College Chinese exam questions: Talk about how to appreciate a literary work, starting from the four links of society, author, work, and reader.

This belongs to the category of literary criticism in literary theory. Society, author, work, and reader are the four elements. It is the 1953 book " The title of the book brings together two common and opposing metaphors used to describe the mind: one compares the mind to a reflector of external things, and the other One likens the mind to a luminous body, arguing that the mind is also part of what it perceives.

The relationship between the four elements can form a triangle, (the work is in the center, and the lines of the other three elements radiate outwards). Almost all theories are only obviously inclined to one element. Based on one of the elements, a definition is generated. , divide and analyze the main categories of works of art, and develop the main standards by which to judge the value of works. Therefore, using this triangle diagram, these attempts can be roughly divided into four categories: three of them mainly explain the work in terms of its relationship to another element (society, the viewer, or the artist), and the fourth category explains the work in terms of its relationship to another element (society, the viewer, or the artist). The work is studied in isolation as a self-contained entity.

In "Mirror and Lamp", Ai Shi put forward the four elements of literature such as author, universe, reader and work:

"Every work of art always involves four elements. The key point is that almost all theories that strive for thoroughness will generally distinguish these four elements, making it clear at a glance. The first element is the work, that is, the artwork itself. Since the work is a human product, the second element is The most common element is the producer, that is, the artist. Third, it is generally believed that the work must have a theme that is directly or indirectly derived from real things-it always involves, expresses, reflects some objective state or something related to it. This third element can be considered to be composed of people and actions, thoughts and emotions, substances and events, or the essence beyond the senses. It is often expressed by the general word "nature", but we might as well use a broader meaning instead. Neutral word - the universe. The last element is the listener, the viewer, the reader for whom the work is written, or at least for whom the work is written. This statement is still used today.

The universal guiding significance and value of "Mirror and Lamp" to our literary theory workers today far exceeds his discussion of romantic literary theory itself. This significance is to a greater extent. This is reflected in the four elements of literary criticism he proposed, namely society, works, artists and appreciators. Putting these four elements together can almost include the critical characteristics of various theoretical schools in the history of Western literary theory, allowing those who are initially involved in the field of Western literary theory to quickly have a rough understanding of the historical evolution, school disputes, and current status of this field. contour. Among these four elements, the one that always occupies the central position is undoubtedly the work. This also reflects that the author's critical stance is always closely related to reading literary works. This is also why he wants to debate the meta-criticism method of deconstruction. The reason is that those various formalist critical theories focus on the aspect most closely related to the work.

The relationship between the work and the work itself may be the focus of those lyrical works that are free from the larger social and cultural context and are dedicated to expressing pure personal emotions and aesthetic ideals. For the authors of those works, Literary works are regarded as self-satisfied and closed objects that seem to have no relationship with the external world. The writers’ creations are almost based on the purpose of “art for art’s sake”. These works are often criticized by those British and American critics who were once popular in the criticism circle. New Criticism critics regard it as a "text" that they read repeatedly.

As for the relationship between the work and the appreciator, this was highly valued in early pragmatist criticism, but emphasizing the role of the reader in the criticism process and pushing it to the extreme was the reception aesthetics in the second half of the 20th century. and a great credit to reader-response criticism.

In postmodernist literary theory, the reader himself has the active and even creative right to interpret the text, and a work that has not been read and appreciated by the reader-appreciator can only be regarded as a "text" woven with language symbols. The construction of its meaning can only be completed through the reader's reading and interpretation. Therefore, the participation of the reader-appreciator actually forms a "secondary creation" of the work.

As for your assignment, you need to cite a literary work as an example. Simply put, starting from the "social" perspective, you need to analyze the social background of this work, that is, the causes; " The author's perspective requires an analysis of the author's psychology, his life experience, or his worldview and values; the work's perspective requires an analysis of the frame structure of the text, and the reader's perspective requires an analysis of the recipient's psychology. Here is a sample essay for you:

Looking at "A Dream of Red Mansions" from the Four Elements of Literary Criticism of "Mirror and Lamp"

[Abstract] The general theme or main theme of "A Dream of Red Mansions" should be through "Chong Lou Meng" This unique literary technique of "degrading women to men" reflected the psychological imbalance and inner depression of male literati under the special social background of that time.

