Historical process of characterization in novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties

China's ancient narrative literature entered the summary period in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and eventually matured. As far as literary concepts, literary styles and literary means of expression are concerned, novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties pushed narrative literature to the extreme with their complete genre forms and rich means of expression. Judging from the breadth and depth of social life, broad social scenes, outstanding differences in characters, diverse artistic creation styles and diverse changes in expression, novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties are spectacular and can be called the fruitful peak in the history of China literature. Novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties undoubtedly cast the last glory of China classical literature.

First, 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, reflected the past events of various historical dynasties in China by innuendo, and expressed people's joys, sorrows and ideals. The characteristics of narrative literature and popular literature make the expression of literature on social life unprecedented in breadth and depth. The second appearance and prominence of urban economy and citizen class, new values and new social thoughts have injected new ideological connotation and ideology 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 novels of the world 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, heroes, legends, ghosts, satirical novels, chivalrous case-solving novels and so on. The secularization of Jin Ping Mei, the deification of Shen Feng Bang, the heroism of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Jianghu of Water Margin, the love of A Dream of Red Mansions, etc., all the genre contents observed by China's literature are unprecedentedly rich and complete.

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, ups and downs of family, shady officialdom, social ugliness, imperial examination and ethics, various life styles, daily life and social customs have all become literary events that writers pay attention to. On the literary history value of novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties, Dream of Red Mansions is undoubtedly the pinnacle, because it fully shows the colorful and all-inclusive secular life among all sentient beings. I once saw a view in a book that the characters in Jin Ping Mei and its general storyline all came from the Water Margin, and the birth of Jin Ping Mei opened the way for the secular romantic literary style of A Dream of Red Mansions. I appreciate and agree with the view that the three masterpieces in literary history come down in one continuous line, because the birth of each masterpiece has its process of gestation and achievement, such as The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, The Journey to the West and other literary masterpieces. If there is no outline of folk stories that have been circulated for thousands of years and recorded in historical books, can only the genius novelist be born after a lifetime of hard thinking?

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, marriage ideals and interpersonal ideals have all become ideal ideologies followed by literature. In the preface to A Dream of Red Mansions published by Yuelu Bookstore, I was deeply moved by a passage written by Shu Wu: "A Dream of Red Mansions is remarkable. It brought a brand-new and unprecedented thing in China's classical literature, that is, treating women as human beings and respecting them. Although China's classical literature has written many beautiful female images, the highest one is just a lovely image who dares to fight for her love and happiness. In A Dream of Red Mansions, Jia Baoyu respects all the women in the Grand View Garden. He sincerely believes that "daughters are made of water and men are made of mud", and that "the beauty of mountains and rivers is only for her, and men with men are just scum. "Such an ideal, such a glorious humanity, began to appeal in the era of Cao Xueqin, and we still need to continue to save and shout today.

Second, the artistic construction of novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties:

In the social era of novels in Ming and Qing dynasties, 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 the characters, from straightforward narration to three-dimensional interleaving, from single-line depth to all-round spread, from the main line to the first-line double narration, it constitutes a complete and exquisite narrative structure system.

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.

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.

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.

The expansion of novel description space, the enrichment of novel character gallery and the dramatic change of novel plot have laid a rich foundation for the enrichment of artistic aesthetic connotation of novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Thirdly, novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties and traditional culture.

In terms of ideological connotation and theme expression, novels in Ming and Qing dynasties contain the essence of traditional culture to the greatest extent. Through secular illustrations, traditional culture can actually enter thousands of households with sensible images, touching stories and even friendly ways. 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 support 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. Reading novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties is like reading the history of China, looking at history from a secular perspective, and making serious history recognized and accepted by many citizens. For example, if you look at the list of gods, you will understand the history of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the history of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the romance of the Three Kingdoms, the history of Han and Wei Dynasties, the romance of Sui and Tang Dynasties, the historical sites of Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Water Margin, the Song Dynasty and the Dream of Red Mansions, as if you had entered the grand view garden of the Qing Dynasty. Without these novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties, China's historical knowledge might not be appreciated by many non-intellectuals as it is today. Twenty-four histories may be read by literate people, otherwise many literate people may not understand them today.

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. It is especially obvious and complete in Ming and Qing novels. In this respect, compared with Liu E's, the three words and two beats in the Ming Dynasty (Feng Menglong's Say So, Xing Yan, Ling Mengchu's One Surprise and Two Surprises) and the four condemnation novels in the late Qing Dynasty (Li's Officialdom, Wu Woyao's Strange Situation Seen in Twenty Years) naturally contain traditional virtues for China. In fact, Confucian culture has not been integrated in the long history of the development of China's classical literature, but it is more obvious and concentrated in the novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties. Until the birth of the new culture, Fang Ling encountered the impact of revolution and barriers. However, the development of literature and culture has always been a process of spiral progress and evolution. Today, these literary works, which are deeply integrated with Confucian culture, still attract people's attention and love with their original features, and still show burning glory in the history of literature.

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. Whether it is the list of gods, The Journey to the West, Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio or Legend of the White Snake, there is a strong influence of ghost Taoism, which makes people in China's story, China's consciousness and China's culture often wonder today what is the difference and origin of ghost Taoism, but it is derived from this culture. For this question, we can just give an example and ask a question. For example, in the world of Journey to the West, it may be really hard to say whether the jade emperor is more powerful or the Tathagata is more powerful.

In a word, the peak achievement and classic essence of novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties in the history of China literature are worthy of continuous reading, study, appreciation and research by everyone who loves China classical literature and China traditional culture. There are so many places to learn and appreciate, which are not only endless spiritual enjoyment, but also the mission of the times to inherit the essence of national culture. It is necessary to study hard and teach around the clock.