The High Discourse of the Azure Lattice

Author: Liu Fu (Song Dynasty) compiled and edited / Wang Youhuai / Wang Xiaoyong annotated
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-05-01
Features: Ancient Chinese novels emerged early (pre-Qin period) but matured late (Tang Dynasty); as one aspect of novel theory, novel commentary also emerged even later. Currently, academia generally believes that novel commentary originated in the Southern Song Dynasty, with Liu Chenweng as its pioneer. In fact, Liu Fu of the Northern Song Dynasty's classical prose collection Qingsuo Gaoyi contains 17 instances of commentary throughout the book, either introduced by "Yi Yu" or "Ping Yu," similar to the later "tail commentary" or "general commentary." Since the commentary primarily concerns content and character morality, it rarely touches upon aspects of novel art and is often overlooked. In reality, the critique of content and character morality is one of the important components of novel commentary.