China's Four Classical Masterpieces

China's four classical novels, referred to as the four classical novels for short, refer to Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Journey to the West and A Dream of Red Mansions (arranged in writing order).

1, Water Margin

China, one of the four classical novels, is a chapter-by-chapter novel with Sung River Uprising as the main story background at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty. The author or editor is usually regarded as Shi Naian.

Most existing journals have one or two signatures of Shi Naian and Luo Guanzhong. The book describes Liangshan heroes' resistance to oppression, the growth of Liangshan in Shui Bo and their surrender to the imperial court, as well as the repression of tian hu, Wang Qing and Fang La after their surrender to the imperial court.

The grand story that all classes rebelled against the political forces of the Song Dynasty government and eventually led to tragic failure artistically reflected the whole process of the Sung River Uprising from its occurrence, development to failure in China history, and profoundly revealed the social roots of the uprising.

Enthusiastically praised the uprising heroes' resistance struggle and their social ideals, and also specifically revealed 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.

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, focusing on war, and tells the story of the warlord melee in the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the political and military struggle between Wei, Shu and Wu.

In the end, Sima Yan unified the Three Kingdoms 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. 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.

3. Journey to the West

This is the first romance novel in ancient China. There are hundreds of The Journey to the West published in Ming Dynasty, and there is no author's signature. Wu Yu, 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. A Dream of Red Mansions

China is the head of classical Four Great Classical Novels, and the novels written by Cao Xueqin, a writer in Qing Dynasty, are also called "The Story of the Stone" and "Jinyuyuan". This book is divided into two editions: 120 Cheng Ben and 80 Fat Ben.

The first 80 chapters of the new version of A Dream of Red Mansions are collected according to the fat version, and the last 40 chapters are collected according to the process version, with the signature "Cao Xueqin, anonymous continuation, Cheng Weiyuan, finishing". The author of the last 40 chapters is still controversial.

The novel takes the rise and fall of Jia, Shi, Wang and Xue as the background, the family affairs of Jia family and the leisure of boudoir as the main line, and the love and marriage stories of Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai as the main line.

It depicts the beauty of human nature and the tragedy of lovers, centering on Jia Baoyu and twelve women in Jinling. Through family tragedy, daughter tragedy and protagonist's life tragedy, the end-time crisis of feudalism is revealed.

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 feudal society in China 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.

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The origin of the name "Four Great Classical Novels"

The original formulation of "Four Great Classical Novels" was "Four Wonder Books", which was first put forward by China in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. Li Yu once said in the preface of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms published in Zuitang: "Feng Menglong also has four wonderful books, namely the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin.

Westward Journey and Jin Ping Mei? At that time, there was a saying of "Four Wonders of Ming Dynasty", namely Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Journey to the West and Jin Ping Mei. At the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, the expression of "Ming Si Jue" has been quite fixed and popular.

Later, A Dream of Red Mansions (formerly known as The Story of the Stone), which came out during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, gradually replaced Jin Ping Mei, forming a new concept of "four wonders".

The full name of "Four Great Classical Novels" is "Four Classical Literary Masterpieces", which is a modern expression of "Four Extraordinary Books". Naturally, it will not be early. Therefore, the formulation of "Four Great Classical Novels" (the four fantastic books) must have appeared after the book A Dream of Red Mansions was written.

Compared with "fantastic books", the titles of "masterpieces" are more cultural, and it emphasizes cultural achievements. Four Great Classical Novels is not a person in charge, but an evaluation made by readers after learning, interpreting and measuring in the process of circulation.

The four classic novels bear a lot of cultural essence, which subtly affects many people's thinking wisdom and the way of treating people, and has a far-reaching impact on the changes of social ideological trend, social atmosphere and political ecology in the future.

China's four classical novels are recognized as: Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Luo Guanzhong), Water Margin (Shi Naian), Journey to the West (Wu Cheng'en) and Dream of Red Mansions (Cao Xueqin); (In the 1950s, when People's Literature Publishing House published these four masterpieces, they were named "Four Classical Novels" and were named after them).

Four Great Classical Novels, one of China's masterpieces, is a precious cultural heritage with a long history and has a far-reaching influence in the whole Chinese world. This is also a great pioneering work in the cultural history of China.

Studying China and the four classical novels is a sea of wisdom to browse China's classical literature and a knowledge base to experience China's traditional humanities, society, ethics, history, geography, folklore, psychology and handling strategies.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Four Classic Novels