideological content. The works describing the theme of love are the largest in the book, showing a strong anti-feudal ethical code spirit. Some of these works show the author's ideal love through the love between foxes and people.

6. Scholars

The Scholars is a novel of Wu in Qing Dynasty. It was written in the 14th year of Qianlong (1749) or earlier, and it was handed down as a manuscript, which was first engraved in the 8th year of Jiaqing (1803).

The fifty-six chapters of the book depict different expressions of "fame and fortune" by various people in a realistic way. On the one hand, it truly reveals the process and reasons of human nature being corroded, thus profoundly criticizing and mocking the corruption of bureaucracy and the hypocrisy of imperial examinations at that time.

On the one hand, it enthusiastically praised the protection of human nature by a few characters in a self-centered way, thus embodying the author's ideal. The use of vernacular Chinese in the novel is becoming more and more skillful, and the characterization of characters is also quite in-depth and delicate, especially the superb satirical techniques, which makes this book a masterpiece of China's classical satirical literature.

"The Scholars" represents the peak of China's ancient satirical novels, which initiated the direct evaluation of real life with novels. After the manuscript of The Scholars was published, a manuscript was handed down from generation to generation and was highly praised by later generations. Lu Xun believes that the ideological content of the book is "upholding public interests and criticizing the disadvantages of the times", and Hu Shi believes that its artistic characteristics can be called "refinement".

In international sinology, this book has a great influence. It has been handed down in English, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Spanish and other languages for a long time and is praised by sinologists. Some people think that The Scholars is one of the masterpieces of world literature, comparable to the works of Boccaccio, Cervantes, Balzac or Dickens, and an outstanding contribution to world literature.

7. Romance of the gods

The Romance of the Gods, commonly known as the List of Gods, is also known as The Complete Biography of Shang and Zhou Countries, The History of King Wu Attacking Zhou and The Biography of Gods. It is a controversial novel of Xu in Ming Dynasty, which was written in the Wanli period.

The book "Romance of the Gods" is a hundred copies, and it tells the story of attacking Zhou. The first 30 chapters focus on Zhou Wang's tyranny, Jiang Ziya's seclusion, his trip to Xi 'an and Jiang Ziya's assistance. The prince of Wu completed the great crusade against Zhou Wang.

The last 70 chapters are dominated by Shang and Zhou wars, mixed with religious struggles. They explain how to teach and help Zhou, stop teaching and help Shang, show their own teachings and kill each other. As a result, the interception failed, Zhou Wang set himself on fire, King Wu seized the world, enfeoffed other countries, and Jiang Ziya returned to China to offer sacrifices to the gods, so that the people and ghosts who made meritorious service to the country returned to their homes.

The novel takes the historical concept and political concept as the ideological framework to support the book, mixed with a lot of grand imagination, which shows the author's support and praise for benevolent monarchs and saints, as well as his dissatisfaction and resistance to ruthless and ignorant monarchs.

8. Biography of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty

Biography of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty is a historical novel in ancient China, written by Feng Menglong, a novelist in the late Ming Dynasty.

Written in ancient vernacular, this novel mainly describes the history of more than 500 years from the period of Western Zhou Xuanwang to the unification of the six countries by Qin Shihuang.

Baidu Encyclopedia —— Eight Masterpieces of China's Classical Novels