"A Dream of Red Mansions" is a strange book in the history of Chinese literature and even culture. It is said to be strange because there is no other work in the world of literature that is as full of mystery as it. Even though it was published no more than three hundred years ago, even after more than a century of research by experts and scholars, it is still not possible to be 100% sure of its origin. Who is the author? What is the real theme?

The best thing is that "Dream of Red Mansions" also gave birth to "Red Studies", and thus supported a large number of experts and scholars who relied on it and were euphemistically called "Red Scholars". This is probably rare in the world of literature. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that it is the ninth wonder that China has contributed to the world after the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Emperor Qin. In fact, "Red Studies" is indeed a wonderful flower in the academic history of modern and contemporary China. It is even praised by scholars as being able to keep pace with "Oracle Bone Studies" or "Dunhuang Studies" without any shame. (Note 1)

As a specialized subject, "Red Studies" naturally has academic controversies, so since the day it was born, there have been portals and factions. According to the general classification method, "Redology" can be divided into three major schools: exploration, textual research, and literary criticism; according to the classification method of Mr. Zhou Ruchang, a redologist, it can be divided into four major schools: Caoxue, Editionology, Anonymous Studies, and Zhixue. branch. (Note 2) I believe there are other classification methods, but the author has limited knowledge and has not seen any information on this aspect yet. In any case, this is enough to show that "Red Studies" is composed of different schools.

It is a good thing to have different schools of thought in a subject, because only differences of opinion can lead to debate, and debate can further promote the development of the subject. It is a pity that red scholars are too sectarian and sometimes do not hesitate to adopt Cultural Revolution-style criticism of the views of scholars of other schools in order to defend the purity of the "master's method". Ouyang Jian, a scholar of Chinese Ming and Qing novels, began to question it from the perspective of edition studies A typical example is that the "Zhi Criticism" was besieged and blocked by mainstream red scholars after proving its authenticity.

The reason why Ouyang Jian aroused their extreme disgust is mainly because his research results fundamentally shook the foundation of the textual research red school model created by Hu Shi, and most of these mainstream red scholars They are all the disciples and grandsons of Grandmaster Hu. (Note 3)

If they accept Ouyang Jian’s point of view, doesn’t it mean that the research results they have painstakingly worked on for most of their lives are a pile of waste paper with no academic value! Since they cannot muster enough moral courage to deny themselves, they can only deny others. As a result, the "Red Scholars" suddenly became the "Red Scholars Hegemons", and Ouyang Jian, the "Red Scholars class enemy", naturally became the "object of the Red Scholars dictatorship" and must be "criticized and criticized." The Seventh National Academic Symposium on "Dream of Red Mansions" held in Laiyang, Shandong Province in 1994 became a unique "criticism conference" carefully arranged by the "Red Scholars". (Note 4)

The author does not intend to comment on what is right and wrong, but just wants to illustrate a problem, that is, this form of red-study debate has gone beyond the academic scope and has become a dispute of morals, which is sad.

The root cause is that the mainstream red scholars in mainland China are too superstitious about "auto-lore", so that once they are subject to subversive impact, they cannot bear it. In fact, as early as the 1930s, Yu Pingbo, who founded the New Red Studies together with Hu Shi, felt that it was not appropriate to overemphasize "auto-legends" and advocated that Dream of Red Mansions is a novel after all. Unfortunately, the idea that "Dream of Red Mansions" is a family affair of Cao Xueqin has become deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Even though Yu Pingbo himself has repeatedly called for a break from Hu Shi, he cannot change the old habits of Red Man scholars.

The only way for Red Studies research to return to the path of literary criticism or literary research is the right path. Based on this, the study of red science can have a healthy, comprehensive, and new development, but it does not necessarily have to be as Yu Yingshi advocated, "This kind of literary research, no matter what the point of view adopted, must be based on modern red science." The historical research is the starting point.” (Note 5)

In his famous book "Mirror and Lamp: Romantic Literary Theory and Criticism Tradition", the British scholar Frankly criticized the prevailing methods of Western literary criticism at that time. : "Until a few decades ago, modern aesthetics' discussion of aesthetic issues was based on the relationship between art and artists, without considering the relationship between art and external nature, the appreciator, and the internal requirements of the work." Ai Shi's paragraph Discussion, I think is quite appropriate to describe the current status of red science research.

