During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, there appeared novels of "Zhi Ren" and "Zhi Guai", collectively referred to as note novels. During this period, China's novels began to take shape. These novels are not mature enough in art, but only "sketchy".

Describing characters can't write a complete image, and the stories written are mostly factual and lack artistic fiction. The author is only looking for strange stories, not consciously creating novels, but this has a great influence on later novels and dramas. ?

Representative works: Liu Yiqing's Collection of Local Stories, and Gambao's Collection of Stranger Stories.

2. Development stage

The legend of the Tang Dynasty appeared in the Tang Dynasty. The novels of the Tang Dynasty made great progress. They consciously created novels, moved from fairy tales to real life, and made great creation and improvement in art. ..

Representative works: Biography of Huo Xiaoyu by Jiang Fang, Biography of Yingying by Yuan Zhen, Biography of Liu Yi by Li, Biography of Li Wa by Bai Xingjian, etc.

3. Transformation stage

In the Song Dynasty, there appeared a vernacular novel-storybook, also known as "storybook novel". Since then, the history of novels with classical Chinese short stories as the mainstream has gradually changed into that with vernacular novels as the mainstream. At the same time, classical Chinese novels still exist, and so far, novels have always been the proper names of story styles.

The appearance of the script is "a great change in the history of novels". From classical Chinese to vernacular Chinese, it not only enhances the expressive force of the novel, but also broadens the readership and improves the social function. The object of the work description changed from feudal scholars to civilians, and the ideological point of view and aesthetic taste of the work changed; It laid the foundation for vernacular short stories and novels.

Representative works: Cui Ning's Wrong Chop, Three Kingdoms Pinghua, etc. ?

4. Mature stage

In the Ming Dynasty, "parody of books" appeared, that is, novels created by Ming literati imitating the system and form of story books. The Ming Dynasty witnessed the vigorous development of vernacular novels, and the Qing Dynasty pushed novel creation to a climax again. Later, due to the reasons of the times, novel creation was in a low state, and it flourished again in the late Qing Dynasty. There are more than 1000 novels in the late Qing Dynasty.

Representative works include Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Wu's The Scholars, Cao Xueqin's Dream of Red Mansions, Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio, and Officialdom in the Sky.

Extended data

Four Classics in China's Ancient Novels

1, Journey to the West: It combines the thoughts and contents of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, which not only allows the gods of Buddhism and Taoism to perform at the same time, but also injects the human feelings of the real society into the world of gods and buddhas, as well as the wisdom of Confucianism, which is harmonious and interesting.

The appearance of The Journey to the West opened up a new category of ghost novels. The ingenious combination of well-meaning satire, bitter satire and serious criticism in the book directly affects the development of satirical novels. The Journey to the West is the pinnacle of ancient romantic novels and the representative work of romanticism in the history of world literature.

2. Romance of the Three Kingdoms: It is China's first chapter-by-chapter novel, which describes wars, big and small, with grand ideas and various techniques, and lets us know a lot about ancient culture. Among them, the description of the battle of Guandu and Battle of Red Cliffs is ups and downs, ups and downs, thrilling and touching.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms initiated the historical novel and represented the highest achievement of historical novel. Since then, scholars have followed suit. In the history of China literature, historical novels have become a mainstream. The Three Kingdoms are all famous historical novels in the literary world. Thousands of years' history of China has been written into various historical novels, which is the inheritance and development of Luo Guanzhong's historical romance.

3. The Water Margin: It is "the synthesis of ancient China society". It reveals the essence of the occurrence, development and failure of peasant uprising in China feudal society by excellent artistic description.

The social significance of Water Margin firstly lies in profoundly exposing the darkness and decay of feudal society and the evil of the ruling class, which shows that the fundamental reason of peasant uprising is "officials forcing the people to rebel". The other is the combination of "reality" and literature in feudal society at that time, which is a breakthrough of "writer" personality.

4. A Dream of Red Mansions: It is an ancient rare masterpiece that combines irony and artistry. It is the most encyclopedic novel in the history of world literature.

It takes the daily life of the government as the center, the love and marriage tragedies and trivia of Baoyu, Daiyu and Baochai in the Grand View Garden as the main line, and the history of Jia, Shi, Wang and Xue, the four famous families in Jinling, as the dark line, which shows the inevitable trend that the desperate feudal society will eventually perish.

With its tortuous and obscure expression, desolate and deep emotional style and strong and lofty ideological connotation, it has irreplaceable research value in China's ancient folk customs, feudal system, social landscape, architectural inscriptions and other fields, reaching the peak of China's classical novels and being known as "the encyclopedia of China's feudal society".

Four Great Classical Novels is a classic in the history of China literature and a precious cultural heritage in the world. These four masterpieces are inseparable in the history of China literature, and they all have high literary level and artistic achievements. The detailed description and profound thoughts contained in it have been praised by readers of all ages, and the stories, scenes and characters in it have deeply influenced the concepts and values of China people. It can be described as four monuments in the history of China literature.

Baidu encyclopedia-ancient novels