Hold up the classics · Middle School Chinese New Curriculum Standard Designated Works Guide and Appreciation: Middle School Chinese New Curriculum Standard Designated Works Guide and Appreciation

Author: Zhang Wei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: Why do we read? Why do we read poetry, lyrics, and prose? Why do we read essays and novels? From a utilitarian perspective, reading helps us acquire knowledge and become useful to society, thus not fearing any competition. Fundamentally, reading enables us to live more like human beings, with richer and more fulfilling experiences of life. Among all living beings on this planet, only humans can speak and express their experiences and emotions through words to others or future generations. Among the countless texts that have existed so far, there is a part that is immortal—it is destined to walk with humanity to the very end. Such texts, though created by individuals, express the joys, sorrows, struggles, and passions that everyone may experience. The books formed by such texts are masterpieces that embody the collective spirit of humanity. Therefore, from the "Supposedly the person I adore, at the other side of the water" in the Book of Songs to Tao Yuanming's "Planting beans in the southern mountains, the grass grows lush, but the bean sprouts are few" to Gu Cheng's "The night gave me black eyes, yet I use them to seek light," we read along; from the Iliad to Hamlet to One Hundred Years of Solitude, we read along, and the things we perceive transcend the confines of our limited lives and limited existence. We might be an ancient soldier hiding beneath the walls of Troy, ready to surge forward in the morning, and in the afternoon, a carefree scholar enjoying the gentle morning breeze and the withered moonlight by the willow-lined banks of the Jiangnan water towns. How rich, how splendid, how romantic is such a life! To live this kind of life, we need not seek elixirs of immortality or gather funds for travel. Open a book, close it, and reflect—then the world becomes yours! Read! Only books can help us live a life of true meaning, only books can enable us to perceive the grass and trees of nature and the smiles and frowns of the human world with greater subtlety, only books can make our eyes shine, and only books can make us smile knowingly when encountering people of all kinds in life: "This person is beautiful like Helen," "This person is stingy like Grandfather Gao," "This person is reckless like Iron Ox," "This person is melancholic like Hamlet," "This person is sly like Wang Xifeng." When you smile with such insight, God is also hiding his mouth to laugh with you. At that moment, you are viewing life through the eyes of a wise person. Good books not only enrich and romanticize our lives; they are also our refuge and. Any nation that has achieved success will have a root that sustains it through millennia of trials. Confucius said, "The past flows like this," inspiring the cultivation of virtue in life. Zhuge Liang's "Tears streaming down as I write this letter" revealed the integrity of a great minister. Wang Bo's "Though poor, I grow stronger" expressed the scholar's desire to serve the nation. Su Dongpo's "Do not listen to the sound of leaves beating through the forest" perfectly embodied the spirit of perseverance. Without these, what would the Chinese people rely on? China's good books are our eternal roots, but for this root to maintain eternal vitality, it must also possess the grace and ability to absorb the essence of other nations. Let alone that we still lack figures like Newton, Faraday, or Einstein in the natural sciences, even in the social sciences, our philosophical masters are all from the pre-Qin era, with no modern Hegel or Kant; in literature, the most significant figures are Cao Xueqin from two hundred years ago, with no modern Shakespeare or Tolstoy. Therefore, eighty years ago, the erudite Liang Qichao was astonished when he saw foreign novels using the "inverted narration" technique that even elementary school students now understand. This is just a case of backward literary techniques. The content of our literary works has also fallen far short of world standards in the depth and breadth of exploring eternal themes of humanity, such as goodness, justice, virtue, and love. This is a topic we cannot avoid. Therefore, to be truly rich and happy, we must extend our quest for knowledge to the world, regardless of whether people are black or white, whether they are from Europe or America—as long as they embody the collective spirit of humanity, we should "take them all!" In recent years, the Ministry of Education has issued a new junior high school Chinese curriculum standards (abbreviated as "New Curriculum Standards"). In the "Recommendations for Extracurricular Reading" section of this new curriculum standards, approximately 50 outstanding Chinese and foreign literary works, as well as a large number of ancient Chinese poems and lyrics, are listed. These readings can be said to be the crystallization of humanity's outstanding literary achievements. To help friends better understand and read these works, we have written this book, Holding Up Classics—Guides and Appreciations for Junior High School Chinese New Curriculum Recommended Readings. We understand that in the face of every great work, a few thousand words of introductory text will inevitably be incomplete or even superficial, let alone that, given our limited abilities, we dare not claim to accurately grasp the essence of these classics. But it is certain that having such a book is at least a starting point for helping everyone read. If these words can leave some impression of the classics in the minds of junior high school friends and provide a path to understanding them, so that everyone can often recall these works during the long journey of life, then those of us who have done the groundwork will be content. By the way, the two books mentioned in this book, Furong Town and When Dust Settles, are not among the "named recommended readings" in the new curriculum standards. However, the new curriculum standards recommend reading works that have won the "Mao Dun Literature Prize." We believe these two novels are outstanding works of contemporary Chinese fiction and may even surpass some of the foreign novels mentioned in the curriculum standards in quality. Therefore, we have also written introductory articles on them, hoping to provide some reference for students.