Cao Shi's theory in the Red Chamber is a joke.

A Dream of Red Mansions has high literary value-

To talk about the theme of A Dream of Red Mansions, I think we should first make clear what the theme is. So to discuss the theme of a work, I think there are about three levels. The first level, that is to say, what is this work and this novel written about? The second level, that is to say, when the writer wrote this book, what was his creative motivation? Why did he write this book? The third level, the views of later generations on this book, is probably the last step. Because Mr. Lu Xun said such a passage, as you may know, even when talking about A Dream of Red Mansions, he said that there were many names of A Dream of Red Mansions, and because readers had different eyes, they thought that the ideas of A Dream of Red Mansions were also conflicting. For example, "Confucians see righteousness, Taoists see lewdness, gifted scholars see lingering, revolutionaries see fullness, and gossips see palace secrets." In fact, the theme of a work, because the reader's thoughts and feelings are different from his position, then there will be different views, so I think reading A Dream of Red Mansions is the same. First of all, it should be said that A Dream of Red Mansions has a theme. Probably there was no theme of A Dream of Red Mansions at the earliest. At that time, there was no such concept, just what was written? Why do you want to write like this? who is it? It's red inkstone, which is known to all. Of course, who is red inkstone and what kind of person is a matter of opinion.

So at that time, what did Zhi Yanzhai say about A Dream of Red Mansions? As you can see, A Dream of Red Mansions has a batch of red inkstones for the first time. This comment on writing was written for the first time. He wrote a story of "a crimson pearl, a fairy grass, and a clever waiter". Then, after writing it, there is a criticism from Zhi Yanzhai. He said that the author wanted to use this story to write his inner depression, which means sadness and depression. Then Cao Xueqin wanted to tell some sad things in his heart through A Dream of Red Mansions. This is early, so it is a critic. The critics have two representatives. One of them is the so-called escort, that is, Wang Xilian. So Wang Xilian has such a sentence in his comments, which means why Cao Xueqin wrote A Dream of Red Mansions, that is, he lamented the rise and fall of the family. This is one of the representatives of critics. There is another person named Zhang Xinzhi, who is a peaceful and idle person, so he thinks that the theme of A Dream of Red Mansions is to satirize the failure of family education. Then came the later researches, whose important interest was to study the essence of A Dream of Red Mansions. As we all know, the most popular one is A Dream of Red Mansions, which tells stories about the emperor shunzhi and Dong Xiaowan, the emperor shunzhi is Jia Baoyu and Dong Xiaowan is Lin Daiyu. This means that he wrote such a story, which is actually the most representative in the study. Then Mr. Cai Yuanpei. Cai Yuanpei believes that A Dream of Red Mansions is a political novel, so the women written in it are Han Chinese and the men are Manchu. Therefore, he thinks that A Dream of Red Mansions mainly criticizes Manchu, and then it is textual criticism. Textual research school thinks that A Dream of Red Mansions is Cao Xueqin's autobiography, which is about his family. Of course, after liberation, there are some new ideas.

Everyone likes a dream of red mansions and is very interested in it. In fact, the study of A Dream of Red Mansions, as Mr. Zhang said just now, actually runs through these schools. But some are parallel, but some are focused. For example, after 192 1 Hu Shi published Textual Research on a Dream of Red Mansions, it seems that the textual research school has the upper hand, taking the text as the main line. But in fact, the criticism and research of novels still exist at this time, so they are intertwined, and the internal situation of each genre is actually different. We often say that, for example, the textual research school often says that Mr. Hu Shi is a pioneer and often mentions Mr. Yu Pingbo in it, but in fact, it is now pointed out that Hu Shi's textual research on A Dream of Red Mansions is different from Yu Pingbo's textual research on A Dream of Red Mansions. Mr. Hu Shi's textual research on A Dream of Red Mansions focuses more on history, that is to say, the author of A Dream of Red Mansions "was researched through history and historical materials. Of course, Mr. Hu has made great achievements in this respect, and Mr. Yu Pingbo's Debate on a Dream of Red Mansions or Research on a Dream of Red Mansions is the representative. His textual research is more focused on the work itself of A Dream of Red Mansions, so some people call it literary textual research. What about literary textual research? In fact, it is in line with the later novel criticism. In fact, it is integrated with literary textual research and novel criticism, so the relationship here is very interesting. If you distinguish carefully, there are many places worth thinking about.

