The Dream of the Red Chamber: Hung Lou Meng A Chinese Novel in Two Books
Cao Xueqin
Verlag: Lulu.com
Beschreibung
Dream of the Red Chamber is one of China's Four Great Classical Novels. It was composed in the middle of the 18th century during the Qing Dynasty. It is considered to be a masterpiece of Chinese vernacular literature and is generally acknowledged to be a pinnacle of Chinese fiction. In the late 19th century, Hong Lou Meng's influence was so pervasive that the reformer Liang Qichao attacked it along with another classic novel Water Margin as "incitement to robbery and lust," and for smothering the introduction of Western style novels, which he regarded as more socially responsible. Scholar Wang Guowei, however, used them for solace. In the early 20th century, although the New Culture Movement took a critical view of the Confucian classics, the scholar Hu Shih used the tools of textual criticism to put the novel in an entirely different light, as a foundation for national culture.