The first part of the book is Criticism of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and the second part is Criticism of the Water Margin. The two critics hold that the former advocates politics and servility, while the latter advocates vagrancy culture and violent aesthetics, which is the focus or poison in China's classic literature and traditional culture. Only profound criticism and thorough cleaning can save readers from the cold and cruel historical swamp. Specifically, the criticism of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms mainly focuses on the following aspects: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a text that confuses history and literature, an art that worships demons and promotes cruel heroes, and an art that respects Liu and despises Cao with orthodox feudal thoughts; Mr. Wang Xuetai's comments on Water Margin mainly focus on: Water Margin is a story told by Jianghu artists to vagrants, and it is the strong sense of vagrancy in the text that makes the negative effect of Water Margin fever far outweigh its positive significance. In meditation, we find that these two criticisms are based on the theoretical standpoint of history, sociology or epistemology, rather than aesthetics and poetic logic. Therefore, after reading the perfect combination of two doctoral supervisors, we are always filled with a sense of sacredness and loftiness of new morality, and we admire the author's profound historical knowledge and persistence in mainstream ideology. Unfortunately, we seldom appreciate the author's subtle analysis of the outstanding artistic achievements of the two texts.
There is a principled problem involving literary criticism and cultural criticism: how to establish the dimension of academic evaluation? What should China's literary classics use and how to detoxify them?
The author believes that the criticism of traditional culture should be carried out from the dual perspectives of historical dimension and times dimension: we should not only examine it with the current values to tap and play its practical significance, but also understand historical materialism in combination with the specific background at that time to "sympathize" the ancients. This dual perspective can, to a certain extent, avoid unprincipled tolerance and inflexible demands on the ancients. In addition to the above two dimensions, the evaluation of China's classical literature should also be judged by aesthetic standards, that is to say, the evaluation of literary classics should be carried out in a three-dimensional and dynamic way in the interweaving of history, times and aesthetics, so as to determine its significance and value in cultural time and space and the literary world.
Based on this understanding, we can see that it is the era when The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Water Margin came into being, which determined that they inevitably loaded the values and morality of feudal society. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms takes Zhuge Liang as the structural kink point, which reflects the historical trend of "three points" and shows the author's unremitting pursuit of good moral personality and political ideal, while the Water Margin takes Song Jiang as the central figure and shows the author's desire for an ideal political order through the contradictory struggle between the ruling and the opposition, loyalty and traitors. Although the traces of the influence of a specific era made the classics parasitize feudal ideas such as advocating Machiavellian culture and servility, promoting refugee culture and violent aesthetics, on the other hand, Zhuge Liang had an indomitable spirit of struggle and devoted himself to death, and Song Jiang also showed heroic and resolute character in pursuing his ideals, which endowed them with tragic personality charm. Don't these have positive aesthetic significance today? China's traditional culture has a unique evolution course and existing form, so it is difficult for us to define its "poison" and "nourishment" across the board. In addition, we should also believe that the real literary readers in today's context are psychologically immune, and they will make their own choices.
Furthermore, we can also examine the dross and essence of traditional culture and literary classics from Lenin's standpoint of "two cultures". The theory of "two cultures" requires us to make a macro distinction between China's ancient culture, orthodox Confucian classic culture and popular culture in folk villages. Although there are similarities and integrations between them, they must be relatively independent. Stories such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin have been circulated among the people for a long time, and were later collected by the writers. Although they are more or less infected by orthodox culture, as an aesthetic form of folk culture, they mainly reflect the lifestyle and living conditions of "Da Park Jung Su people" and convey their thoughts and feelings. Therefore, we should not only use today's values to criticize the feudal dross caused by its classic cultural influence, but also use the eyes and psychology of the ancients to perceive and experience the rationality of their ideals and wishes. It is unwise to swallow dates or give up eating because of choking.
More importantly, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin are not classics and cultural textbooks saturated with Confucian ethics of rites and music, nor are they symbolic guides to understand folk culture, but secular literary classics that aesthetically reflect the life and living conditions of the people at that time and show their cultural psychology and aesthetic ideals. Since these two classics reflect the light of the times with vivid artistic images and poetic pictures, we should look at them with aesthetic and literary eyes and make a "poetic judgment". Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin have become literary classics with their typical narrative strategies, grand dynamic tragic structure and numerous "fossils" of folk culture and psychology. According to the principle of artistic authenticity, we should recognize his creative strategy of "mixing history with literature", respect the principle of artistic emotion, allow his literary imagination of "creating gods by magic", forgive the limitations of feudal literati era and class, and understand the "bandit spirit" and "tramp spirit" in the hero's works. What's more, in this artistic atmosphere of "bandit spirit" and "tramp spirit", imagine: if the postman had not been Zhang Fei, If Zhuge Liang's appearance lacks layers of care, if Liangshan hero is just a 36-member "rogue" with vague personality, and if the author adheres to the orthodox creed of "rebellion for no reason", can the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin still be regarded as literary classics? ! In this way, what is the substantive difference between our knowledge and Zhang Xuecheng's Romance of the Three Kingdoms: "Seven Realities and Three Voices Confuse the Confused Viewer" and Jin Shengtan's "Water Margin": "No robbery, no teaching, no intention, no training"? Now that Lu Xun's New Stories, Guo Moruo's Qu Yuan and Shakespeare's Richard III have been recognized, it is not surprising that the historical distortions and outdated concepts of the two literary masterpieces, The Water Margin and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, are out of date.
In a word, due to the lack of literary criticism and aesthetics, the criticism of Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms has replaced the interpretation of literary classics, detoxified the sociology and history of China's literary classics, and replaced the poetic evaluation of literary classics with a long-lasting lawsuit against historical mysteries. In fact, as a long-term folk collective creation, the literary classics polished by the lower literati have deeper and broader historical implications than the orthodox Confucian cultural classics, and their aesthetic evaluation more truly conveys the voice of the times, because history is created by the people after all. Literary classics such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin can only find their place in China's literary history and even cultural history in accordance with Marxist aesthetics and the spirit of historical criticism.