The reason why A Dream of Red Mansions has become a science and specialized knowledge is not only because of its mystery, but also because of its literary and artistic charm. Everyone cares about a dream of red mansions before they care about its mystery. Just like I don't have a name, people don't know, I am missing, dead and alive, and people don't care. Because a dream of red mansions has this charm to attract everyone, it is said that everyone should care about a dream of red mansions and its mystery. Then the more textual research, the more historical materials found, the more problems that can't be solved, and many contradictions appear. No matter whether Cao Xueqin lived for forty or fifty years, we all know that all his things are just bits and pieces. So there are many unsolved mysteries. A Dream of Red Mansions is an unfinished work, and it also has many unsolved mysteries. Because of its charm, everyone should solve this mystery. The more puzzles are solved, the more attractive it will be. Secondly, many scholars have joined the research team of A Dream of Red Mansions. It's not that they can become scholars just because they can do A Dream of Red Mansions, but that they can study A Dream of Red Mansions only because they have profound literary skills and literacy. Familiar figures in history, such as Mr. Cai Yuanpei, Mr. Wang, Mr. Yu Pingbo, and later Mr. Zhou, Mr. Wang, etc. Even the participation of Chinese politicians has set off this red dream craze. What is this formed? More importantly, it has a mass base. In other words, there are many fans of a dream of red mansions, and the hobby of a dream of red mansions is not something that others can stir up. I'm here to sell. What do I promote? It is that A Dream of Red Mansions has such charm that it is recognized and liked by readers. Therefore, the formation of A Dream of Red Mansions is not unilateral, and the reasons are not single.

So Suoyin sent it out as another historical school. How can I put it? What do you mean by this concept? There are many mysteries in A Dream of Red Mansions, and Cao Xueqin also has many mysteries. "A Dream of Red Mansions" has such great artistic charm, so many people, that is, the author, are misled, that is to say, "hide the truth and explain a story with false words. In this case,

It may be that the "Zhang Hou Family Theory" appeared in the fifty-fourth year of Qianlong, which was put forward by Zhou Chun in Reading a Dream of Red Mansions. Zhang Hou is familiar to everyone, that is, there is a Zhang Yong in Jin Yong's novel Duke of Lushan, who is a real person in history. At that time, he made great achievements in the "San Francisco Rebellion". Then, in fact, the earliest in front is the family history of Nalan Mingzhu. Everyone knows Nalan Mingzhu's novels in February River, so he writes about his family history, sometimes a pearl, and sometimes his son Nalan Xingde. Then there is another thing to say. The Prime Minister Liu in the previous paragraph is very popular, saying that it is a family background, and so on. In fact, it tells a hidden truth, that is, what is the theme of A Dream of Red Mansions.

Therefore, it is precisely because of the traditional habits of China people that literature and history are indistinguishable, that is to say, what and when did the novel originate? Now there is a debate in academic circles. Teachers who specialize in the history of novels such as Zhang and Duan all know this. Some talk about history, some talk about myths and so on, and some talk about pre-Qin prose. But, look at that. These are all beneficial. The real maturity begins with the legend of the Tang Dynasty, and the novel begins to mature. But in ancient China, the novel was called unofficial history, which meant that it was not enough to supplement history. Therefore, the concept of not separating literature from history gave birth to an idea in China, that is, the novel originated from history, and it wrote the real history, not the story fabricated by the literati there. Of course, some stories are fabricated out of thin air, and some are artistically sublimated according to the reality of life, thus forming this genre.

