Drafting Cao Xueqin's Reply to a Guest's Question - On the Research Methods of the Redology Conjectural School

Author: Guo Yushi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: In recent years, more and more people in China and abroad have been studying Dream of the Red Chamber, making "Red Studies" a worldwide field of study. Overall, Red Studies have achieved significant results and have been advancing, which is very encouraging. However, we also see that there are indeed some flaws in the study of Dream of the Red Chamber. Some articles have an overly traditional air, with a strong flavor of the "conspiracy theory" and "self-origin theory," as if they are the only way to reveal the mysteries of this "remarkable book" in terms of its ideological and artistic essence. Some readers may also mistakenly believe that this is some new invention or creation. In fact, for those research methods that dig into obscure details and unreasonable "insights," Cao Xueqin himself would have frowned upon them back then. This book collects articles I have published over the years reviewing Red Studies, particularly those critical of the research methods of the conspiracy theory school. At the suggestion and urging of my friends, I have now compiled them and had them published by East China Normal University Press. The main purpose of publishing this book is to demonstrate that the research methods of the conspiracy theory school in Red Studies are incorrect and unscientific.