After the May Fourth Movement, the vernacular language vigorously advocated by Hu Shi and others gradually replaced the non-punctuated and non-segmented classical Chinese. On February 2, 1920, the then Ministry of Education issued an educational order to all schools to adopt the "New Punctuation Marks", and the new punctuation marks were gradually accepted by the public. This year, Wang Yuanfang, a 223-year-old editor at the Oriental Memorial Library in Shanghai, came up with the idea of punctuating and segmenting the four classical novels.
Wang Yuanfang read Hu Shi's "On the Vernacular" and "On Punctuation". He wrote in his book "Memories of Oriental Library" that the idea at that time was to "publish a "Water Margin" first, and make sure that there are no typos. If it doesn't work out, forget it; If it succeeds, do the second part". So, Wang Yuanfang bought several lithographs and lead-printed "Water Margin" as the base book, and bought some red and silver sand for punctuation marks, and blue color for segmentation marks, and started punctuating "Water Margin".
After learning that Wang Yuan had the idea of punctuating classical novels, Chen Duxiu was very supportive, put forward some specific proofreading plans, and told Hu Shi, who was doing research on "Water Margin", to put Hu Shi's research article in front of the book as a preface, and he also promised to write another preface. The participation of Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu has enhanced the academic taste of the new punctuation series of novels; The illustrious reputation of Hu and Chen also created an invisible advertisement for Far Eastern Library. This successful collaboration between scholars and publishers has become a landmark event in the history of modern Chinese culture.
Far Eastern Memorial Library has published a total of 16 punctuated editions of classical vernacular novels. Among them, Wang Yuan has ten punctuated films, which are "Water Margin", "Confucianism", "Dream of Red Mansions", "Journey to the West", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin Sequel", "Mirror Flower", "The Legend of Children's Heroes", "Sea Flowers" and "The Travels of the Old Remnant". These are the most admired classical novels during the "May Fourth" New Culture Movement. The remaining six are "The Legend of Marriage in the Awakening World", "Seven Kinds of Song People's Words" and "Ancient Wonders" punctuated by Wang Yuanfang's brother Wang Naigang, "The Appearance of Officialdom" and "The Twelfth Floor" punctuated by Wang Yuanfang's sister Wang Xieru, and "Seven Heroes and Five Righteousness" revised and supplemented by Yu Pingbo's great-grandfather Yu Quyuan on the basis of "Three Heroes and Five Righteousness".
The Yadong edition of the punctuation of the classical novel series has opened a new era of Chinese ancient book publishing. Following the Yadong edition of the classical novel series, Beiping Culture Book Publishing House published a number of legendary notes on ancient novels with new punctuation, and Shanghai published "Historical Records" with new punctuation. Since then, punctuation has become the mainstream of the publishing industry.
Before the emergence of the Yadong version of "Dream of Red Mansions", the popular engraving of "Dream of Red Mansions" on the market was mainly the Cheng Jiaben system. According to Hu Shi's Preface to the Reprint of Qianlong's Renzi Ben 'Dream of Red Mansions', there is only one original engraved copy in Hu Shi's possession and one old manuscript in Rong Geng's possession.
In 1921, Oriental Memorial Library published a punctuated version of "Dream of the Red Chamber", based on the Shuangqing Xianguan book (Daoguang period version) in the Cheng Jiaben series, and selected several other good editions as school texts, the main school texts are the Arishosho Book Bureau Edition, the 38th Meiji Thirty-eighth Year of Japan and so on. The frontispiece is accompanied by a preface to Cheng Weiyuan's Dream of the Red Chamber, Hu Shih's A Verification of the Dream of the Red Chamber, Chen Duxiu's A New Narrative of the Dream of the Red Chamber, and Wang Yuanfang's Postscript. There are two series, hardcover and paperback, and 4,000 copies were printed. The hardcover book consists of three volumes and is priced at 42 yuan. The paperback book consists of six volumes and is priced at 33 yuan.
Yadong's punctuation copy of "Dream of Red Mansions" quickly sold out. In May 1922, the Oriental Memorial Library released the second edition. This time, there are no changes to the main text, and three articles have been added to the frontispiece: Cai Yuanpei's "Self-Preface to the Sixth Edition of 'The Stone Records of Suoyin' - A Discussion on Mr. Hu Shizhi's 'Dream of Red Mansions'"; Hu Shi's "A Dream of Red Mansions" and "A Discussion with Mr. Cai Xiaomin". Hu Shi's "The Dream of Red Mansions" also adopts the revised version that he co-edited with Gu Jiegang and Yu Pingbo.
Since then, Yadong's punctuated version of "Dream of Red Mansions" has been printed five times, which shows the grand popularity of the punctuated version of "Dream of Red Mansions" at that time.