There is also a classic interpretation of China tradition, which is divided into two schools: ancient and modern, namely, modern writers and ancient writers. Ancient writers verified the authenticity of this book according to its version and facts, while today's writers, the new writers at that time, were all a bunch of politicians at the level of "members of the Central Committee". He asked literature and art to serve politics, so when he interpreted the Book of Songs, he explained it in vain. So this tradition has been inherited until this time of the Song Dynasty, and Wang Anshi and his colleagues made changes. When they interpreted the Book of Songs, they did it at will. How should I interpret this? I can even say that after the founding of the People's Republic of China and after 1949, all the interpretations of A Dream of Red Mansions have their commonality, that is, I interpret A Dream of Red Mansions at will. Literary and artistic research and creation should serve politics, workers, peasants and soldiers. If there is such a requirement, then the interpretation is bound to be crooked. So actually speaking of textual criticism, textual criticism overthrew the nonsense of Suoyin. He pays attention to facts. He comes from an ancient writer. However, when Hu Shi's school was a new redology, he equated Jia Zhen with Jia Fu in Cao Jiahe's Dream of Red Mansions and made the same mistake. He just said that Cai Yuanpei and his school were searching for the Pearl family, political novels of the Kangxi Dynasty and so on. He is looking for it.

I haven't studied Wang Guowei's philosophy much. He wrote an article called A Dream of Red Mansions. Then this article was still very important at that time, because it was different from critics and researchers. I went on to say what Mr Yu Ming Sun just said. There is an opinion in the Suoyin School that A Dream of Red Mansions is about the pearl family. It was written by Nalan Xingde. Nalan Xingde is a famous poet in Qing Dynasty, and his handwriting is quite good. So Mr. Wang Guowei, I think his idea is very important. He said that some contents written in A Dream of Red Mansions, especially some ideological colors of some poems, are so different from Nalan Xingde. His wife died when he was very young. After his death, he wrote a series of words such as "Golden Melody" to mourn his wife. Then Mr. Wang Guowei thinks that some emotional colors in A Dream of Red Mansions are the same as Nalan Xingde's words, that is, they are interlinked. But he thinks that the love between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu written in A Dream of Red Mansions is definitely not the kind of love between Nalan Xingde and his wife. Therefore, he thinks that A Dream of Red Mansions is a great tragedy of China and an internal tragedy. What do I think I wrote in A Dream of Red Mansions? The tragedies of life, love and family described in A Dream of Red Mansions are also social tragedies. Probably such a view is that we have such a view today. This view probably originated from Mr. Wang Guowei's opinion, because Mr. Wang Guowei is a philologist, a classical philologist and a literary critic. Therefore, I think his vision is much higher than that of Mr. Cai Yuanpei and Mr. Shen Pingan of Suoyin School.

Mr. Wang Guowei, the book review is very thin. At the beginning, it was 1904, because it was published more than ten years before the two representative works of Suoyin School, Cai Yuanpei and Wang. Therefore, there is a strange place in China's study of A Dream of Red Mansions, that is, Wang Guowei's theoretical and systematic comment, which should be said to be very valuable in the academic history of China, has been diluted. What everyone likes and cares about is who Jia Baoyu really is, whether Jia Baoyu is the emperor shunzhi, and whether Lin Daiyu is Dong Hubei Princess.

Probably like Mr. Cai Yuanpei, his Story of the Stone is about 19 17, but in fact he is much later than Wang Guowei. But as soon as he came out, he played down Mr. Wang Guowei's very important book. So when you talk about Wang Guowei's work, I think it is not only an iconic theoretical work in the history of China's Dream of Red Mansions, but also tenable and remarkable in the academic history of China. So as far as the study of A Dream of Red Mansions is concerned, he is the first person to systematically study the knowledge of A Dream of Red Mansions. The whole Dream of Red Mansions has become a science, and its theoretical value has been explained, thanks to Wang Guowei. In addition, he was also the first person to study A Dream of Red Mansions with western theories. He quoted Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, to study China's Dream of Red Mansions, which was fatalistic and pessimistic. This is great, right? We are going to introduce western theories and technologies now, and Wang Guowei had already introduced them very successfully.

