Inscription poem:
People don't have to have things, things don't have to be beautiful,
Really not fake, fake is true.
However, it is difficult to ensure that the search is complete.
The performance is not without increase, and the description is not without polish.
Novels, plays, poems, stories and legends,
It must be half true and half false, and it is the pen of samadhi.
Don't ask whether the situation is extreme.
The facts may not be reasonable, why should the characters be realistic?
As a theorist from creation to criticism, Feng Menglong's literary thoughts contain rich literary creation thoughts, among which his novels and plays are the most valuable. ?
Feng Menglong's "theory of truth and falsehood" is most admired by people, and it was put forward by him in "Warning Story". He said:?
Is unofficial history really true? Yue: No need. Are they all fake? Yue: No need. But what about removing the false and retaining the true? Yue: No need.
Here, Feng Menglong discusses the relationship between life truth and artistic fiction in literary creation. As a novel, the characters and events in it are not necessarily true in real life, but should be allowed to be fictional and "false". But fiction must also have a basis in life, and it can be "real" if it does not avoid real people and things in life. Therefore, there should be truth and falsehood in the novel, and truth and falsehood should coexist. It is not necessary to "remove the falsehood" but only "preserve the truth". ?
How to make artistic fiction? Feng Menglong put forward: "People don't have to have their own things, and things don't have to be beautiful." Create a character, even if he doesn't do anything, you can add it to him when necessary. An event is indeed done by someone and can be moved to others for creative reasons. This fictional method is actually one of the methods commonly used by many famous writers at home and abroad. When talking about creation, Mr. Lu Xun said: "What I have seen and heard probably has some truth, but I never use all this fact, just take one end of it, transform it or spread it." Enough to express my meaning almost completely. The models of the characters are all the same, and there is no special one. They often have their mouths in Zhejiang, their faces in Beijing and their clothes in Shanxi, all of which are patchwork feet. [23] Although Feng Menglong was not as thorough as Mr. Lu Xun said, he grasped the basic law of artistic fiction, which was really commendable as an exploration more than 300 years ago. Novels can't be made up without reference. Feng Menglong demanded that "things are true and not empty, that is, things are false and true". The "ceremony" here has two meanings: one is the meaning of feudal ethics. That is, Feng Menglong said, "It does not harm weathering, sages or the history of poetry and books." (Xu) The second is the meaning of truth and life logic. This usage is very common in Feng Menglong's works. The tenth fold of "Man-beast Communication" criticized: "It was originally a temporary palm for paying Gui Fenglu to test his heart's good and evil and make a karma. Is it reasonable for Bodhisattva to make this move? Change it today. "'reason' means truth here." Facts are true but not false "requires that events in literary works, even if there is a prototype of life, that is, the so-called" facts are true ",can not violate the logic of life, but also be related to weathering. Real events may also be accidental, not universal, or even absurd. Feng Menglong's request is not aimless. "What is false and what is reasonable is true" needs a completely fictional event, that is, "What is false", and more attention should be paid to whether it is reasonable. In Feng Menglong's works, all the plots that he thinks are unreasonable are pointed out one by one and revised. