During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, traditional culture declined slowly, popular literature rose, and popular forms such as novels and operas became the mainstream of literature and art, indicating th

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, traditional culture declined slowly, popular literature rose, and popular forms such as novels and operas became the mainstream of literature and art, indicating that during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, China ancient narrative literature entered a mature stage in Ming and Qing Dynasties. As far as literary concepts, literary styles and means of literary expression are concerned, novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties pushed narrative literature to the extreme with their completeness and richness. Judging from the broad social life scenes, rich artistic creation achievements and rich social and political ideals expressed by Ming and Qing novels, there is no doubt that Ming and Qing novels cast the last glory of China classical literature.

This lecture focuses on the theme development and artistic exploration of Ming and Qing novels, trying to outline the Ming and Qing novels under the traditional cultural background.

I novels of Ming and Qing dynasties and traditional culture

In terms of ideological connotation and theme expression, novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties contained the essence of traditional culture to the greatest extent. After secular illustrations, traditional culture entered thousands of households with emotional images and touching stories. Traditional culture provided rich nourishment for novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties, which carried forward and enriched traditional culture unprecedentedly, and creatively expounded in the derivation of artistic image and artistic details.

1, the color of historical biography-the historical dependence of secular literature

China's historiographer culture is extremely developed, which originates from the traditional "documentary" novels and is closely related to the historiographer culture. It is inevitably branded with historical biography, which is the most important national feature of China's traditional novels. Although novels in Ming and Qing dynasties have a strong cultural color, they are deeply influenced by historical biography and culture, both in narrative form and in the motivation of irony and enlightenment.

Historical inheritance of theme, concept and novel art

2. Persuasion and education-the influence of Confucian culture

China's classical novels have been deeply influenced by Confucianism for a long time. What rationalizes and concretizes this influence is the theory of "punishing, persuading and educating" in novel theory. It can almost be said that the mode of "punishing, persuading and teaching" enveloped the novel creation of the whole feudal era.

Attach importance to the enlightenment function of novels and create a cage of punishment and persuasion mode.

3. The influence of gods, demons and immortals-Buddhism and Taoism.

Since Buddhism was introduced into China at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it has been deeply influencing literary creation in the form of culture. Taoism is the only religion that grows and develops in China. It is closely related to ancient novels, especially in imagination and creativity, and has a far-reaching influence on ancient novels. The realm of immortals created by Buddhism and Taoism, the images of immortals, Taoism, monsters and ghosts, the magic of immortals, the structure of karma, and the motif of novels bred from it have undoubtedly brought wonders to the novel world.

The expansion of the novel description space, the richness of the novel character gallery and the strange changes of the novel plot.

Second, the expansion of novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties

As far as the subject matter is concerned, the novels of Ming and Qing dynasties are all-encompassing and unprecedented in richness. The novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties fully showed the social relations and lifestyle of that era, and expressed people's feelings and ideals. The characteristics of narrative literature and popular literature make the expression of literature on social life unprecedented in breadth and depth. The expansion of urban economy and citizen class, new values and new social ideals have injected new ideological connotation into literature.

1, the theme content is unprecedented.

Rich themes and diverse contents are the outstanding characteristics of novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties. In addition to historical romances and heroic legends that have been circulated among the people for many years, and magical novels that reflect life in a magical way, the author's brushwork is closer to real life. The appearance of the world novels that express social feelings and public opinions directly is a major breakthrough in the development of novel themes and marks a new stage in the mature development of novel creation.

Love stories, historical romances, heroic legends, ghost stories, satirical novels, chivalrous case-solving novels

2. Full display of secular life

With the evolution of literary concepts in Ming and Qing Dynasties, secular real life has gradually become the focus of novels. It takes real life as the object of description, reflects social interpersonal relationships and shows the fashion of the times through the changes of family, love and marriage, and provides a vivid, complete and delicate picture of social life, which is an outstanding contribution of novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Love and marriage, family ups and downs, officialdom shady, social ugliness

Imperial examination ethics, life, daily life, world style.

3. A new probe into social ideals.

China's ancient novels have a tradition of ideal exploration. In the legends of the Six Dynasties, the Tang Dynasty and the Song and Yuan Dynasties, they often express their ideals through fantasy and romance. In the creation process of novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties, on the one hand, they strive to describe the world truly and criticize the society; On the one hand, it explores the way out of society, shapes ideal people and shows the ideal realm. The two complement each other and show their enthusiasm for social reality.

Social and political ideals, love and marriage ideals, interpersonal ideals.

Third, the artistic achievements of Ming and Qing novels.

By the novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties, the narrative art has become mature and perfect. Previously, story-based works have evolved into countless masterpieces, including grand and exquisite structures, fascinating plots, vivid characters, colorful languages and meticulous descriptions. The expressive force of literature is never complete. The appearance of A Dream of Red Mansions marks the peak of China's classical literature.