In "Mirror and Lamp", Ai Shi put forward the four elements of literature such as author, world, reader and work:

"Every work of art always involves four elements. The key point is that almost all theories that strive for thoroughness will generally distinguish these four elements, making it clear at a glance. The first element is the work, that is, the artwork itself. Since the work is a human product, the second element is The most common element is the producer, that is, the artist. Third, it is generally believed that the work must have a theme that is directly or indirectly derived from real things-it always involves, expresses, reflects some objective state or something related to it. This third element can be considered to be composed of people and actions, thoughts and emotions, substances and events, or the essence beyond the senses. It is often expressed by the general word "nature", but we might as well use a broader meaning instead. Neutral word - the world. The final element is the appreciator, the listener, the viewer, the reader for whom the work is written, or at least for whose attention it is directed.” (Note 6)

Since no scholar has been able to surpass Ai Shi in proposing the fifth element, the author will examine "A Dream of Red Mansions" from these four aspects. I do not expect to come up with any earth-shattering ideas. It is enough for Yu Yuan to sort out the complicated research on red science.

The work and form of "A Dream of Red Mansions"

The first thing to look at is the work itself. This belongs to the category of literary essentialism, which studies issues of works and form.

Western literary theory in the 20th century paid special attention to the study of the relationship between works and form. One of the important schools put forward the view of literary ontology. Ransom, a representative of American New Criticism, advocated that the ontology of literary activities lies in literary works rather than the external world or the author. He believed that the ontology of works only refers to works. Form refers to the so-called "texture", "metaphor", "complex meaning", "ambiguity", "context", "irony" and other linguistic or rhetorical factors. (Note 7)

Compared with other Chinese classical novels, the uniqueness of "A Dream of Red Mansions" is that it is full of "mysteries" and "metaphors". Therefore, a literary ontology method is used to study "A Dream of Red Mansions" 》, which can be said to be the right match.

As far as the research literature on red studies that the author has come into contact with, most of them start with textual research methods, which are the so-called "Cao studies", and some use psychological analysis methods to study characters. There are very few who use formal criticism methods. There are only two books on my desk - "Analysis of the Dream World of Dream of Red Mansions" by Taiwanese scholar Wang Peiqin and "Philosophical Spirit of Dream of Red Mansions" by mainland scholar Mei Xinlin.

Both these two books start from Lévi-Strauss’ mythological structuralism method and try to clarify the possible meanings behind the various “metaphors” in “A Dream of Red Mansions”, thereby revealing the essence of the work.

The difference is that Wang Peiqin uses a method that combines structuralism and narratology, while Mei Xinlin adopts a method that goes from structuralism to deconstruction.

Both scholars believe that the mother's womb in "A Dream of Red Mansions" is the ancient myth of Nuwa. Both believe that the structure of the work is composed of the two realms of immortality and mortals. They both agree that there is a narrative of going from immortality to mortal life and then back to immortality. process. The difference is that although Wang Peiqin mentioned that Master Mangmang and Zhenren Miaomiao were the key figures who carried the stone down to earth and finally brought him back to the fairy world, and were the guardians of psychic gems in the human world, they still stayed in the binary opposition. The structure of classical mythology does not raise the existence of "one monk and one way" to the level of theory; Mei Xinlin adds an intermediary between the subject (the mortal world) and the mother body (the fairy world) (taking "one monk and one way" as the intermediary in the fairy world) , using "one Zhen and one Jia" as the intermediary in the mortal world), a three-fold composite model of "thinking about the world", "enlightening the Tao" and "wandering to immortals" was established, and then demonstrated that "A Dream of Red Mansions" has the elegy of the aristocratic family, the elegy of earthly life and life. Three major themes including the elegy of beauty. (Note 8)

The author believes that Western formal criticism theory can open up a broad new world for the study of red studies and should be one of the main directions of red studies in the 21st century. However, it should also be noted that Chinese literature, especially classical literature, has its own national character and particularity, and it is not appropriate to copy the ready-made theories of Western formal criticism.

Western literary theory in the 20th century is based on modern Western linguistics and modern rhetoric. Although there are similarities between Chinese and Western languages, there are also particularities. Therefore, when using Western formal criticism methods to study Chinese literary issues, I am afraid that this must be taken into consideration.

