"New Red Studies" has gone through a hundred years since its founding by Mr. Hu Shi, and has made many new breakthroughs in the examination of the version of "Dream of the Red Chamber", the author's family lineage, and the ideological connotation. In particular, Cao Xueqin's theory of being the author has been almost unanimously recognized by the red academic community. However, in recent years, the question of the author of "Dream of the Red Chamber" has made waves again. The authorship of "Dream of the Red Chamber" is ostensibly a matter of exploration and examination, which belongs to the category of the study of "Dream of the Red Chamber", but in fact, there are many idealistic factors, many mysterious elements, and many negate the problem that creation comes from life and what is life.
It is precisely because "Dream of the Red Chamber" is broad and profound, and there are many narrative objects, so it is always possible to find one or two clues from the book, and then chew up the author of "Dream of the Red Chamber". For example, the dialect problem in "Dream of the Red Chamber" has opened up a broad space for fans of "Dream of the Red Chamber" in various provinces and places. Also, some people think that the theme of "Dream of the Red Chamber" is "anti-Qing and restoration", saying that there are many things hidden in the book. In fact, a novel is a novel, and it expresses the theme by shaping characters, forming conflicts, revealing the environment, and so on. Finding a sentence here and a few lines there from the book out of context to verify and explain, so as to analyze the problems you want, this is not the attitude of learning.
There are also quite a few researchers who deliberately show off and make things up, they ignore the basic fact that Cao Xueqin is the author, but they want to find such mistakes and discrepancies in the book to prove that the author of the book is not correct in signing Cao Xueqin, saying that Cao Xueqin does not have the conditions to write a book, and Cao Xueqin is not such a genius. For example, "Thu Mo Re Hongxue" fundamentally negates the copyright of Cao Xueqin's "Dream of the Red Chamber", and always uses words such as "suspected" and "possible" in the inference, and many of the "direct evidences" cited are deliberately distorting historical facts and fallacies about historical materials.
"Dream of the Red Chamber" is different from "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin" and "Journey to the West" in that it is not born out of folk literature, but is a real literati creation. Although Cao Xueqin finally completed the novel in Beijing, his life in Nanjing laid a solid foundation for his literary creation. "Without Jiangning Weaving, there would be no Dream of the Red Chamber." This is the consensus of most red researchers. Jiangning weaving is the Cao family, Kangxi and Qianlong have also lived in the Cao family several times in the south, Cao Xueqin's grandfather Cao Yin and father Cao Yan all remember that they received "the silver is like the flowing sea", which is the Cao family's personal experience. There are many such records and confessions in "Dream of the Red Chamber", whether it is Jia Lian's wet nurse and Wang Xifeng's family confession, all point out this fact.
The basic fact of "Dream of the Red Chamber" is that Cao Xueqin was born in the Cao family of Jiangning Weaving, and her ancestors started with military merit, similar to the Jia family. When the Cao family was prosperous, there were four major weavings in Jiangnan, which corresponded to the four major families in "Dream of the Red Chamber"; the background of the Dream of the Red Chamber was the Qing Dynasty, and it was the period of the Nine Dragon Conquest, the Cao family because of its support for the abolition of the crown prince Yin, Yongzheng took the throne after the liquidation of the deficit, the Cao family began to lose, and the Jia fu was the same; Cao Xueqin was indeed a person who grew up in the fat powder pile, and later the family road was defeated, remembering the ancestors, and wrote this work with "repentance".
People who engage in literary creation are all recording and reproducing the prototypes of life, and it is impossible to make up random things out of life. There is also a question here, that is, what is life? The "life" mentioned in literary creation is the basis, conditions and capital for engaging in literary creation, and it stems from the encounter between the writer and a certain life experience. "Dream of the Red Chamber" Cao Jia Jiangning weaving life prototype is the soul of the novel "Dream of the Red Chamber". Using this to explain Cao Xueqin, the author of "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "Dream of the Red Chamber", is a matter of all the ways. The late Mr. Hu Wenbin, a well-known red scholar, once pointed out to the copyright issue of the Dream of the Red Chamber: "In recent years, we have almost been covered up by the noise of 'pan-entertainment'. However, I firmly believe that 'joking about the Red Chamber', 'revealing the Red Chamber', and 'talking about the Red Chamber' can only be noisy for a while, and will never become permanent. (The author is a researcher at the China Academy of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises)
Image: From the Internet, the copyright belongs to the original author
Editor: Wang Yue