Three Words Selection -- A Series of Mini-Reviews of Chinese Classical Novels

Author: Yang Lierong Chen Xia
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: With clever storylines and well-developed characters, it showcases the daily emotions and moral states of the urban class. It presents the human condition and aesthetic tastes of the urban class from a perspective rooted in the people. San Yan refers to the combined title of three vernacular short story collections: Yushi Mingyan (Clarifying World by Stories), Jingshi Tongyan (Warning World by Stories), and Xingshi Hengyan (Awakening World by Stories), each with 40 volumes, totaling 120 works. Compiled by Feng Menglong at the end of the Ming Dynasty.
Feng Menglong (1574–1646) was a popular literary figure and playwright of the Ming Dynasty. Known by the courtesy name Youlong, he also used the names Ziyou and the pseudonyms Longziyou, Muhanzhai Master, Guqu Sanren, and Ci Nu. He was from Changzhou (now Suzhou, Jiangsu), belonging to a scholar-official family. His older brother Feng Mengui was skilled in painting, while his younger brother Feng Mengxiong was a student of the Confucian classics, who once studied the Spring and Autumn Annals with Feng Menglong and left behind poems. The three brothers were collectively known as the "Three Fengs of Wu."
Despite his extraordinary talent, Feng Menglong faced obstacles in his official career, which led him to become disillusioned with the world and indulged in a life of freedom and pleasure. This resulted in him wandering in the world of pleasure and indulgence. Such a life of decline made Feng Menglong alienated from the orthodox Confucianism of Confucius and Mencius but brought him closer to the lives of the lower urban class and led him to embrace the Taizhou School of Thought. Thus, the San Yan was born.