Therefore, the author believes that only after the Chinese literary theory community has established its own theory and method of form criticism based on modern Chinese linguistics and modern rhetoric, can Chinese forms that "fit China's national conditions" be used Only by using critical methods to study "A Dream of Red Mansions" can we achieve more convincing and academically valuable results.

The issue of the author of "A Dream of Red Mansions"

The second is the author. In the past hundred years, red scholars have worked hardest to verify who the author of "Dream of Red Mansions" is. Due to the emergence of the "Zhi Criticism Edition", Hu Shi's hypothesis that Cao Xueqin was the author of "Dream of Red Mansions" has "material evidence". Therefore, the red scholar community is inclined to accept this statement and it has become a conclusion. However, Ouyang Jian raised a strong challenge to the authenticity of the "Zhi Commentary", which forced people to reconsider the conclusion that Cao Xueqin was the author of "Dream of Red Mansions".

Since the authenticity of "Zhi Pingben" is highly questionable, Zhi Yanzhai's comments are naturally not reliable. For the sake of respecting academics, the author believes that in the absence of other circumstantial evidence, we can only discuss the issue of who the author is from the clues provided by the text itself. After all, this is first-hand information, which is better than various criticisms and predecessors' notes. Secondary data such as records are much more reliable.

According to several handed down versions of "Dream of Red Mansions" (including the Zhijing version whose authenticity has not been determined), Cao Xueqin's greatest contribution to this wonderful book was "reading it in the Mourning Hongxuan for ten years, adding and deleting Five times, it was compiled into a table of contents and divided into chapters." He did not explicitly state that he was the author. In other words, if we do not take any presupposed position, we can only admit that Cao Xueqin is the editor of "Dream of Red Mansions" rather than the author. However, since "A Dream of Red Mansions" also contains the metaphor of "Zhen Shiyin" (the truth is hidden), many scholars believe that the above paragraph is a "hypothesis" made by the writer out of some unspeakable difficulties. In fact, it is to Let readers understand that the editor is actually the author, Cao Xueqin himself.

The question is, what is the author’s “unspeakable difficulty”? The red scholars of the textual research school who advocate "auto-legend" believe that it is "the hatred of confiscating the family", while the red scholars of the Suoyin school who advocate the "paiman theory" believe that it is the "hate of the destruction of the Ming Dynasty". As for why the author could not state it clearly, various scholars believe that it was because he wanted to avoid the literary network of the Qing Dynasty. The author believes that this is a clever argument made by today's literati who do not understand the literary prison situation in the Qing Dynasty. During the Qing Dynasty, the most famous literary prison was the "Ming History Case". In this case, even the engraver could not escape death, let alone the editor. If that was tyranny in the early Qing Dynasty, it was not the case in the Qianlong Dynasty, which was more relaxed.

If this is true, why does the author need to be mysterious? Moreover, the Qianlong Dynasty's literary prison policy was not necessarily loose. Yu Yingshi put forward a rather unique view on this, believing that this was because Cao Xueqin was a bannerman and was not among the targets of the Literary Prison. He also cited Cao's friends Dun Min and Dun Cheng as examples of poems written in memory of the previous Ming Dynasty. (Note 9) If this theory can be established, there is no need for Cao Xueqin to create a fog to conceal his authorship.

Therefore, the author believes that this passage in "A Dream of Red Mansions" is actually not a mystery at all, but a fact. In other words, what Cao Xueqin did was indeed the editing work of "adding and deleting five times, compiling a table of contents, and dividing chapters into chapters." Of course, he did not rule out the possibility of rewriting during the editing process. In other words, Cao Xueqin can also be regarded as the author of "A Dream of Red Mansions", but he is not the original author, but an author who recreated it based on other novels such as "The Love Monk" and "Feng Yue Bao Jian". Unfortunately, perhaps due to the loss of the manuscript or other reasons, Cao Xueqin's rewriting or the re-creation that he passed away before finishing was not completely preserved. Later, Gao Lanshu accepted Cheng Weiyuan's request and re-created it on the basis of Cao's legacy, resulting in the popular 120-chapter version of "Dream of Red Mansions" today.

