Redology and Academic Thought of the Twentieth Century

Author: Chen Weizhao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-01-01
Features: To date, no work in China has stirred academic waves for as long as Dream of the Red Chamber has since its inception. During certain periods of the 20th century, the mainstream academic trends of "Red Studies" (Hongxue) even became a window for observing social thought and a barometer for social changes. This book weaves "Red Studies" research as the longitude and the academic history of the 20th century as the latitude, clearly depicting the arduous journey of "Red Studies" over the past century. Dream of the Red Chamber has only existed for over 60 years, yet as an independent academic system, "Red Studies" has already taken shape. Since Dream of the Red Chamber emerged during the height of the Qianjia textual research craze, the earliest "Red Studies" research was the Hidden Meaning (Soyin) school. The Hidden Meaning school has always held a pivotal position in the field of red studies, with scholars like Cai Yuanpei, a great intellectual, also being one of its representatives. Meanwhile, the textual research of Dream of the Red Chamber represented by Hu Shi, grounded in Western positivism, began with the rejection of the Hidden Meaning school and became one of the most important branches of red studies thereafter. However, from a literary perspective, rather than approaching Dream of the Red Chamber from a historical standpoint like the Hidden Meaning school, Wang Guowei was the one. He used Dream of the Red Chamber and Schopenhauer to express his own aspirations, pointing out that Dream of the Red Chamber was not only a Chinese but also a "cosmic" tragedy. He brilliantly compared Dream of the Red Chamber with Faust, thereby granting it its first literary status. During the May Fourth New Culture Movement, people began interpreting the social critique in Dream of the Red Chamber from sociological dimensions such as the significance of social and marital systems, love relationships in opposing feudalism and authoritarianism. In the following years, class analysis became the dominant voice in red studies on the mainland. During the Cultural Revolution, Yu Pingbo was subjected to fierce criticism. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, numerous works emerged exploring the aesthetic value of Dream of the Red Chamber, while overseas scholars like Yu Yingshi used structuralist methods to point out the two worlds in Dream of the Red Chamber,ing the utopian ideal in the Grand View Garden. In summary, the history of Dream of the Red Chamber studies in the 20th century is synchronized with the development of China's intellectual and academic history in the 20th century, and it resonates with the cultural trends of the world in the 20th century.