What does "风花雪月" mean? The text is simple and reflects the life in the city. Romance and romance embodies the emotions of the times.

Storytelling novels are the product of the development of folk oral literature to a certain historical stage. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the commercial economy developed and prospered, urban culture rose accordingly, and the citizen class grew stronger. As a result, story-telling novels that reflected the real life of the city, permeated citizens' ideologies, overflowed with citizen culture, and catered to citizens' aesthetic tastes became popular. For a while.

The hazy humanistic spirit

The Song and Yuan Dynasties were a complex historical period. Under the influence of the social mentality that advocated utilitarianism, the influence of Confucianism gradually weakened, and citizens' self-awareness gradually awakened. As a kind of citizen literature, the writers, performers and recipients of Huaben novels are all people from the middle and lower classes of society. Although they cannot completely get rid of the deep-rooted influence of traditional concepts, they are dissatisfied with the constraints of traditional concepts, and they still have the hedonism of citizens and the simplicity of farmers in their consciousness. The constraints of traditional ethical and moral rules on them were relatively weak, and a vague humanistic spirit emerged from this.

They affirm the seven emotions and six desires and oppose the suppression of human nature. The most obvious one is "The Mandarin Duck Club Cutting Off Their Necks" (Volume 3 of "Qing Ping Shan Tang Hua Ben"). The novel tells the bloody life tragedy of a village girl, Jiang Shuzhen, who indulged in sexual indulgence, and eventually both she and her lover died tragically under the knife of her husband. The novel seems to be dissatisfied with the heroine's extramarital affair, but it is compared with the poignant story of Han Ping and his wife who refused to give in to power and remained in love, and became a couple. Sympathy and approval.

The story-telling novels of the Song and Yuan Dynasties not only contain the pathos of love stories, but also the joys and sorrows of loving couples, and the bitterness of the fate of prostitutes, which flashed a spark of wavering in women's "view of chastity." In "The Lost Wife of Chen Xinxun in Meiling" (Volume 3 of "Qing Ping Shan Tang Hua Ben"), it is written that Chen Xin went to remote Guangdong to take up the post of inspection. His wife fell in love with him and could not bear to let him go alone, so she accompanied him. On the way, his wife was abducted by a hozen spirit known as the "Monkey King". Although he tried hard and soft tactics, he still refused to obey. Three years later, Chen Xin went through all kinds of hardships to save his wife, and the loving couple was finally reunited. The article does not mention Chen Xin's doubts and hesitations about his wife who has been missing for many years. This reflects the conflict between the concepts of "emotion" and "propriety" among the citizens. "It is a small matter to die, but it is a big matter to lose one's integrity" is a powerful impact.

Open female emotions

In traditional ancient Chinese society, the concept of "men are superior to women" is deeply rooted. Social culture and social consciousness have repeatedly reminded and strengthened that the social roles played by women are reproductive instinct and family responsibilities. Since the formation and stabilization of patriarchal society, women who have received the "three obediences and four virtues" etiquette and education from childhood have played a weak, passive, dependent, and closed role. In the story-telling novels of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the pressure of public opinion on women has changed to a certain extent, the traditional female roles have undergone a certain degree of transformation, and women's emotional concepts have shown a certain degree of openness. The change is first reflected in women's courage to break through secular barriers and actively and passionately express and pursue love.

For example, "The Jade Guanyin" (Volume 10 of "Kyomoto Popular Novels") is a relatively typical story about the love and marriage of ordinary "little people" in the market. The heroine, Xu Xiuxiu, is the daughter of a framer. She comes from a poor family, is bold and bold, free and easy, dares to love and hate, without any burden of traditional morality. She fell in love with Cui Ning, a jade grinder in the royal palace. When a fire broke out in the palace, she actively encouraged Cui Ning to escape together. She spoke bluntly and pressed forward step by step, expressing her love without any coyness. On the other hand, the male protagonist Cui Ning shows a cowardly, timid, and fearful character, which is in sharp contrast to the heroine and highlights the unusualness of women. It is true that Xu Xiuxiu's deviance is related to her social class. She comes from a humble background and is less bound by traditional culture and boudoir education. However, in a social background with unequal gender status, she is not willing to accept passively. She reverses this traditional gender relationship with a positive attitude, actively expresses emotions, and puts men in a passive position. Obviously, this exchange of status is an extremely shocking challenge to the strong male power in a society that has been dominated by masculinism since the formation of patriarchy. It means contempt for male sovereignty; it means women's dissatisfaction and reflection on the passive social role they have played for a long time. At the same time, it also opens up a vague concept of modern love based on equality and mutual love.