To sum up, the author believes that the author of "A Dream of Red Mansions" is neither Wu Meicun, nor the unknown "Brother Shi", nor Cao Xueqin alone, but may be a group of unknown literati. Enter Cao Xueqin and Gao E. In other words, this is a novel jointly created by literati, at least jointly created by Cao Xueqin and Gao E. The copyright cannot belong entirely to Cao Xueqin alone.

The social background of "A Dream of Red Mansions"

The second is the world, which is the society in which the author lived at the time, or the so-called "second nature" in Marxist terminology. From the perspective of literary theory, to understand the relationship between the author and the world, we mainly need to explore the process and rules of how the author creates art based on life, which is the so-called theory of literary creation. This is a very complex topic. This article will not discuss it comprehensively. I will only focus on the author's creative motivation.

Coincidentally, this is also an old question that red scholars from various schools have been chatting about. The Suoyin school thinks it is about paiman, the Kaoyu school thinks it is about family affairs, the Marxist-Leninist school thinks it is anti-feudal, and there are also theories such as the theory of love and the theory of liberation. The author believes that the real creative motivation of the author of "Dream of Red Mansions" is due to the lack of documents and insufficient history. No matter how eloquent and eloquent the red scholars today are, it is all just drama!

To solve this problem more appropriately, there are probably only two ways. One is to reflect on the author's possible creative motivations based on the social conditions at the time, and the other is to conduct comparative research with other works of the same period to see Look at the general theme or main theme reflected in these works.

Since the late Ming Dynasty, there has been a call for individual liberation in Chinese society. Reflected in novel creation, a large number of erotic novels appeared in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties and became very popular. The large-scale publication of pornographic novels certainly has an element of profit-making for book dealers, but it is mainly due to its own existence value, that is, tearing away the so-called moral veil of hypocrisy and returning people to their true colors.

From a sociological perspective, individual liberation and even sexual liberation are actually an anti-social force that subverts social norms. They can only appear in an era when social norms are not strong. In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, That's the time. Unfortunately, this trend of individual liberation cannot last long. As the Manchu and Qing regime gained a foothold, how to establish a stable society became on the Qing court's agenda, and Emperor Kangxi's solution to this problem was to borrow troops from Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism.

Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism was born in the Song Dynasty. It was indeed an emerging trend of thought under the social conditions at that time, and it was also a progressive force that promoted social development. However, when Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism was later used by the rulers, it began to deteriorate. By the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism had reached its end, otherwise it would not have been easily replaced by Yangming's Neo-Confucianism. In other words, the Qing court used Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism as its official official philosophy, but it was not qualified to guide social development. It was of no value other than as an embellishment for a powerful regime.

However, it was this reactionary force that went against the trend of the times that became the official ideology at that time, and the main enemy it had to deal with was the trend of individual liberation thoughts since the late Ming Dynasty. Under the attack of these two forces, one can imagine the mental anguish of the literati at that time. On the one hand, they have a strong sense of identity with the liberation of their individuality deep in their hearts; on the other hand, in order to survive, they have to study scriptures and practice eight-part essay diligently in order to become famous all over the world. The main motivation for taking the imperial examination is to confuse Eat by mouth. It can be said that this was the same mentality of all male scholars in the society at that time. On the contrary, women who do not have the opportunity to take the exam and do not need to bear too many social responsibilities are much more chic. They don’t need to read classics or practice eight-part essay. They can read Western Chamber, Lao Zhuang, and write poems according to their own interests. Everything can be learned according to personal preference. In other words, male literati at that time studied for the sake of living, but women could study for the sake of studying.

In this special social background, the author of "Dream of Red Mansions" created an ideal world "Grand View Garden" dominated by women. Through the words of the protagonist Jia Baoyu, "Daughters are made of water, and men are made of water." "Made of clay", and deliberately portrays Jia Baoyu as a man full of yin energy, which makes people feel "advocating women and devaluing men", which is understandable.

On the other hand, we can also do a comparative study with contemporary works such as "A Dream of Red Mansions" and "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" and "The Scholars". From the many images of intelligent ghost girls, fox girls, and prostitutes created by Pu Liuxian, and the image of Shen Qiongzhi created by Wu Jingzi, we can see how clear the tendency of "advocating women and devaluing men" was in the spiritual world of literati at that time. Even in "The Words of the Wild Old Man", which is regarded as a glorification of the feudal defenders, except for the protagonist Wen Suchen, the other characters who make a difference are all female figures, such as Xuan Gu's good calculation and Su'e's knowledge of medicine. , Xiang Ling's poetry, Nan'er's knowledge of military affairs, etc.