Therefore, this work is indispensable in the study of A Dream of Red Mansions, so my view on the issues it talks about is an aesthetic comment. Although it is about life, it is said that a dream of red mansions is about this kind of life. There is a desire in life, and it will always be painful if the desire is not satisfied. This is his point of view. People are like pendulums. The pendulum of a clock is the same. If you swing it, it will be between pain and desire, and will not exceed this. So he thinks he interprets A Dream of Red Mansions from this angle, just as Jia Baoyu sees that his future is Jia Yucun Jia Zheng's second, and he doesn't want to make the same mistake.

The more desire Jia Baoyu has, the more he wants to live like that. He wants to get the love like Lin Daiyu, so these things can't be realized, so he will always suffer, so he finally talked. What should Jia Baoyu do finally? Being a monk is a kind of liberation, and life can never be freed from pain, because you always have desires in life and your desires are not satisfied, so it is always painful. So how can we get rid of it? Just like Jia Baoyu, this is his specific idea. But I think the value of the criticism of A Dream of Red Mansions lies not in this, but in the aesthetic criticism and appreciation of A Dream of Red Mansions. He put forward one of China's two great tragedies, one is Peach Blossom Fan, and the other is the long legend of Kong. The other is A Dream of Red Mansions, which he said is a tragedy among tragedies. In this way, Wang Guowei was the first person to introduce tragedy theory to study A Dream of Red Mansions, and his position was very high.

For Mr. Wang Guowei, the initiative is indispensable, I admit. However, I think this article is highly praised by the Redology circle now. The reason why there was no response at that time was that there were too few international students and too few people who knew Europe and America, so there was no response. Secondly, if we read this article carefully now, we will find that it is a truth for the research community to dismember literary works with the methods of Europe and America and the theories of Freud and Nietzsche, but Mr. Wang Guowei is a great scholar, and he can handle it with ease. Just let you read some very. He explained that life can be done with Schopenhauer's theory, but a dream of red mansions can't. Although A Dream of Red Mansions is a tragedy of life, Cao Xueqin, the author of A Dream of Red Mansions, has different ideas from Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer said that life is painful, and pain comes from desire. I think it is sometimes feasible to explain life in this way, but A Dream of Red Mansions is not. The life shown in A Dream of Red Mansions is beautiful, but there is a fly in the ointment. Many beautiful things in life have been destroyed, and such a sad song can't be saved. I think so, too. It is said that there is a lot of happiness in the world, but there is only a fly in the ointment. This is what the stone said when he was about to descend to earth. In music, he also sang "sigh for the beauty of life", and some versions are "sigh for the world", which is actually the same truth.

Through the description of A Dream of Red Mansions, we can see not only pain and trouble, but also a lot of joy, laughter and happiness. The descriptions and many plots in the Grand View Garden are enviable, desirable, worrying and painful, but these things are destroyed. This is people-oriented, people-oriented as the starting point, so as to observe the whole natural universe. Why do flowers fade when they bloom? Why do people look so good when they are young? Why do people die of old age? Why do seasons change? And so on. He is exploring nature, so it sends such words to heaven through Dai Yu's mouth. He is helpless, so he has no choice but to consume, to die, to grow old, and to destroy everything beautiful in the world. Truth, goodness and beauty are praised by him, and falsehood and ugliness are condemned by him. He is retaining everything in the world and lamenting everything in the world. Including Jia Baoyu's fatigue, irreparable and helpless. Of course, in the final analysis, since the appearance of A Dream of Red Mansions and even every novel, different people have different views on the theme. Even I and the two teachers present here today may have different views. Just now, Teacher Zhang has said that A Dream of Red Mansions is a tragedy of life, and I admit it, but we have different connotations about the coverage of life, so I just want to talk about my own views.

