The "Four Great Novels", also known as the "Four Great Novels of the Ming Dynasty", refer to: "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (author: Luo Guanzhong), "Water Margin" (author: Shi Naian), " "Journey to the West" (author: Wu Chengen), "Jin Ping Mei" (author: Lan Ling Xiaoxiaosheng).
These four novels were called the "Four Wonderful Books" by Feng Menglong, a famous popular writer in the late Ming Dynasty, and this title has been used to this day. They respectively created the tradition of historical novels, heroic legends, gods and demons novels and worldly affairs novels.
The title of "Four Wonderful Books" is related to the social and cultural background of the emergence of capitalism in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the rise of citizen culture, the suspicion of traditional Confucian classics, and the need for popular culture to establish its own classics. Novels have become the main object of cultural consumption for the public, and popular literature has a significant impact on the spiritual and cultural life of the public. Therefore, the naming of the "Four Great Books" has profound cultural significance.
These four novels basically represent the four types of ancient Chinese novels, namely historical romance novels, heroic romance novels, novels about gods and demons, and novels about world affairs; in fact, they are the main types of speaking art in the Southern Song Dynasty. The continuation and development of the four genres: "Water Margin" is about the development of Tieqi'er and is the first episodic novel written in vernacular in Chinese history; "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is about the development of historical novels and is the first chapter episodic novel in my country. Novel; "Journey to the West" is the development of scripture novels. It is a romantic masterpiece with great artistic achievements and great influence. It is my country's first full-length supernatural novel; "Journey to the West" is the development of novelists' novels. "Journey to the West" is the development of novelists' novels. The first full-length novel independently created by a literati.
The structure of "The Romance" centers on the contradiction between Shu and Han, and uses the conflict and struggle of the Three Kingdoms as the main line to unfold the plot. , forming a majestic and rigorous structure that is rare in classical novels. "The Romance" has contributed many distinctive images to the character gallery of classical novels. Its achievements in character creation mark a new development in character creation in Chinese classical novels. When describing characters, "The Romance" uses exaggeration, contrast, contrast and other techniques, showing the author's extremely high artistic attainments. The language of the novel is popular, concise, bright and very distinctive.
The "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" seen at this stage was created by Mao Lun and Mao Zonggang in the Qing Dynasty. They followed Jin Shengtan's approach of deleting "Water Margin". They used the ancient version of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" to delete and modify Luo Guanzhong's original work, and inserted it between chapters. Commentary, titled "Shengtan Waishu" and "Shengshan Farewell Collection",