Why is A Dream of Red Mansions called the first four classical novels in China?

A Dream of Red Mansions and Water Margin The Journey to the West's Romance of the Three Kingdoms are both called China classical literature Four Great Classical Novels, among which A Dream of Red Mansions is also called The Stone, Twelve Women in Jinling, Jinyuyuan and so on. There are deep-seated reasons why it is called the first of the four classical novels.

A Dream of Red Mansions is the epitome of China traditional culture.

A Dream of Red Mansions takes the love tragedies of Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai as the main line, and through the description of the rise and fall of Jia Xue's four families, it profoundly and widely shows the rich and colorful world and local culture. It is an encyclopedia of feudal society and a master of China traditional culture. According to legend, Cao Xueqin experienced a luxurious life in Jiangning, Nanjing in his early years, and traveled to Hangzhou, Suzhou, Changzhou, Yangzhou and other places many times as a child, which made Cao Xueqin's vision broad and unique, especially his preference for Jiangnan scenery.

Soon the Cao family was convicted of theft, and Cao Xueqin was down and out. Until his later years, he "read it for ten years, adding and deleting it five times" and wrote the famous Dream of Red Mansions. Through A Dream of Red Mansions, we can not only learn about history, philosophy, religion, ethics, poetry and songs, garden architecture, myths and legends, medical care, etc. You can also learn about China's tea ceremony, weaving, drama, food and other traditional cultures. These factors are not mechanically copied by the author, but are completely integrated with the characterization and the ups and downs of the story.

2. A Dream of Red Mansions has high artistic achievement and literary value.

A Dream of Red Mansions has achieved very good artistic effect, and the unique brushwork of "the truth is hidden and the village tells lies" is even more fascinating. The essence of novel art lies in creating vivid characters. In the voluminous ancient novels of China, vivid images can be seen everywhere. However, in a work, no work can compare with the classic image that creates so many characters without repetition or confusion.

A Dream of Red Mansions is good at mobilizing all artistic means to create characters, such as portrait description, mentality analysis, action writing, scene contrast, environmental rendering, homophonic use of poems and characters' names, suggestion, metaphor, irony and so on. Among them, Cao Xueqin is best at the artistic techniques of "grass snake gray line, covering thousands of miles" and "two strikes, echoing in the empty valley, not writing"

The author not only inherits and develops the national literature, but also adds his own painstaking efforts to write such a masterpiece, which is the sublimation of the artistic skills of China's ancient novels and the deepening of the theme of traditional novels. This is the main reason why A Dream of Red Mansions has the highest achievement and representative position in the world novels. Since the publication of A Dream of Red Mansions, China's novels have entered a broader space for development, injecting new vitality into the history of China's novels.

3. Carry forward the tradition, but don't fall into the conventional mode.

Any literary work can't escape the background of its birth, and A Dream of Red Mansions is no exception. It is directly or indirectly influenced by Jin Ping Mei, Lin Lin and the novels of talented people and beautiful women prevailing in the late Qing Dynasty. Cao Xueqin learned a lesson from the negative side of the novels of gifted scholars and beautiful women, so that his creation is not limited to the old-fashioned storyline, but also absorbed the excellent essence of the novels of gifted scholars and beautiful women, so all the ladies and gentlemen in the Grand View Garden have the charm of gifted scholars and beautiful women.

Daiyu and Baochai are vividly portrayed in the book. Lin Daiyu is a sentimental girl, a noble and aloof lady, and there is no dust at present. Cao Xueqin's description of peerless beauties. Xue Baochai, on the other hand, is a typical aristocratic family under feudal ethics, with a steady and generous appearance and a good mind at calculation. Jia Baoyu is depicted as a rich man. His face is like the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival, and his color is like the flowers at dawn in spring. He didn't like reading since he was a child, but he liked hanging out with his daughters, which is quite different from the gifted scholars in general novels.

A Dream of Red Mansions is a school of its own, which has far-reaching influence in history.

The study of A Dream of Red Mansions has been going on for more than two hundred years. Generally speaking, it can be divided into old redology, new redology and modern redology. It can also be said that the new edition is a mixture of the old and the new. The so-called "Old Dream of Red Mansions" refers to critics and researchers. Criticism is a special traditional form of China's ancient novel criticism, which plays a guiding role in reading and has the function of spreading novel theory. It has contributed a lot to the development of China's ancient novels, and the research is just a boring guess by some scholars. The New Dream of Red Mansions refers to the textual research of A Dream of Red Mansions by Hu Shi and others, and draws the conclusion that A Dream of Red Mansions is the author Cao Xueqin's family affairs and autobiography.

Huang Zunxian once commented on A Dream of Red Mansions, saying: A Dream of Red Mansions is the first good novel since ancient times, which should win glory with the sun and the moon and remain immortal. Wang Guowei once said: A Dream of Red Mansions, contrary to comedy, is a complete tragedy. Cai Yuanpei once expressed his views. A Dream of Red Mansions revealed the loss of the Ming Dynasty and mourned its demise. Mr. Hu Shi said that A Dream of Red Mansions is the autobiography of Cao Xueqin.

To sum up: A Dream of Red Mansions outlines a broad picture of feudal social life, is an encyclopedia of ancient China society, has a high degree of literary, ideological and outstanding artistic achievements, is a great realistic masterpiece, and is well-deserved to be called the first of China's four classical novels.