1, complete and exquisite narrative structure

As a model of narrative literature, novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties have made remarkable achievements in narrative style and plot structure. Both Zhang Huiti's novels and exquisite short stories have their own advantages and disadvantages. Historical romance and heroic legend, with magnificent structure, can stretch the historical situation between scales, appreciate heroes and pursue the historical process. The context of love story is clear, delicate and meticulous, which realistically reflects real life and shows the appearance of life.

From the event structure to the fate structure of characters, from plain narration to three-dimensional interleaving

From the depth of single line to all-round spread, from the main line to the first line and the second line

2. Image-building full of personality

From the stylization and flattening of characterization in historical legends, to the prominence of personality in the legend of heroes, and then to the portrayal of typical characters of ordinary people in love novels, novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties have made extraordinary achievements in characterization. The development of plot events is closely related to the characters' personalities, conveying their emotional feelings delicately and deliberately, highlighting their personalities in comparison, and depicting their spiritual growth history ... The unique charming and different characters in Ming and Qing novels show the rapid development of narrative literature in characterization.

Different people make people interdependent and develop and change.

3. Artistic description of fine description of music.

From narrative to description, novels in Ming and Qing dynasties are more and more delicate and realistic in artistic description. Whether it is to create images, describe the environment, describe details, or reveal the psychological feelings of characters, they all try to describe life and use brush strokes. Pursuing the generalization of insight and artistic appeal.

The psychological description is vivid and meticulous, and the environmental description is rich in specific details.

Ming and Qing novels. Ming and Qing Dynasties are the prosperous periods in the history of China's novels. Since the Ming Dynasty, novel, as a literary form, has fully demonstrated its social function and literary value, broken the monopoly of orthodox poetry, and achieved the status of literary history on a par with Tang poetry, Song ci and Yuan qu. The Qing Dynasty was a period when China's classical novels flourished and declined and turned into modern novels.

Novels in the Ming Dynasty include short stories and novels, and short stories can be divided into classical Chinese short stories and vernacular short stories. Novels and vernacular short stories were developed on the basis of the art of speaking in Song and Yuan Dynasties.

