Cao Xueqin Translated By Gladys Yang Popular Books

Cao Xueqin Translated By Gladys Yang Biography & Facts

Dream of the Red Chamber or The Story of the Stone is an 18th-century Chinese novel authored by Cao Xueqin, considered to be one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. It is known for its psychological scope and its observation of the worldview, aesthetics, lifestyles, and social relations of High Qing China. The intricate strands of its plot depict the rise and decline of a family much like Cao's own and, by extension, of the dynasty itself. Cao depicts the power of the father over the family, but the novel is intended to be a memorial to the women he knew in his youth: friends, relatives and servants. At a more profound level, the author explores religious and philosophical questions, and the writing style includes echoes of the plays and novels of the late Ming, as well as poetry from earlier periods. Cao apparently began composing it in the 1740s and worked on it until his death in 1763 or 1764. Copies of his uncompleted manuscript circulated in Cao's social circle, under the title Story of a Stone, in slightly varying versions of eighty chapters. It was not published until nearly three decades after Cao's death, when Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan (程偉元) edited the first and second printed editions under the title Dream of the Red Chamber from 1791 to 1792, adding 40 chapters. It is still debated whether Gao and Cheng composed these chapters themselves and the extent to which they did or did not represent Cao's intentions. Their 120-chapter edition became the most widely circulated version. The title has also been translated as Red Chamber Dream and A Dream of Red Mansions. Redology is the field of study devoted to the novel. Language The novel is composed in written vernacular (baihua) rather than Classical Chinese (wenyan). Cao Xueqin was well versed in Chinese poetry and in Classical Chinese, having written tracts in the semi-wenyan style, while the novel's dialogue is written in the Beijing Mandarin dialect, which was to become the basis of modern spoken Chinese. In the early 20th century, lexicographers used the text to establish the vocabulary of the new standardised language and reformers used the novel to promote the written vernacular. History Textual history Dream of the Red Chamber has a complicated textual history that scholars and historians have long debated. It is known with certainty that Cao Xueqin began writing Dream of the Red Chamber in the 1740s. Cao was a member of a prominent Chinese family that had served the Manchu emperors of the Qing dynasty but whose fortunes had begun to decline. By the time of Cao's death in 1763 or 1764, hand-copied manuscripts of the novel's first 80 chapters had begun circulating, and Cao may have made early drafts of the remaining chapters. These hand-copied manuscripts circulated first among his personal friends and a growing circle of aficionados, then eventually on the open market where they sold for large sums of money. The first printed version of Dream of the Red Chamber, published by Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E in 1791, contains edits and revisions that Cao never authorized. It is possible that Cao destroyed the last chapters or that at least parts of Cao's original ending were incorporated into the 120 chapter Cheng-Gao versions, with Gao E's "careful emendations" of Cao's draft. "Rouge" versions Up until 1791, the novel circulated in hand-copied manuscripts. Even amongst some 12 independent surviving manuscripts, small differences in some characters, rearrangements and possible rewritings cause the texts to vary a little. The earliest manuscripts end abruptly at the latest at the 80th chapter. The earlier versions contain comments and annotations in red or black ink from unknown commentators. These commentators' remarks reveal much about the author as a person, and it is now believed that some of them may even be members of Cao Xueqin's own family. The most prominent commentator is Zhiyanzhai, who revealed much of the interior structuring of the work and the original manuscript ending, now lost. These manuscripts, the most textually reliable versions, are known as "rouge versions" (zhī běn 脂本). The early 80 chapters brim with prophecies and dramatic foreshadowings that give hints as to how the book would continue. For example, it is obvious that Lin Daiyu will eventually die in the course of the novel; that Baoyu and Baochai will marry; that Baoyu will become a monk. A branch of Redology, known as tànyì xué (探佚學), is focused on recovering the lost manuscript ending, based on the commentators' annotations in the Rouge versions, as well as the internal foreshadowings in the earlier 80 chapters. Several early manuscripts are still extant. At the present, the "Jiaxu manuscript" (dating to 1754) is held in the Shanghai Museum, the "Jimao manuscript" (1759) is held in the National Library of China, and the "Gengchen manuscript" (1760) is held in the library of Peking University. Beijing Normal University and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences both also held manuscripts of the novel that predate the first printed edition of 1791. Cheng–Gao versions In 1791, Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan brought out the novel's first printed edition. This was also the first "complete" edition of The Story of the Stone, which they printed as the Illustrated Dream of the Red Chamber (Xiùxiàng Hóng Lóu Mèng 繡像紅樓夢). While the original Rouge manuscripts have eighty chapters, the 1791 edition completed the novel in 120 chapters. The first 80 chapters were edited from the Rouge versions, but the last 40 were newly published. In 1792, Cheng and Gao published a second edition correcting editorial errors of the 1791 version. In the 1791 prefaces, Cheng claimed to have put together an ending based on the author's working manuscripts. The debate over the last 40 chapters and the 1791–92 prefaces continues to this day. Many modern scholars believe these chapters were a later addition. Hu Shih, in his Studies on A Dream of the Red Chamber (1921) argued that these chapters were written by Gao E, citing the foreshadowing of the main characters' fates in Chapter 5, which differs from the ending of the 1791 Cheng-Gao version. However, during the mid-20th century, the discovery of a 120 chapter manuscript that dates well before 1791 further complicated the questions regarding Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan's involvement—whether they simply edited or actually wrote the continuation of the novel. Though it is unclear if the last 40 chapters of the discovered manuscript contained the original works of Cao, Irene Eber found the discovery "seems to confirm Cheng and Gao's claim that they merely edited a complete manuscript, consisting of 120 chapters, rather than actually writing a portion of the novel". The book is usually published and read in Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E's 120 chapter version. Some modern editions, such as Zhou Ruchang's, do not include the last 40 chapters. In.... Discover the Cao Xueqin Translated By Gladys Yang popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Cao Xueqin Translated By Gladys Yang books.