When Wang Yuanfang first punctuated "Dream of Red Mansions", his attitude was extremely rigorous and dedicated. As far as he could, he tried to proofread as many versions as he could. In 1922, he borrowed Cheng Yiben from Hu Shi's hand and began to re-punctuate and proofread "Dream of Red Mansions". This time, he's even more refined. According to his 1927 rearranged edition of the Postscript, between 1922 and 1923, he proofread the entire book three times. This time, the text proofreading work was done very carefully, so it took a long time. During this period, Wang Yuanfang also paid extensive attention to the new achievements in the study of the version of "A Dream of the Red Chamber", referring to Rong Geng's article "The Problem of the Book of 'A Dream of the Red Chamber' by Mr. Yu Pingbo" published in the "Peking University Research Institute Guoxuemen Weekly" in November and December 1925.
In November 1927, Far Eastern Memorial Library published a rearranged version of "Dream of Red Mansions" based on Cheng Yi's book. At the beginning of the volume, there is a preface by Hu Shi, "Reprint of the Preface to Qianlong's Renzi's 'Dream of the Red Chamber'", and the introduction of Lanshu and Xiaoquan in Hu Shi's collection of Cheng Yiben and the preface of Gao He are also added.
The rearrangement was so popular that it was reprinted eight times by October 1948, making it the most popular edition of the 20s and 50s. As Wei Shaochang said in his essay "On the Dream of the Red Chamber": "Until 1954, when the whole country launched a nationwide critique of the research problem of The Dream of the Red Chamber, the Dream of the Red Chamber always occupied a dominant position among the various lead copies of The Dream of the Red Chamber. ”
The publication of Dream of Red Mansions, a punctuated edition of Yadong, was an important event in the history of Red Studies in the 20th century, marking the arrival of a new era of reading and scholarship.
Yadong's punctuation book "Dream of Red Mansions" has rewritten the history of Red Studies in three aspects: first, the punctuation book overwhelmed all previous non-punctuated books and became the mainstream version of "Dream of Red Mansions" in circulation; the second is the first typesetting of Cheng Yiben, which has stabilized Cheng Yiben's position in the academic community and market circulation; Third, the frontispiece is rich in content, especially Hu Shi's revised and reprinted "The Dream of Red Mansions", which has become the foundation work of New Red Studies. Since then, the new red science has replaced the old red science and has become the academic mainstream of the red science circle.
The revolutionary significance of Hu Shi's "Examination of the Dream of Red Mansions" in the history of red studies and cultural history mainly lies in the innovation of research methods. Hu Shi was deeply influenced by the United States philosopher Dewey's pragmatism and the Qianjia school of the Qing dynasty. He later summed up this research method as "bold hypothesis, careful verification". The study of "Dream of Red Chambers" mainly uses the method of research to solve the problem of the author and version of "Dream of Red Chambers". As Hu Shi himself said in the article, this is indeed "something that has never been used by those who have studied Dream of Red Mansions". The article sharply criticized the theories of the "Suoyin School" that Wang Mengruan, Cai Yuanpei and others had collected many irrelevant fragmentary historical events to attach to the plot of "Dream of Red Mansions", and believed that "those who have always studied this book have taken the wrong path."
For Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu, who were vigorously promoting the New Culture Movement at that time, using the power of publishers to sort out the country's history with new ideas and new methods should be an effective way to transform the old culture and popularize the new culture. History proves that this line of thinking is far-sighted. In the book "Hu Shi's Oral Autobiography", the three major characteristics of Yadong's punctuation novel series are summarized: "First, punctuation marks must be used in this article; Second, the text must be divided into sections and paragraphs; 3. (Before the main text) There must be an introduction to the history of the book. According to Hu Shi, Yadong's punctuation novel series was a "systematically sorted out book" with the direct participation of the leaders of the "May Fourth" new culture at that time.
In "A Discussion on the Dream of the Red Chamber, the Manuscript, and the Continuation of the Books", Wu Guanyi talked about his excitement when he read the Dream of the Red Chamber, and how he used it as a teaching material to learn to make vernacular Chinese:
Now I have bought this book, which belongs to me, is a completely new style from the novels I have seen in the past: a white newspaper book, the head of the book is the right size, each time the paragraphs are separated, punctuation marks, the lines are sparse, the font is clear, and it is really pleasing to the eye and looking at in the hand. I got the impression that this was the "new culture"!
I began to taste the pleasure of reading novels. I knew in my heart that the treatment of the novel and the treatment of the people who read the novel was so different from the old and the new! There were also many students who read it at the same time. We are not only attracted by the content of the novel, but also learn from it to make vernacular texts: learn its tone of words and sentences, learn how it is segmented, blank lines, low spaces, how to punctuate and use symbols.
Wu Guanyi's feelings vividly illustrate a problem: Yadong's version of "Dream of Red Mansions" and Yadong's punctuation series of novels were both born under the influence of the "May Fourth" New Culture Movement; After its birth, it became one of the important symbols of the New Culture Movement, and strongly promoted the development process of the New Culture Movement. (Zhu Ping)
Welcome to join the Rare Books Learning and Exchange Community