Zhang Jun: I think so. Judging from Wang Guowei's comments on A Dream of Red Mansions, there may be some defects. But I think we must first affirm its pioneering work. Because he studied A Dream of Red Mansions, the one mentioned by Mr. Duan was the first to quote western aesthetic views to evaluate A Dream of Red Mansions, which should be affirmed. As for some of the views in it, we may not agree with them today, but we may not agree with them today. This is natural. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, after the reform and opening up, we introduced some western ideas to study A Dream of Red Mansions. In fact, at that time, some articles in the west were well written and we couldn't understand them. 1975 There is an American sinologist, Mr. Yu Yingshi, a researcher of A Dream of Red Mansions. He wrote a paper, Two Worlds in a Dream of Red Mansions, which had a great response at that time. What are the two worlds of a dream of red mansions? One is inside the Grand View Garden and the other is outside it. Inside the Grand View Garden is the world of "emotion", that is, the world of feelings, while outside the Grand View Garden is the world of "ceremony" and the world ruled by ethics.

Duan: I have some ideas about this "two worlds". I think I'm waiting for Sun Yu Ming to criticize me. I think whether this grand view garden can be separated from the outside world is another world and worth studying. Mr Yu Yingshi's speech has great influence at home and abroad. Because Mr. Lu Xun once said, "Sadness and fog spread all over Hualin, and only Baoyu breathed and accepted it." Then the "sad fog" it refers to includes the Grand View Garden, and judging from Jia Baoyu's life, Jia Baoyu mainly lives in the Grand View Garden, not to say that he has gone outside and suffered various setbacks, so his feelings about life and profound experience of life pain are all obtained from living in the Grand View Garden. Therefore, the Grand View Garden is not an ideal place, let alone an ideal place beyond reality. It's not the same thing as that thing in the dream of Peony Pavilion. It actually describes such a living environment. Jia Baoyu suffered all kinds of hardships in his life, and all his feelings about life were gained by living in the Grand View Garden, so there is a wall between him and the outside world, but what is the meaning of these two worlds? If the exterior of the Grand View Garden is regarded as a realistic society full of contradictions and pains, the interior of the Grand View Garden is an ideal and a joy. The blood and tears in the Grand View Garden really infected Jia Baoyu, so Jia Baoyu took such a decisive attitude towards the end of life. According to the current notebook 120, it also left without hesitation, not to mention that Cao Xueqin's original work finally "pulled back from the cliff", leaving only a piece of white land. It's really clean Then he is completely denying this life. So the Grand View Garden didn't give him anything, and the inside of the Grand View Garden made him as depressed as the outside.

