The Journey to the West, one of the classical Four Great Classical Novels in China, is the first romance novel written by Wu Cheng'en in China in ancient Ming Dynasty. Journey to the West is the first ten times that Wu Cheng'en wrote Journey to the West when he was about 50 years old, which is about 1550. Later, it was interrupted for many years, and it was not until he resigned and returned to his hometown in his later years that The Journey to the West's entire creation was finally completed. Therefore, it can be roughly inferred that The Journey to the West was created during the 32 years from 1550 to 1582. This paper mainly describes the story of the Monkey King, Pig Bajie, Friar Sand and Bai who protected Tang Priest to learn Buddhist scriptures in the West during the Zhenguan period of Emperor Taizong. They went through hardships all the way (plus the hardships before Tang Priest was born to learn Buddhist scriptures), turned evil spirits all the way, saved the day, and finally arrived in the West to learn Buddhist scriptures. (Records of the Western Regions of Datang and Biography of the Sages of Datang have detailed records on this matter). According to Tang Sanzang's classic poems and folklore.
Since the advent of The Journey to the West, it has been widely circulated among the people, and various versions have emerged one after another. There were six editions in Ming Dynasty, seven editions and manuscripts in Qing Dynasty, and thirteen editions of ancient books have been lost. After the Opium War, a large number of China classical literary works were translated into western languages and gradually spread to Europe and America. There are already English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Spanish (Esperanto), Sri Lankan (Swahili), Russia, Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. He also published many research papers and monographs, and made a very high evaluation of this novel.
The world is divided into four continents: Dongsheng Shenzhou-a continent composed of many fairy islands, where scattered immortals gather and are also the birthplace of the Monkey King; South Station is not the seat of the Tang Dynasty, and Tang Priest also started from here to learn from the scriptures. Xi Niu Hezhou-the location of the Buddha in the Western Heaven and the God Buddha, the prosperity of Buddhism, and the destination of Tang Priest's scriptures; Luzhou, the most desolate continent in the north, is totally naked savages without the popularity of Buddhism.
Second, appreciate
Literary features
The Journey to the West is the most outstanding ghost novel full of fantastic ideas in the history of China literature. Wu Cheng'en, the author, used romanticism to soar with unparalleled imagination, portrayed a colorful, magical and magnificent fantasy world, created a series of fascinating fairy tales, and successfully shaped the idealized hero image of the Monkey King. In the fantasy world, it reflects secular human feelings and feelings in a tortuous way, shows fresh human wisdom, and is full of realistic flesh and blood and rich flavor of life. The Journey to the West, with his unique thoughts and artistic charm, brought readers into the beautiful art palace and felt its artistic charm.
The artistic features of Journey to the West can be summarized in two words: one is illusory, the other is interesting; It's not ordinary fantasy, it's fantasy, it's not ordinary fun, it's strange fun. Through bold and rich artistic imagination and fascinating stories, the novel creates a magical and gorgeous mythical world. The Journey to the West's artistic imagination is peculiar, rich and bold, which is rare in ancient and modern novels. The Monkey King's world is close to the fairyland of fairy tales, which is very interesting, and in this world, there are all kinds of strange and interesting monsters, which are really strange and colorful. Romantic fantasy originated from real life reflects the world and human feelings in the description of fantasy. The characters, plots, scenes, even magic weapons and weapons of Journey to the West are full of imagination, but they are all condensed with real life experiences, which can reveal the breath of life in fantasy and reflect human feelings for readers to understand and accept.
The Journey to the West's artistic charm depends not only on his fantastic imagination, but also on his interest. Among China's classical novels, The Journey to the West is arguably the most interesting and entertaining work. Although the journey to learn from the scriptures is full of dangerous mountains and waters, monsters and ghosts emerge in endlessly, and the Monkey King's victory is hard-won, the reader's reading experience is always relaxed and full of pleasure, without any sense of tension and heaviness.
The Journey to the West's curiosity reflects the character's ideological character. The Monkey King's generous and optimistic comedy character; Funny but simple and simple image of Pig Bajie. Their humorous and interesting conversations add a lot of color to the article. Character is often expressed incisively and vividly through humorous dialogues, which is another major feature of The Journey to the West. The combination of divinity, humanity and naturalness in character description is also an important reason why The Journey to the West makes people curious. The so-called divinity refers to the illusion of image; The so-called humanity refers to the sociality of the image; Nature refers to the nature of animals. The Journey to the West shows a deified animal world, and at the same time, it is integrated into social life.
Journey to the West spread the wings of fantasy, soaring in wonderful fantasy, and his fantasy thinking mode has surreal advanced consciousness. The Journey to the West's fantasy art is indeed a valuable ideological wealth and rich artistic wealth. The Journey to the West is not only a masterpiece of China literature, but also a treasure of world literature.
Aesthetic criticism
Mythical thinking and power consciousness
Judging from the basic nature and art of the text as a whole, The Journey to the West is a Han folk literature text mixed with elements such as religion and myth, superstition and witchcraft, and it is a text form that has been collectively created and finally individually processed in a long historical period. It reflects the decline of China's philosophy after the decline of the axis culture in the pre-Qin period and the chaotic picture of the life world and the secularized enjoyment picture after the collapse of the value building. The ridicule and satire of the comedies of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism highlight the germination and gradual development of commodity economy, the deconstruction of mainstream ideology and the collapse of spiritual belief in the late period of ancient China society. In the mythical world constructed by The Journey to the West, religion is a metaphor of spiritual and psychological totalitarian rule and is interpreted as a symbol of imperial power. As a result, the consciousness of imperial power and mythical thinking are logically allied in religious artistic texts, and a religious model of politicization and politicization of religion is born.
