Chinese Classical Literature Popular Reader -- Dream of the Red Chamber (Upper and Lower)

Author: Cao Xueqin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: The linguistic artistry of Dream of the Red Chamber represents the pinnacle of classical Chinese novelistic language. The author often needs only a few words to sketch vivid characters with distinct personalities. Every typical character's language in the novel possesses unique individuality, enabling readers to distinguish characters solely through their speech. The author's narrative language also exhibits high artistic expression. The poetry, songs, and couplets in the novel not only blend seamlessly with the narrative but also serve to shape the characters' personalities, achieving the ideal of "poetry reflecting the person." Due to these outstanding achievements in various aspects, Dream of the Red Chamber possesses a fresh and enduring artistic charm, making it worthy of standing alongside world literature without any inferiority. Cao Xueqin is the greatest and most complex writer in the history of Chinese literature, and Dream of the Red Chamber is also the greatest and most complex work in Chinese literary history. The novel depicts the tragic love and marriage between the feudal aristocratic youth Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu, and Xue Baochai, and centers on the rise and fall of the four great families—Jia, Wang, Shi, and Xue—of which the Jia family is the focal point. It exposes the darkness and evils of the late feudal society, as well as its irreconcilable internal contradictions, delivering a powerful critique of the decadent feudal ruling class and the crumbling feudal system, leaving readers with the foreboding of its inevitable downfall. This book is a great work of both high ideological depth and high artistic achievement. From the ideological perspective it reflects, the author demonstrates preliminary democratic thoughts. He critically examines the darkness of the real society, including the courts and officialdom, the corruption of the feudal aristocratic class and their families, the feudal imperial examination system, marriage system, slave system, and hierarchical system, as well as the corresponding social ruling ideology—Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism—and social moral concepts. He also proposes faint yet nascent ideals and proposals with preliminary democratic characteristics. These ideals and proposals reflect the subtle influences of the budding capitalist economic factors of the time.