For this reason, the author believes that the creative motivation of the author of "Dream of Red Mansions" should be to reflect the mental depression of male literati at that time through the special artistic method of "advocating women and devaluing men". This may be the general theme or main theme of "Dream of Red Mansions".

The author predicts that some current scholars who "judge the hearts of the ancients with the hearts of today's people" will definitely regard "Dream of Red Mansions" as a great realist literary work, and its author has a clear anti-feudal and anti-feudal spirit. In the spirit of etiquette, the theme of the work is to sound the death knell for feudalism and other clichés to question this observation of mine. To this, the author's reply is that realism has been a Chinese literary tradition since the Book of Songs, and "A Dream of Red Mansions" has indeed inherited this fine tradition. The question is whether the author had the "high political consciousness" that people today subjectively assume, and was able to Consciously use the literary form of novels to oppose feudalism and ethics?

The author of "A Dream of Red Mansions" is not Balzac. In addition to creating "The Human Comedy", Balzac also proposed a complete set of realist literary theory. We can say that Balzac was consciously anti-feudal and fully applied his theory to novel creation, because this is supported by literature. However, we cannot say that the author of "A Dream of Red Mansions" also had such a high degree of consciousness, because there is no documentation to prove that he or they (even if we identify Cao Xueqin and Gao E as the authors) proposed similar theories. At best, we can only say that the author of "A Dream of Red Mansions" unconsciously created a great realist literary work that is objectively anti-feudal and anti-ethical.

The original readers of "A Dream of Red Mansions"

Finally, there is the issue of readers, that is, for whom the work is written. Judging from clues such as the elegant language of "Dream of Red Mansions" and its limited popularity in the early days of its publication, we can see that it is not a "novel of talented men and beautiful women" created to meet market demand. In other words, when the author created "Dream of Red Mansions", he did not consider selling the work for money at all, but only circulated it among friends. If Cheng Weiyuan had not tried his best to search for it in the last years of Qianlong, and "worked with his friends to make careful corrections, cut off the strong points and make up for the shortcomings, copied them all, and restored them to engraving, with the common interests and common interests" (Note 10), this great literary work would have been long ago. "It's so clean that it's all white."

Although we have no chance to know who the author's original readers were when he wrote "Dream of Red Mansions", earlier records can only be found in Yu Duan's "Zao Chuang Xian Bi" and Zhulian's "Commentary on Dreams of Red Mansions" Looking at the notes of the Banner Nobles, we can guess that their original readers were the Banner Nobles. If this theory can be established, then the original readers of "A Dream of Red Mansions" should be the bannermen aristocrats, which can also prove that its author seems to come from the same circle. As for whether it can be concluded that its earliest readers were bannermen aristocrats, I dare not make any assumptions. However, the author can be sure that its original readers were definitely not common people, nor middle- and lower-class literati, otherwise it would never have been widely circulated.

In the Qing Dynasty, the Qing court attached great importance to the education of the children of the Eight Banners. Therefore, the banner aristocrats had a higher level of education. Especially the banner aristocrats in the Kangxi and Qianlong dynasties, almost all of them were good at poetry. All of them are masters of piano, chess, calligraphy and painting. If the author of "Dream of Red Mansions" is targeting the banner aristocracy, his creation must not be careless, otherwise it will not be able to enter their "discerning eyes". I think this is the only way to explain why "Dream of Red Mansions" has elegant wording, superb artistic skills, and rich artistic atmosphere, far surpassing other handed down classical novels and becoming the pinnacle of Chinese classical novels.

As for which class of banner aristocrats they are, the author believes that they are not the upper-class aristocrats who are "strongly attached to the holy family", but that after the Yongzheng Dynasty "organized the flag affairs", they lost all kinds of privileges and had to Relying on personal efforts, they were like the Han literati who had to pass scientific examinations to join the upper class society. Only they can understand the true spirit behind the "advocating women and devaluing men" in "A Dream of Red Mansions"; and only they can have to sigh after seeing the prosperity and decline of the Jia family.