According to the theme and ideological content, novels in Ming Dynasty can be summarized into the following categories: ① Historical romance novels. It developed from the history class in the art of speaking in Song and Yuan Dynasties. Historical Romance is based on historical facts handed down from generation to generation, absorbing the contents of unofficial history's essays and folklore, and expanding it. "Seven points of fact, three points of fiction" is its characteristic. Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms at the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty is the most typical historical romance novel, and it is also the first historical romance novel in China, which represents the brilliant achievements of historical romance novels. Under its influence, a large number of historical romances appeared, ranging from ancient legends to Han, Jin, Tang and Song Dynasties. The famous ones are Biography of the Countries, Biography of the Whole Han Dynasty, Biography of the Tang Dynasty, etc. Among them, Feng Menglong's adaptation of The New Biography of the Countries has a high achievement and great influence. ② Heroic legendary novels. It was also developed on the basis of history in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. The difference between it and historical romance novels is that it does not stick to the generational evolution of historical events, but mainly uses more fictional elements to describe idealized legendary heroes. Shi Naian's Water Margin in the early Ming Dynasty is his masterpiece, which indicates that the realistic art of China's classical novels tends to mature. After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, there appeared many heroic legendary novels, the most famous of which were Xiong's Biography of the Northern Song Dynasty and Anonymous's The Romance of Yangjiafu. In addition, Guo Xun's "Ming Taizu charged lightly" and Yuan Yuling's "The Legacy of Sui History" are also heroic legends with great influence in the late Ming Dynasty. (3) Ghost novels. This kind of novels are influenced by religion to varying degrees, involving ghosts and gods, and full of strange fantasies. The Journey to the West in Wu Cheng'en is one of the best ghost novels. The Journey to the West was also created by literati writers in Song and Yuan Dynasties on the basis of speaking art and folklore. In addition, Xu's Romance of Gods is also an influential one. Luo Maodeng's The Popular Romance of Three Treasures Eunuchs and Dong Shuo's The Journey to the West are also widely circulated. (4) Love stories. It's a novel about social real life, especially family life, depicting all kinds of human feelings. Take Jin Ping Mei as the representative. Jin Ping Mei is the first novel written independently by a scholar in China. It began to get rid of the shackles of historical stories and legends on novel creation, turned to realistic themes and began to describe daily life in detail, which is of great significance in the history of China's novel development. There are two tendencies in the novels about the world after Jin Ping Mei: one is to promote the thought of karma in the description of the world, such as Xi Zhou Sheng's Biography of Awakening the World Marriage in the late Ming Dynasty. The other evolved into a novel of a gifted scholar and a beautiful woman, such as Yu Jiao Li and Good Biography, written in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. ⑤ Case-solving novels. The rise of case-solving novels describing unjust prison proceedings in the late Ming Dynasty is a reflection of social darkness and political corruption. Some of the more famous case-solving novels are Biography of Mr. Hai's Official Case-solving, and The Romance of Bao Baigong's Case-solving. While praising honest officials, this kind of novels also reflected the darkness of social politics and the sharpness of class contradictions at that time to some extent. Case-solving novels generally pursue the bizarre twists and turns of the story, ignoring the efforts to portray the characters' personalities, which are relatively rough in art, and at the same time, the ideological content is often mixed with fascination and feudal preaching. The short stories in Ming Dynasty are mainly vernacular short stories and have made brilliant achievements. The vernacular short stories created by Ming people are the products of imitating the scripts of Song and Yuan Dynasties, so they are called "parody books". The earliest extant anthology of Ming Dynasty is Qing Ping Shan Tang Hua Ben. Among them, there are many vernacular short stories that have great influence on later generations, including Sanyan (Yu Shiming, Tong Yan, Xing Yan) edited by Feng Menglong during the apocalypse of the late Ming Dynasty. These three books include two parts: Song and Yuan editions and Ming editions. Later, Ling Mengchu imitated "Sanyan" and created "One Moment Surprise" and "Two Moments Surprise", which were collectively called "Two Beats". It's all imitations. Sanyan and Erpai are representative works of vernacular short stories in Ming Dynasty. Vernacular short stories in Ming Dynasty reflect social life more directly and widely than novels. Among them, love and marriage works account for a large proportion, which reflects the citizens' progressive view of love and marriage, criticizes the irrationality of feudal ethics and praises the struggle of young men and women for marriage autonomy and happy life. Some works expose the evils and dark politics of the feudal ruling class and describe the sufferings of the people. Others describe the lives and thoughts of small businessmen and craftsmen with obvious characteristics of the times. The parody of books inherited the tradition of Song and Yuan Dynasties, which is generally strong in story, vivid in plot and vivid in emotion. His artistic techniques are more mature, especially his psychological description and detailed description tend to be rich and delicate. Excellent works include Du Shiniang's Angry Box and Yu Tangchun's Meeting a Husband. In addition to San Yan and Er Pai, there are stories of Ming Dynasty, such as Shi Nod, Zuishi and Two episodes of West Lake. Classical Chinese novels in Ming Dynasty developed along the clues of legends in Tang and Song Dynasties. The famous collections of short stories in classical Chinese are: Qu You's Cut the Lamp, Shao's Cut the Lamp, and Shao's Find the Word Lamp. The classical Chinese short stories in Ming Dynasty imitated the legends of Tang and Song Dynasties in writing, and lacked originality in creation, so their achievements were not high and their influence was far less than that of vernacular short stories.

The class contradictions, ethnic contradictions and struggles in the ideological and cultural fields in the Qing Dynasty had a profound impact on novels in the Qing Dynasty. From the early Qing Dynasty to the Qianlong period, it was the heyday of the novel. The works that represent democratic tendencies and truly describe social reality are the mainstream of novels in this period, and A Dream of Red Mansions is its highest representative. From the Qianlong period to the Opium War period, that is, Jiaqing and Daoguang period, a large number of works divorced from reality, advocating famous religion and karma appeared, and novel creation presented a lazy and boring scene. From the early Qing Dynasty to the late Qianlong period (1644 ~ 1795), novel creation has made great progress compared with the previous generation in terms of quantity and quality, content and form, style and genre. Historical Romance and the legend of heroes were particularly prominent in the early Qing Dynasty. His important works include Water Margin, Romance of Sui and Tang Dynasties, Yue Biography and Fairy Biography. , is about history and historical figures, showing the rebellious consciousness of the oppressed people and nations in society at that time. Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio is a collection of China's classical short stories, which inherits the fine traditions of the Six Dynasties and the legends of the Tang Dynasty and is the highest peak of China's classical novels. The Scholars absorbed the nutrition of the satirical art of ancient literature and showed a broad picture of social life. It is a classic of China's ancient satirical literature. The novel A Dream of Red Mansions describes the decline of an aristocratic family, reflecting the irreconcilable conflict between young men and women's demands for personal freedom and feudal system at that time, and flashing the initial democratic spirit. It is the greatest realistic novel in ancient China. In addition, the novel The Wizard of Oz and the story novel The Cup of the World also reflect real life to varying degrees. During the twenty years from Jiaqing to Daoguang (1796 ~ 1840), there were historical romances and the legend of heroes's Biography of the Tang Dynasty, The Romance of Yang Baodi in Wanhua Building, etc., but their ideological and artistic qualities were not as good as those of previous similar works. The continuation of A Dream of Red Mansions, this kind of works all want to change the tragic spirit of A Dream of Red Mansions and make Jia Lin have a happy reunion, which reflects the subversion of the feudal traditional literary thought to A Dream of Red Mansions and is a retrogression. "Dangkou Zhi" takes the continuation of the water margin as a signboard, with the opposite intention to the water margin, showing the author's political stance of hating peasant uprisings and maintaining feudal rule. Good or innovative works in this period include Green Peony, Legend of Leifeng Pagoda, Full Biography of Fenzhuanglou, Romance of Twin Phoenix, Mirror Flower Edge and so on. The characteristics of novels in Qing Dynasty are significantly different from those in Ming Dynasty. Most novels in Ming Dynasty have an evolution process from folklore, drama, script to literati compilation. Qing dynasty novels are different. Writers choose materials, ideas and descriptions according to their own lives and experiences, and fully express their personal wishes and ideals in their works. They are also mature in structure, narration and characterization. General works are original. A Dream of Red Mansions has completely broken the traditional thinking and writing, and is the most outstanding representative of novels in this period.