Yu Yingshi rigidly divided A Dream of Red Mansions into two worlds, precisely because he didn't look at the development history of China's novels or plays. In ancient feudal times in China, the love between men and women needed a specific place, some of which were novels by writers and some came from real life. In several places, in the dream, the masterpiece "Peony Pavilion"; Inside Brothel, from Biography of Huo Xiaoyu and Biography of Li Wa to Biography of Du Shiniang. Another is in the back garden, the back garden of talented people and beautiful women, and another is the relationship between cousins. At that time, it was impossible for men and women to be together at a certain age. Like Jia Baoyu, the author should avoid age, let these people do many great things, and talk about the philosophy of life that many adults can say. You can even recommend a person, Xifeng, to assist Ning. Is Jia Baoyu too young? At this time, he will dilute it and write it as an adult, but if he wants to hang out with a group of girls, his age will be lowered. Then the Grand View Garden is actually equivalent to the back garden, temple, brothel or dream before A Dream of Red Mansions, which provides a credible place for the love between the hero and heroine in A Dream of Red Mansions. No saplings can grow on the bluestone board. It provides you with fertile soil first, and then cultivates this seedling of love. What about the Grand View Garden? Actually, it is such a place. As I said before, what is the theme of a dream of red mansions? I think this is a tragedy of life, a tragedy in which all the beautiful things in life, the world and nature are destroyed. It let Baochai enter Beijing through Xue Pan's murder, and brought her to Beijing through Lin Daiyu's loss of her mother. After focusing on the big stage of Jiafu, the so-called romantic friends of the hero and heroine can get together to perform the play, and finally a bigger and very beautiful big stage is built through the relatives in Yuan Fei. Then the Grand View Garden is beautiful, and the life inside is beautiful and full of laughter, but it is not without contradictions. There are many contradictions in this. It can be said that it is a signal to copy the Grand View Garden. When the first autumn wind blows, all that remains is flowers and trees wither. Then he tried his best to render the beauty of the Grand View Garden and the beauty of life. It is when beautiful things are rendered to the extreme and destroyed that people sigh. For example, if you see a weed on the road, you won't mind stepping on it. When you see a beautiful flower, you may cherish it and cherish it. When you raise a very precious flower, you will cherish it. When it died without being well raised, your sadness was sincere. So I think it is unreasonable for Mr. Yu Yingshi to separate the two worlds. He has just set up a beautiful stage. All the beautiful things on this stage, the hero and heroine are destroyed, youth contains love, and everything in life is destroyed. The Grand View Garden is not divorced from reality. I think the division between the two worlds is too absolute.

Duan: I am sure that comparing Chinese and western literature is absolutely feasible, not absurd, not absurd. Because of the use of western theory, even compared with western literature, this kind of research has such a tradition since Wang Guowei. We only closed our doors to the outside world around the 1960s. In that case, we stood still and appeared at that time. That's countercurrent. Therefore, it is a normal research aspect to absorb western viewpoints and compare them with western literature. As I said just now, Wang Guowei wrote A Dream of Red Mansions Review at 1904. By 1920, I remember two articles, including A New Reader of A Dream of Red Mansions written by Mr. Wu Mi, Mr. Wu Mi of Xue Heng School and Mr. Wu Mi. This article, written in 1920, is a comparative study with western literature. It's normal at this time, and we can see that there are no scholars of our generation now, and neither can foreign languages, nor can this and that in the west. Wang Guowei and Chen Yinque, a generation of scholars, do the math. They are all proficient in Chinese and western. Mr. Qian Zhongshu and others. Know at least one foreign language, be a real scholar and have studied abroad. But this is how our generation came from objectively. We didn't study abroad, but went to work in the countryside, so we can only use the method of "Tuba Road", so we don't blame us, so this is also a break in our academic tradition. I haven't finished yet. You asked me to say more, you always turn your back on us.

It is absolutely necessary to learn western things and compare them with western works. Perhaps it is sometimes not up to standard, that is to say, comparative literature is neither comparative literature nor literary comparison. I don't know what comparative literature is. The connotation of comparative literature, the methods of comparative literature, these things, that is, we should strive to standardize it now, there are methods in it, and it is not enough to just bring them.

Sun: When it comes to comparative literature, I still have a feeling that we don't understand the concept of comparative literature at all in the large number of contributions we received. How to operate it is a very mechanized comparison. For example, if we compare Jia Baoyu's A Dream of Red Mansions and Tales of Genji, how many girls does Jia Baoyu have and how many girls does Guangyuan have? How Jia Baoyu loves girls and how Guangyuan loves girls is not such a comparison method. If we can go deep into the similarities and differences between the two cultures, such as the specific time when The Tale of Genji came into being and what kind of history and culture Japan has, then what kind of situation is the time when A Dream of Red Mansions came into being? I think it is very interesting to compare other things and talk about cultural changes or cultural differences between the two countries.

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