If you ask which Chinese literary work has the greatest influence on Japan, many friends will blurt out " Romance of the Three Kingdoms " .
In addition to many well-known politicians in Japan who like Mitsuya, the Glory Group's three-kingdoms-themed games have continued to sell well throughout East Asia for more than a decade.
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However, there is such a work, from form to content, from appearance to spirit have influenced Japanese literature, and many stage plays and film and television dramas have also taken materials and adapted from its content.
It can be said that its influence on Japan at the literary and artistic level is even greater than that of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
It is puzzling that although such a work is very well-known in Dongying, it is not well known in China.
Because, it was banned very early, it was the first book in Chinese history to be banned.
Why was "Cut the Lights New Talk" banned?
Qu You, the author of "Cutting the Lamp", lived in the turbulent years of the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties, although he had a full belly, but he was not born at the right time.
At that time, the economic development of Jiangnan led to the vitality of folk thought, and some strange stories passed down by word of mouth by folk were processed by Qu You and "Cutting The New Talk of Cutting Lights" based on the ordinary life of the ordinary people of Jiangnan.
At the beginning of the advent of "Cutting the Lamp New Talk", not only were the peddlers and pawns and the local tycoons and gentry hands not release the scrolls, but even the Confucian students in Taixue were also obsessed.
In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Cheng Zhu Lixue was already regarded as the leading ideology of governing the country, and at that time, it was the guozijian who was responsible for cultivating talents for the imperial court, and naturally used the Four Books and Five Classics as teaching materials.
At that time, the headmaster of the highest school in Daming was named Li Shimian, who advocated "gezhi sincerity and integrity" and seemed to be an old traditional Confucian.
Li Shimian was able to become such a high-ranking official, naturally he did not dare to be sloppy, and he was also conscientious in his work. In the classroom, when I talk about the Four Books and Five Classics, it is also full of spirit and mouth.
Helplessly, let him spit and fly, the students are always wandering too vain.
He deeply examined whether there was something wrong with his teaching style, so he decided to go deep among the students and find out.
He went to the student dormitory at night to communicate and asked what books everyone was reading, was it "Spring and Autumn" or "Book of Poetry"? Unexpectedly, the book that students read the most was a "New Talk on Cutting lights".
Principal Li borrowed a book from the students, went home to pick up the lamp and read it at night, looked at it, he felt that it was getting more and more wrong, so he wrote a note to the emperor overnight, and the next day rushed to the palace to report the matter to the emperor.
The main meaning of Principal Li's recital is that "Cutting the Lamp" is spiritual opium, which will erode the soul, and in order to ensure the correct values of the Ming Dynasty, such books must be banned.
It must be said that President Li's vision is very unique, "Cutting the Lamp new talk" through time and space, breaking the boundaries of time and space, so that the ancients and the present dialogue, the dead and the living dialogue, naturally is "a strange thing." ”
However, the novel itself is fictional, and it is necessary to see the social significance behind these fictional stories.
"Cutting the Lamp New Talk" has written about the love of people and ghosts, and "Teng Mu You Jujing Garden" expresses the author's nostalgia through the miracle of Teng Mu's coincidental encounter with the late Song Palace man Zheng Fanghua and living with him for 3 years, showing deep sympathy for the fate of the palace women in the chaotic world, and reflecting the author's broad humanistic care.
"The Legend of the Man in Green" sings the spirit of young men and women pursuing freedom of love through the story of the ghost love between the woman in green and the ghost of Zhao Yuanren, and exposes the cruel and tyrannical behavior of the adulterous minister Jia Xiangdao.
The former focuses on expressing the sense of historical rise and fall and expressing sympathy for the fate of the palace women; the latter integrates the political connotation of anti-power adultery into the love between people and ghosts.
And this is exactly what President Li,000, a veteran Confucian student who is "sexually rigid and takes the world as his own responsibility", cannot understand.
Under the influence of science, Principal Li reluctantly admired the "people who have the meaning of Huaide and the establishment of fame", advocating that literature and art serve politics, and the valuable point of "Cutting the Lamp and New Words" is precisely a profound reflection on the traditional Confucian ideal of using the world.
In addition, since the author of the novel lived in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties, the work describes the influence of the development of commercial culture in Jiangnan towns at the end of the Yuan Dynasty on the citizens, branded with a specific era at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and exuding ideas different from tradition.
Principal Li thought that these things written by Qu You were not borrowing from the past to satirize the present, and were not praising the Yuan Dynasty in disguise?
The image of Zhu Yuanzhang in film and television dramas
Therefore, at the initiative of President Li, this "New Talk on Cutting lights" was banned.
"Cutting the Lamp New Talk" and "Chatting with Zai Zhiyi"
In the dreary political environment at that time, the advent of "Cutting the Lamp" aroused the love and resonance of countless readers, even the Jingsheng Confucians in the Guozi Prison also read it.
Later generations of imitators have sprung up, during the Yongle years, there were Luling Li Zhen's "Cut the Lamp Yu Words", during the Xuande years there was Zhao Bi's "Imitation of the Song Collection", during the Wanli years, Shao Jingzhan's "Looking for the Lamp Because of the Words" came out one after another, in addition to the imitation works, vernacular novels and operas were also influenced by the works of "Cutting the Lights new words".
Even "Liaozhai Zhiyi" was also affected by it.