Shadow of Heroes in the Three Kingdoms (published in Jiaqing period of Qing Dynasty)

Qing Dynasty was the golden age of China's ancient novels. It is not only unprecedented in number, but also diverse in style and genre. The most important thing is that it is very close to real life. It no longer just describes the lost heroic era and legendary heroes, but focuses on secular society and ordinary people. Jin Ping Mei in the Ming Dynasty opened up a new way to pay attention to the real society and family daily life, and it didn't really develop until the Qing Dynasty. The Scholars, Street Lamp, The Wizard of Oz and A Dream of Red Mansions are all people who write about real life, which fully shows the great ability and capacity of novels to reflect real life. In the Qing Dynasty, novels became the mainstream in the field of literature, and their achievements surpassed traditional poems and other literary styles.

The culture of Ming and Qing dynasties has new characteristics of the times. With the development of commodity economy and the decline of feudal system, anti-feudal democratic thought appeared. Huang Zongxi, Gu and Wang Fuzhi are outstanding representatives of these democratic progressive thinkers. All three thinkers had similar experiences. They all took part in the anti-Qing struggle in their early years, and later they all lived in seclusion and wrote books. However, due to the different research methods and contents, they all show their own characteristics and styles in thought and academics. Huang Zongxi showed a strong tendency to oppose autocratic monarchy, and Wang Fuzhi developed the simple materialism and dialectics in ancient China to a new level, despite the style of study that emphasized applying what he had learned. Huang Zongxi's thought had a certain influence on the later bourgeois democratic revolution. Gu's down-to-earth style of study had a great influence on scholars in Qing Dynasty. Wang Fuzhi's thought occupies an important position in the history of ancient philosophy in China. It is required that when learning the characteristics of these three thinkers, we should understand the quotations on pages 2 14 and 2 15 of the textbook, which can help us remember.

(2) After studying three outstanding thinkers in Ming and Qing Dynasties, we should recall and contact four materialistic thinkers in ancient China: Xun Kuang in the Warring States Period (author of Xunzi), Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty (author of Lun Heng), Fan Zhen in the Southern Dynasties (author of Deism) and Wang Fuzhi in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties.

(3) Please remember the masters and masterpieces of science according to the table on page 2 16 of the textbook, and pay attention to the illustrations and quotations on page 2 17. In particular, we should learn from the scientific attitude of the three masters who study hard and attach importance to investigation and research, as well as their excellent qualities of extensive knowledge and broad vision. At the same time, it also shows that in the field of science and technology, although the west has made many new breakthroughs with the rise of capitalism at this time, China is still at the forefront in the field of traditional science and technology.

(4) When learning the imperial examinations, schools, academies and other contents, we should be linked with the education in the Tang and Song Dynasties that we have studied before, and we should not separate history and memorize the educational contents in the Ming and Qing Dynasties by rote.

(5) Excellent classical novels. Six books are listed in the table on page 220 of the textbook. In addition to mastering the author, the time of writing and the main contents, it is important to understand their values: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is China's first historical novel; The Water Margin is China's first novel with the theme of peasant uprising. The Journey to the West is a novel full of romanticism. A Dream of Red Mansions is the best novel in ancient China and occupies an important position in the history of world literature. The Scholars is an excellent satirical novel in ancient China. Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio is an excellent collection of literary short stories in ancient China.

(6) China's plays have a long history and a wide variety. The Yuan Dynasty's zaju and the Ming Dynasty's legends show that China's traditional operas have reached the goal.

Mature stage.

(7) Imperial College of Art was established in Ming Dynasty. Landscape painting and flower-and-bird painting dominated the Ming Dynasty. In particular, we should know the "eight eccentrics" in Yangzhou.