A Dream of Red Mansions and China Culture

A Dream of Red Mansions is the pinnacle of China's classical novels, and it has become a registered trademark of China's traditional culture. Seeing a Dream of Red Mansions without reading it is equivalent to crossing the door of China's classical culture without going in. This is a novel about human feelings. China's culture is humanism, people-oriented, emotional and emotional communication. But the Red Chamber is not only about human feelings, it contains and even affects many aspects of China culture.

There are two main characteristics of China culture: one is the word "benevolence", which is the way of self-cultivation and the way of Confucius and Mencius; The other is the spirit of talent, which is condensed into a history of China literature. A Dream of Red Mansions mainly embodies these two aspects. Interpersonal communication, social ethics, moral benevolence and righteousness are all manifestations.

A Dream of Red Mansions is deeply imprinted with the traditional culture of China. For example, it adopts the organic combination of positive romanticism and realism, strives to fully reflect the real social life, and guides readers to understand life with idealized characters. A Dream of Red Mansions is an artistic language, which is accurate, popular, vivid and rich, with emotional color and artistic charm and strong expressive force. Is the most outstanding representative of China's classical novels.

A Dream of Red Mansions is rich in content and all-encompassing, and is known as the encyclopedia of feudal society in China. Wang Xilian, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, once commented: "In a book, Momo wrote poems and songs, poems, books and plays, couplets, wine lamps and jokes, which are all excellent; In the technical field, piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, medical astrology, and crafts, planting flowers and fruits, raising birds and fish, and cooking with needles are all details; People are evil, chaste and stubborn, virtuous and heroic, strong and cowardly, as well as female generals, foreign poets, immortals and ghosts, nuns, prostitutes and actresses, slaves, thieves and demons, drunkards and rogues of the previous generation. The deeds include grand feasts, extravagance, incorruptibility, court ceremonies, celebrations of ups and downs, prison sentences, chanting scriptures, setting up altars, trading profits, and everything is complete; Even the end of life, swallowing gold and taking poison, sudden illness and death, drug mistakes, suicide, jumping into the river, being forced to hang the beam, hitting the steps to get the essence and so on. , both. It can be said that it is all-encompassing, and it can be said that it is as big as the sea, which is beyond the reach of other novels. "

China has a feudal history of more than 2,000 years, which is the essence of farming society and the cradle of Chinese civilization. A Dream of Red Mansions was born under this background. The full text covers three basic levels of China feudal society: material culture, institutional culture and spiritual culture. A Dream of Red Mansions is a review, summary, condensation and artistic expression of the whole ancient culture of China, and it is a master of the life culture of feudal society in China. A dream of red mansions is inexhaustible. As Mr. Lu Xun said when he commented on A Dream of Red Mansions, "It is because of the will that there are all kinds of literati who read the Book of Changes, slutty Taoists, lingering talents, plump revolutionaries and gossips who read the secrets of the palace ..."

The ideological root of A Dream of Red Mansions is rooted in the soil of China culture and draws nutrition from the soil of Chinese civilization. The era in which the author lives, foreign and internal, ideal and reality are colliding fiercely, and the embarrassment of the times finally made this immortal masterpiece.

Cao Xueqin was born at the beginning of18th century, 400 years after the European Renaissance. During this period, the humanistic trend of thought in the world developed further, which was characterized by opposing the theocracy and autocratic rule in the Middle Ages, respecting and advocating human values, and people should dominate themselves. At the same time, science was strongly advocated, resulting in Copernicus' theory of the sun. China's feudal dynasty was in its heyday, while the West entered a scientific era of further understanding of the world. 1760, Britain began the industrial revolution. In the twenty-five years of Qianlong, The Manuscript of A Dream of Red Mansions was born and spread in the society. At this time, the steam engine invented by Watt has been applied to industry, bringing the climax of the industrial revolution. At that time, China was severely isolated from the world, but it was not without wind blowing in. 10 (1582), Italian missionary Matteo Ricci came to China to preach, bringing western civilization and technology. In the thirty years of Wanli, Matteo Ricci came to Beijing and offered a bell to please the emperor. At the same time, he brought the world map, that is, the world map, which broadened the horizons of the upper class and literati. Later, Tang Ruowang, the priest of Jesus, came to China during the Shunzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, bringing Christianity, western civilization and scientific knowledge. Christianity advocates equality before God and opposes concubinage. These thoughts have to influence China society, especially the upper-class intellectuals. This is the external ideological source of A Dream of Red Mansions, that is, the world environment.