Journey to the West presents the dual totalitarianism of secular world and spiritual world-imperial power and theocracy. The subject of existence is firmly bound in material and spiritual life, succumbing to the dual domination of political power and religion, and collectively and unconsciously prostrating himself at the feet of the emperor and Buddha in psychological structure. Obviously, The Journey to the West's texts exude an innate national servility. Even the "hero", as a rebel idol, finally had to bow to the Buddha "demon", which symbolizes the highest form of rule.
Self-alienation and Game Subject
Hegel expressed his consistent aesthetic proposition in Aesthetics: the ideal art should be people-centered. He also stressed: "Character is the real center of ideal artistic expression." [8] Obviously, The Journey to the West is a human image constructed by ghosts and gods for perceptual symbols. However, due to the domination of religious and superstitious consciousness on the creative subject, the image written in this paper presents an aesthetic state of subject sinking and self-alienation. In other words, although there are many vivid images or images in The Journey to the West, there is an artistic fact that cannot be concealed: the subjectivity of the characters has been lost, and human nature is in a state of decline because of religious repression.
On the whole, the Monkey King is a "fake hero". He is not only a lovely hero full of game spirit, but also a hero who finally shows cowardice under the magic of religion and becomes a victim and tool of religious consciousness. Obviously, after being suppressed by the magic of the Tathagata, the Monkey King is obviously an incomplete hero, a hero who has surrendered himself to Buddhism physically and mentally. From the specific details, the Monkey King is a hero in myth and imagination, a hero who constantly asks for help, and must use spells and treasures. After the havoc in heaven, his heroic image has faded. Compared with the hero in Sima Qian's Biography of the Assassin, the latter is a magnificent hero full of historical reason, tragic color, moral and ethical significance and practical reason, so he is a real and respectable hero. In contrast, the Monkey King can only be a lovely but disrespectful pseudo-hero.
Mixed motif structure and circular narrative strategy
As a mythical novel, The Journey to the West contains rich and extensive motifs, such as resisting motif, learning from the classics motif, traveling motif, adventure motif, suffering motif, sexual taboo motif, making a positive result motif and so on. Wellek and Warren, the representatives of the new criticism, believe that "from the perspective of literary theory, the important motif in myth may be the images or pictures of society or nature (unnatural or irrational), the prototype or narrative or the story about the universe, and the representation of events in a certain period of our eternal ideal, which is programmatic, eschatological or mysterious." The Journey to the West's motif involves many fields and objects such as nature, society, history, politics, mythology and religion. It shows a vivid historical genre painting, and also shows the rational tendency of human idealism and moralism to a certain extent. Unfortunately, these idealism and moralism are incomplete, impure and incomplete, even broken and vague, and sometimes show internal confusion and contradiction, which seriously weakens the philosophical significance and ideological charm of the novel text.
Three. Achievements and influence
Literary achievements
Among China's classical novels, The Journey to the West's content is the most complicated. It combines the thoughts and contents of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, which not only allows the immortals of Buddhism and Taoism to perform at the same time, but also injects the human feelings of the real society into the world of Buddhism and Taoism, and sometimes inserts a few words of Confucian wisdom, which is harmonious and interesting, making the book win the interest of readers at all levels of culture. The appearance of The Journey to the West opened up a new category of ghost novels. The ingenious combination of well-meaning satire, bitter satire and serious criticism in the book directly affects the development of satirical novels. Therefore, The Journey to the West is the peak of ancient romantic novels and the representative work of romanticism in the history of world literature.
social influence
Since The Journey to the West, there has been a climax of writing ghost novels in Ming Dynasty. There are Zhu Xingzuo's Biography of Twenty-four Arhats Becoming the Tao, Deng Zhimo's Cycas Flying Sword Cursing Jujube, and Xu's Biography of Immortals. The Journey to the West also had a far-reaching influence on the traditional operas in China. The court drama "Shengping Bao Raft" in Qing Dynasty is a journey to the west, with 10 books and 240 pieces. The Journey to the West not only has sequels and imitations, but also has an influence on later novels, operas, baojuan and folk customs. The Journey to the West's drum ci is found in his disciple's book in Qing Dynasty, which shows its great influence.
The Journey to the West also attracted the attention of westerners, and his translation and introduction were timely. 1in the middle of the 9th century, the French sinologist Teodoro Pavey translated the ninth The Journey to the West (Revenge of the River Monk after Chen Guangrui's Arrival) and 10 (Revival of Emperor Taizong's Death) into French. The title of the ninth translation is "Sanzang and the monk were saved in the river", and the title of the first translation is "The Legend of the Dragon King: The Story of Buddhism". All the translations were published in Asia Magazine published in Paris (also known as Asia Magazine, sponsored by Asia Society). The book Selected Literature of China, edited by French scholar Moran, was published in 19 12, including three versions of The Journey to the West 10,10, 12. 12 years later, that is, 1924, Moran translated it into a century-old translation of Journey to the West, named Monkey Pig: The Adventures of Ghosts and Ghosts, which was published in Paris that year. This is the earliest systematic French translation in The Journey to the West.
To sum up, it must be four classic novels.