Originally, China's classical literature had "six masterpieces", and later due to some unknown reasons, the six masterpieces were deleted by 2 copies, leaving only the "four masterpieces" that we are now familiar with, is this true? My answer is that there have never been any six great works, only four great masterpieces, and this so-called "four masterpieces" is only a conventional title, not the result of official selection.
This thing, it's like this—
Four Wonder Books · 1
Initially, during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Mr. Wang Shizhen selected the four books that he had the most cattle in his heart, namely "History", "Zhuangzi", "Water Margin", and "XiXiang", which Mr. Wang called "four strange books".
There are history books, there are philosophies, there are novels, there are operas, these four books are taken out separately, in their respective categories, they are all first-class masterpieces, but they are very contrary to the package, there are too many categories, the span is too large, divorced from the masses of the people, naturally can not be recognized.
At that time, Mr. Li Yu, a famous literary critic, once pointed at Wang Shizhen's nose and said: This is all a broken thing, and the stupidity of books should be followed by its kind.
Four Wonder Books 2
Although Wang Shizhen's selection of the "Four Wonder Books" has not been recognized by the masses of the people, this selection idea is correct, and it gives future generations unlimited brain holes.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, another talented man Feng Menglong stood up, he avoided Wang Shizhen's big and complete ills in the selection, single-mindedly taking the mass line, you know, the Ming Dynasty is the golden age of novels, what "History", "Zhuangzi" that is the business of readers, only novels are the people can read and understand, can talk about after tea and dinner, so hu, with long popular novels as the standard of the four strange books 2.0 version, was born, is:
"Water Margin", "Journey to the West", "Jin Ping Mei", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"
Feng Menglong was still very selfless, with his status and fame at that time, if he wanted to hype himself and include the "three words" in these four strange books, it was not impossible, he only needed to make a little move on the selection criteria, but he did not do so.
The literati of that era were still relatively facetious.
Feng Menglong's version of the "Four Wonder Books" is very grounded, and it has also been widely recognized from top to bottom, and the people like to hear it and spread it.
Four Wonder Books · 3
Although Feng Menglong has been recognized by everyone, there is also a problem, just the book "Golden Plum Bottle"... You don't talk about that era, just now you asked me to hold this "Golden Plum Bottle" to watch in public, and I still can't get out of this old face.
Therefore, the book "Jin Ping Mei", people love it while they can only quietly love it, after the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was listed as a banned book one after another, this time, the four strange books exist in name only.
Until the birth of "Dream of the Red Chamber" and the replacement of "Golden Plum Bottle", there was the "Four Wonder Books 3.0 Version".
Four masterpieces
During the Republic of China period, in order to sell books, publishing houses inherited the saying of the "four famous works" of their predecessors, and packed and bundled these four books to sell, you don't say, the sales are really good. Later, after the founding of New China, the People's Literature Publishing House also naturally launched the "Four Masterpieces".
By 1982, the article of Red Flag Magazine officially identified the four masterpieces of classical literature for the first time: "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", "Journey to the West", and "Dream of the Red Chamber".
Slowly, the saying of the four masterpieces spread, and it is still today.
Six masterpieces
As mentioned earlier, the concept of "four masterpieces" was formally put forward in 1982, and before that it was all word of mouth or gimmicks by publishing houses in order to sell books, so what is now called "six masterpieces" is simply nonsense, and the statement that the "six masterpieces" is cut down to "four masterpieces" is even more groundless.
The six masterpieces were originally in 2007, and like the four masterpieces of the Republic of China period, they were all gimmicks made by publishers in order to sell books, and two books were added on the basis of the original, "Liaozhai Zhiyi" and "Ru Lin WaiShi".
Originally you want to engage in gimmicks to sell books, there is nothing wrong with it, after all, the four famous books also come this way, but this publisher is obviously a little poor in cultural level, and Li Yu, a Ming Dynasty person, has complained that "the strangeness of the foolish book should be from its category", and your selection criteria are the need for the same type of bibliography.
Among other things, the short literary novel "Liaozhai Zhiyi" is put together with several other vernacular novels... Well, as long as a publishing house is not embarrassed, the embarrassment is someone else, he just has to make money.
Compared with the current self-media, a publishing house still has a conscience, after all, it is just to sell books and engage in bundled sales, these so-called self-media are really ... In order to bring goods to sell books, any nonsense can be made up... The claim that only appeared in 2007 can be attached to the post-liberation, which is really convincing!