Before the publication of A Dream of Red Mansions, from the development of foreign environment and domestic situation, the struggle between feudal ideas and new ideas sprouting from capitalism was fierce. Some scholars have pointed out that the imperial examination system is more harmful to people than "burning books to bury Confucianism". The oppression of women in feudal society was even more cruel. When reading A Dream of Red Mansions, it is another taste and experience to know the historical background and social conditions of the novel. Because of the changes of the times, China culture itself will not be in a static state forever. The wheels of the times crush everything.

As the last two dynasties of feudal society in China, Ming and Qing Dynasties entered the period of Chinese civilization. Scholars in Ming and Qing Dynasties carried too many historical burdens. While admiring the brilliance of their predecessors, they always hope to put their brilliant achievements into their own track. A Dream of Red Mansions, as a peak in the literary history of feudal society in China in his later years, embodies the conscious inheritance and application of China's classical culture, enabling him to have enough boldness of vision to show the life and social Vientiane of feudal society with an encyclopedic panoramic view of China's feudal society.

Walking into the world of the Red Chamber is like walking into the Grand View Garden of China traditional culture. "In a book, Momo's poems and songs, calligraphy and calligraphy, calligraphy and opera, as well as couplets, wine riddles and storytelling jokes are all good; Skills include piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, medical astrology, and crafts, planting flowers and fruits, raising birds and fish, and cooking with needles. As Mr. Zhou said, A Dream of Red Mansions is a "China cultural novel" and "full of the essence of China traditional culture". Especially in "A Dream of Red Mansions", the classic sadness of the Chinese nation came to the fore. " Sad Fog Covers Hualin has a traditional poetic temperament: Zhuangzi's detachment, Qu Yuan's lament, the ethereal spirit of Buddhism, and Confucianism's worry about the world. They were all cast in the red chamber. Therefore, the thoughts reflected in A Dream of Red Mansions are extremely complicated, and Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism can all find their own figures in it, but none seem to.

The beauty of A Dream of Red Mansions lies not only in its narrative style, the skeleton structure of grass snake gray line and vivid and full characters, but also in its own tragic cultural atmosphere of China classical literature, which reveals the sanctity of literati and culture.

A Dream of Red Mansions is not only a liberating book, but also a persistent one. Full of persistence in personality and ideals. There is a deep sadness hidden in the depths of wealth and luxury in the book, which implies the author's sense of hardship that he can't die out and give up, a deep sense of history in his subconscious, that is, an ultimate inquiry into the eternity of life.

Wang Meng once said: "There is a sense of tragedy in life, a sense of social decline, a sense of fatalism, and finally a sense of transcendence." The reader's interpretation of A Dream of Red Mansions may have surpassed the author's subjective thoughts, but Cao Xueqin has surpassed Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. However, while denying the feudal traditional concept, he also showed the mentality of traditional intellectuals. Jia Baoyu could not find a way out. Instead of letting Jia Baoyu go to ruin, he left this dream full of emotion, liberation and persistence to future generations. While affirming Jia Baoyu's "eschatological stupidity", there is a speculative light to explore reasonable human nature. However, in the depths of Cao Xueqin's consciousness, there is recognition of traditional culture, so there is a return to traditional culture. Therefore, the tragedy of A Dream of Red Mansions is actually the tragedy of China's traditional culture, and it is an irresistible tragedy of the latter-day history and culture at that time.

The deeper the cultural accumulation of a work, the greater the amount of information it stores, and the more it can arouse people's strong concern and discussion enthusiasm. To study A Dream of Red Mansions is to study the traditional culture of China. China's traditional culture has become the fossil and specimen of national traditional culture, which is an achievement that China can't achieve in any other novels.

A Dream of Red Mansions is a classic novel with the highest achievement in the history of China literature, and it is also one of the few masterpieces in the history of world culture that can represent a national culture and have the common value of human culture. A Dream of Red Mansions can and has played an important role in leading China literature to the world.