1, Journey to the West
The Journey to the West is the first romantic novel with chapters and sections in ancient China. There are hundreds of The Journey to the West published in Ming Dynasty, and there is no author's signature. Wu et al., a scholar in Qing Dynasty, first proposed that The Journey to the West was written by Wu Cheng'en in Ming Dynasty.
This novel is based on the historical event of "Tang priest learning from the scriptures" and deeply depicts the social reality at that time through the author's artistic processing.
The book mainly describes the story of the Monkey King's encounter with Tang Priest, Pig Bajie, Friar Sand after his birth, and his disturbance to the Heaven Palace. He went west to learn from the scriptures, demonized all the way, and after eighty-one difficulties, he finally arrived in the Western Heaven to meet the Tathagata Buddha, and finally the Five Saints died.
Since its publication, The Journey to the West has been widely circulated among the people, and various versions have emerged one after another. There are six editions in Ming Dynasty, seven editions and manuscripts in Qing Dynasty, and thirteen lost editions have been recorded in ancient books.
After the Opium War, a large number of China's classical literary works were translated into western languages, and The Journey to the West gradually spread to Europe and America, and was translated into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, sign language, Swahili, Russian, Czech, Romanian, Polish, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. Chinese and foreign scholars have published many research papers and monographs, which have given high evaluation to this novel.
The Journey to the West is a classic of China's ghost novels, reaching the peak of ancient romance novels, and is called the four classical novels of China together with The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin and A Dream of Red Mansions.
2. Shan Hai Jing
Shan Hai Jing is an ancient book by China, which records the strange stories in ancient times. Generally, it was written by Chu or Bashu people from the middle and late Warring States to the early Hanzhong. It is also a fantastic book.
The author of this book is unknown. The ancients thought that this book was "the work of the curious people in the Warring States period, Zhuang Zaji, Biography, Lisao, Zhou Shu and Jincheng". Modern scholars also believe that writing a book is not an instant, and the author is not a person.
There are 18 articles in Shan Hai Jing, and other chapters have long been lost. The original ***22 articles, about 32650 words. * * * There are 5 Tibetan Mountain Classics, 4 overseas Classics, 5 domestic Classics and 4 Wild Classics. There are 13 chapters in Hanshu, not counting the later wild classics and family classics.
The contents of Shan Hai Jing are mainly geographical knowledge in folklore, including mountains and rivers, Taoism, nationalities, products, medicines, sacrifices and witch doctors. It has preserved many famous ancient myths, legends and fables, including Kuafu's day by day, Goddess's mending the sky, Jingwei's reclamation and Dayu's harnessing the water.
3. Romance of the gods
The Romance of the Gods, commonly known as the List of Gods, is also known as The Complete Biography of Shang and Zhou Countries, The History of King Wu Attacking Zhou and The Biography of Gods. It is a controversial novel of Xu in Ming Dynasty, which was written in the Wanli period.
The book "Romance of the Gods" is a hundred copies, and it tells the story of attacking Zhou. The first 30 chapters focus on Zhou Wang's tyranny, Jiang Ziya's seclusion, his trip to Xi 'an and Jiang Ziya's assistance. The prince of Wu completed the great crusade against Zhou Wang.
The last 70 chapters are dominated by Shang and Zhou wars, mixed with religious struggles. They explain how to teach and help Zhou, stop teaching and help Shang, show their own teachings and kill each other. As a result, the interception failed, Zhou Wang set himself on fire, King Wu seized the world, enfeoffed other countries, and Jiang Ziya returned to China to offer sacrifices to the gods, so that the people and ghosts who made meritorious service to the country returned to their homes.
The novel takes the historical concept and political concept as the ideological framework to support the book, mixed with a lot of grand imagination, which shows the author's support and praise for benevolent monarchs and saints, as well as his dissatisfaction and resistance to ruthless and ignorant monarchs.
4. "Looking for God"
Searching for the Gods is a collection of novels that records magical and weird stories in ancient folklore. The writer is Gan Bao, a historian in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. This book was originally scattered and compiled by later generations, with a total of 20 volumes and 454 stories.
The protagonists are ghosts, monsters, immortals, and mixed with Buddhism and Taoism. Most of them are strange things of immortals, and some of them belong to folklore. Most of them are short in length, simple in plot, fantastic in imagination and full of romanticism, which has a far-reaching influence on later generations.
Among them, Han Ping and his wife, Wu Wang's little daughter, etc. It exposes the cruelty of the ruling class and praises the struggle of the rebels, which is often quoted by later generations.
Most of these stories reflect the thoughts and feelings of ancient people to some extent. It is a masterpiece of China's ancient myths and legends, collecting more than 4 10 ancient miraculous stories, and creating a precedent for China's ancient mythological novels.
5. Natural history
Natural History, Collection of Ancient China Myths and Strange Stories. Edited by Zhang Hua (232~300) in the Western Jin Dynasty, he classified and recorded exotic things in different places, ancient anecdotes and fairy tales.
The content is mainly ancient books, including mountains and rivers, legends of historical figures, and strange descriptions of plants, fish, insects, birds and animals.
There are also stories about fantastic fairy tricks, in which many ancient mythological materials are preserved. The rumor recorded in August that someone drifted to Tianhe to meet the Weaver Girl is the original material about the myth of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.