Secular concept of marriage

"Parents' orders, matchmaker's words" is the traditional concept of marriage in ancient Chinese society. With the establishment of patriarchy, family system and private ownership, children are regarded as part of the private property of the family or family. Marriage has gone beyond a simple personal relationship and has become a means to maintain and perpetuate family or family interests, so the control over marriage is inevitably in the hands of parents. Due to the limitations of the social era, the shortcomings of the citizens themselves, and the influence of deep-rooted traditional thoughts, the citizens are still very conservative and secular in their views on marriage. In the Song and Yuan dialect novels, although the requirements for traditional marriage rules are no longer strict, secular concepts of marriage are still retained.

For example, "Pei Xiu Niang's Night Journey to the West Lake" (Volume 2 of "Wanjin Love Forest") tells the story of Pei Lang, the Taiwei of Emperor Lizong of the Song Dynasty, and his family traveling to the West Lake at night during the Qingming Festival. After returning home, I became very lovesick. After Pei Lang learned the truth, he sent someone to investigate secretly and found out that the boy was Liu Cheng, the second son of Liu Yuanwai, so he asked a matchmaker to go to Liu's house to discuss the marriage. When Xiu Niang heard about it, she recovered from her illness, and the two families chose auspicious times to get married, and they finally got married. The novel satisfies people's various worldly desires about marriage, such as talented men and beautiful women, honorable husbands and noble children, longevity and health, etc.

At the same time, although citizens, as an emerging class in the city, are constantly developing and have new ideas, new concepts, and new morals, they are also constantly being differentiated, exploiting and being exploited, and there is also a gap between the rich and the poor. As mentioned above, the lavish material life in the city makes people's desire to acquire wealth, power, and status more urgent, which breeds the thoughts and behaviors of citizens trying to achieve their economic and political goals through marriage. This social phenomenon is also commonly reflected in story-telling novels.

Budding business awareness

During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the desire for wealth has always existed in the hearts of most people. With the development of commerce and handicraft industry, the urban economy gradually prospered, and what followed was the emergence of a concept of love and marriage that was infiltrated with commercial values.

For example, "Zhang Gu planted melons and married a literary girl" ("Dictionary of Appreciation of Ancient Novels"). This story was originally a Taoist story about gods and their salvation of the world. However, after being processed and transformed by the talking artists of the Song Dynasty, it became pure religious propaganda. The meaning has been greatly weakened. In order to cater to the aesthetic taste of ordinary citizens, talking artists focused on exaggerating its comedy elements. What is worth recalling is that Wei Shu "had a daughter, 18 years old, an upright official and a poor family, and had no money to marry", which shows that wealth has replaced family status, reputation, and family background and has become a more important criterion for people to conclude marriages. . However, an eighty-year-old commoner who is old and frail wants to marry a young "eighteen-year-old girl" from an official family. In reality, this thing that seems like a foolish dream has come true. Although this matter was not Wei Shu's subjective wish, it also implies that the citizens' concept of marriage has been closely linked to money. Moreover, in the story, the melon grower Zhang Gong twice gave the Wei family 100,000 yuan, which also revealed the common sense of money worship among the citizens.

It can be seen that in the context of increasingly prosperous urban culture and the increasingly expanding material desires, people's desire for wealth is endless. The desire for money is controlled by emotion and morality, and the planning of marriage is It is the maximization of economic interests - and this is the essence of business culture. At the same time, the script is not only intended to exhort, but also confirms the prosperity of the times from another aspect. There are also works such as "Blue Bridge", "Amorous Zhou Shengxian in Naofan Tower", and "Crushing Jade Guanyin", etc., which all reflect the relationship between love and wealth, marriage and economy in the hearts of the citizens of that era. The commercial consciousness that has gradually sprouted in the minds of citizens has a certain degree of reality.

Love, marriage and love are the eternal themes of literature and are also the embodiment of the spirit of the times. Behind any narrative is the support of a whole system of values. In the Song and Yuan script novels, there are two "voices" existing at the same time. One originates from the characters in the work, and the character’s emotions, desires, pursuits, and behaviors convey his values ??and moral values; the other originates from the narrator, including the narrator’s understanding, opinions, experiences, and experiences of life and life. Attitudes, interpretations, and judgments about characters. The two together build a complete system of values ??in the world of the novel. Different from the Tang legends, which feature emperors, generals, talented men and beauties as the protagonists, the citizens, as part of the emerging forces in society, occupied an important position in the art of speaking for the first time. The "little people" among the lower class citizens appeared as affirmed protagonists in the Song and Yuan dialect novels. Regarding love and marriage, we are no longer satisfied with depicting talented people and beauties, with implicit narratives of "promoting emotions and ending with etiquette", and no longer content with preaching based on traditional ethics and morals. Instead, we are no longer satisfied with describing the differences between men and women in the market. Bound by etiquette, the bold expression and pursuit of love and desire understand the love between men and women as simple love between men and women. The simple text is permeated with the citizens' vague awareness of life and self-awareness, and is also a manifestation of the citizens' extreme utilitarianism. This is a new thing in the history of Chinese novels and a subversive change.

Author's unit: Railway No. 1 Middle School, Changsha City, Hunan Province

(Editor in charge: Lu Yan)