Lu Xun said that Liaozhai uses the "legendary method and zhiwei", that is, to combine the characteristics of fiction, grotesqueness and novelty with strange themes, and then reflect the actual social background, this technique is obviously pioneered by Qu You.
The most direct is that many stories of "Liaozhai Zhiyi" can see the shadow of "Cutting the Lamp New Talk".
For example, the story of "Kao Chenghuang" and the "Biography of Xiuwen Sheren" both describe the story of the literati who were upright and did not meet before they died, and became officials in the underworld after their deaths.
Although the storyline of "Double Lantern" in "Liaozhai Zhiyi" is different from that of "Peony Lantern", there is a similar scene.
"Cutting the Lantern New Talk" appears as "Fifteen nights, three more exhausted, see a beard, pick a double-headed peony lamp leader, a beauty follows." "The second time a female ghost and a man jointly endangered the people, it was also a beard carrying a two-headed peony lantern.
The debut of the double lamp in "Liaozhai Zhiyi" is also accompanied by the heroine, "No He, the double maid picks the lamp, it has collapsed," the second appears when the man and woman break up, it is still "outside the village, the double maid picks the lamp to wait." ”
For the scene of "Peony Lantern", since Pu Songling borrowed it, he naturally did not let go of the plot.
After reading "Peony Lantern", we will find that it is simply a reproduction of the most famous story in "Liaozhai Zhiyi" - "Painted Skin".
Painted Skin
The plot of the story is that the man meets the woman, and then sees the color, and then invites to the home, meets the warning of others in the middle, and the woman is punished after the man is killed.
Placing the scene and plot of an article in two different stories, Pu Songling's skills are very clever, but there is no doubt that he was influenced by "Cutting the Lamp and New Words".
"Cutting the Lamp New Talk" between Wei Jin, Sui and Tang's Zhiwei novels and "Liaozhai Zhiyi" plays a relationship between the upper and lower levels.
It is a summary of Zhiwei novels such as "Search for God", representing the peak of this Zhiwei novel in ancient times, and influencing the writing of "Chatting with Zhiyi", opening the precedent of Ming and Qing Zhiwei novels.
"Cutting the Lamp New Talk" is popular in Japan and South Korea
Because it was banned and destroyed, "Cutting The Lamp" was relatively little circulated in China, and many Chinese did not know it.
However, Qu You, Li Shimian and others would not have thought that this novel did not lose its charm because it was banned and destroyed.
Ghost of a Woman
The banned novel attracted the interest of the Lee Dynasty people of North Korea, and later spread to Japan and Vietnam, and had a huge impact on Asian literature, becoming a rare case in the history of Chinese literary dissemination.
Don't look at the Korean Peninsula and China have a lot of contact, because the Tang poetry and Song poetry are too famous, they have not been exposed to the genre of novels.
Kim Shi-yeon, a famous writer of the Lee Dynasty of North Korea, created the "Jin'ao New Talk" imitating "Cutting the Lamp New Talk", and since then the Korean Peninsula has its first novel of their own.
After the advent of "Jin'ao New Words", the titles of each article became the prototype of the titles of Korean novels.
Influenced by "Cut the Lamp New Talk", the protagonists of "Jin'ao New Talk" are mostly talented and beautiful, the two sides fell in love at first sight, broke through the worldly obstacles, and finally had lovers eventually become dependents, this way of writing has become a fixed mode of Korean romance novels, in today's Korean dramas, it is almost this routine.
But like The New Story of Cutting the Lamp, the Tale of the Golden Ao has also become extinct in japan, and both works were found in Japan.
It can be seen that Japan is very careful to retain Chinese culture, whether from China at the core or from South Korea on the margins.
Japanese native literature is also naturally influenced by "Cutting the Lamp New Talk", from "Strange Talk Collection" and "Ga-Son" to "Ancient and Modern Strange Talk about English Straw Paper" and "Rain Moon Story", all of which have the shadow of "Cut The New Talk of Cutting Lights".
In particular, one of the three strange talks in Japan, the "Peony Strange Talk", is actually derived from the "Peony Lantern Record" mentioned above.
The content plot is that people and female ghosts fall in love, lovesickness, are seen by others, and there are mages descending demons, but in the end they still can't help themselves, people finally choose to be with ghosts, peony lanterns are the standard for female ghosts to appear.
"Peony Lantern" is now one of the most popular genres in horror movies and stage dramas, and it is also one of the most well-known and influential strange talks in Japan.
Not only Japan and South Korea, but also Vietnam, there are also imitations that have a huge impact on their literary works, and its famous writer Nguyen Yu created "Legendary Comics" imitating "Cutting The Lamp".
"Cut the Lantern New Talk" was banned in China, but it did not hinder its irreplaceable position in literature, an American scholar said that "Cut the Lamp New Talk" is the earliest classical novel with transnational influence in Chinese history, and its literary dissemination value is very large.
It is not difficult to see that for a long time, China, as the main exporter of the East Asian cultural circle, has made indelible and outstanding contributions to the prosperity of ancient civilizations in East Asia and promoted the development of civilizations in neighboring countries.
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Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, as "Little China", are the direct beneficiaries of the spread of Chinese culture to the outside world.
In today's society, many young people "Hahan", "Jingri", I don't know, those sought after things trace back to the source, are from ourselves.
What we really want to do is to find more highlights in those traditional cultures under the premise of building cultural self-confidence; we must boldly absorb the achievements of some sinologists in Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, and also combine our own traditions to create brilliant and dazzling works in the new era.