The Critiques of Zhiyanzhai: Key Evidence in Research on Chinese Literature–The Dream of the Red Chamber

Abstract

Zhiyanzhai, the critic of the novel Story of the Stone, gained wide recognition and rebranded it as The Dream of the Red Chamber, removing his critiques. This left readers with only one aspect of the literary content. Furthermore, there were multiple instances of copying and duplicating Zhiyanzhai’s critiques. Hence, this research aims to study the content of Zhiyanzhai's critiques and their significant role in the study of Chinese literature, specifically The Dream of the Red Chamber. The research utilizes a combined approach of studying the literary content alongside critiques from three book sources to verify the accuracy of the content. The findings reveal that: 1) The format of the critiques typically includes introductions and concluding summaries, while various formats of critiques are found within the literary content, each specifying the copied edition; 2) The content of the critiques reflects six subtopics: poetic composition and emotions of Cao Xueqin, character identity and life circumstances, the socio-political situation of China during the Qing Dynasty, the status of Cao’s family lineage, the narrative description of the literary content, and critiques on language usage and explanatory terms, idioms, and implied meanings.