[Conclusion]:

A dragon has come from thousands of miles to form a cave here. After examining "A Dream of Red Mansions" through Ai's four literary elements, the author came to the following conclusions:

First of all, in order to achieve further development in the future, the study of red literature must return to the path of literary research and literary criticism. On the other hand, it is a good method to introduce Western formal criticism in the 20th century, but we must pay attention to the particularity and nationality of Chinese literature; Secondly, "A Dream of Red Mansions" is not an independent creation, and Cao Xueqin may be one of the more important authors. , but Gao E also contributed a lot. When it is impossible to determine who the other authors are, we should respect the facts and admit that "A Dream of Red Mansions" is the joint work of Cao Xueqin and Gao E;

Third, The general theme or main theme of "Dream of Red Mansions" should reflect the psychological imbalance and inner depression of male literati in the special social background of that time through the unique literary technique of "advocating women and devaluing men";

Fourth , the original readers of "Dream of Red Mansions" should be the declining bannermen aristocrats.

Notes:

(1) Yu Yingshi believes that since Hu Shi advocated using textual research methods to study "Dream of Red Mansions", this textual research work has become consistent with the mainstream of modern Chinese academics, namely Qian, Jia Kao has learned about the reorganization of the national heritage after the May 4th Movement. Therefore, from the perspective of academic history, Hongxue can undoubtedly keep pace with contemporary prominent studies such as "Oracle Bone Study" or "Dunhuang Study", without any shame. This view was put forward by Yu Yingshi in the article "The Development of Modern Redology and the Revolution of Redology - An Analysis of Academic History", see page 2 of "The Two Worlds of a Dream of Red Mansions" by Yu Yingshi, Taipei Lianjing Publishing House, first edition in February 1996 .

(2) Zhou Ruchang, "What is Red Science", "Journal of Hebei Normal University", Issue 3, 1982.

(3) When Hu Shi proposed "auto-legends" in 1921 in "A Textual Research on the Dream of Red Mansions", the pioneering work of the textual research school on Red Studies, he only stayed at the stage of "bold assumptions" and did not come up with anything sufficient to make it clear. Convincing evidence to support his argument. It was not until 1927 that the Jiaxu version of "Zhi Yanzhai Re-Evaluating the Story of Stones" suddenly appeared on Hu Shi's desk, which reversed his passive situation in the study of red studies, because there were many comments in the Jiaxu version that just confirmed his work in the Sixth Century. "What if" years ago. This also established Hu Shi's status as the founder of the red school of textual research.

(4) In the article "The Embarrassment of "Red Studies" at the End of the Century", Kefei criticized the Chinese Red Society for hosting the seminar for not inviting people from different schools to the meeting, and also criticized the host of the meeting. Feng Qiyong also took the lead in trying Ouyang Jian in absentia, who was unable to attend the meeting. This article was published in the 10th issue of "Guangdong Sea Breeze" in 1997.

(5) Yu Yingshi "The Development of Modern Redology and the Revolution of Redology", page 29 of "The Two Worlds of a Dream of Red Mansions", (Taipei) Lianjing Publishing Company, first edition of February 1996, fifth edition.

(6) [US] M.H. Abrams, "Mirror and Lamp - Cartoonism Literary Theory and Critical Tradition", page 5, Peking University Press, first edition in December 1989.

(7) "Literary Theory Tutorial" edited by Tong Qingbing, page 43, Higher Education Press, 2nd edition, April 1998.

(8) Refer to Wang Peiqin's "The Dream World of "Dream of Red Mansions"", (Taipei) Wenjin Publishing House, 1st edition in March 1997 and Mei Xinlin's "The Philosophical Spirit of the Dream of Red Mansions", Xuelin Publishing House First edition, May 1995.

(9) See Yu Yingshi's "Supplementary Essay on Cao Xueqin's "Han Identity"", pages 199 to 210 of "The Two Worlds of a Dream of Red Mansions", Taipei Lianjing Publishing House, first edition in February 1996.

(10) [Qing Dynasty] Cheng Weiyuan's "Preface to a Dream of Red Mansions", edited by Wang Zhiliang, "Selected Reviews of a Dream of Red Mansions" (Part 1), page 5, first edition of China Social Sciences Press in May 1998.

I hope my answer can be helpful to you~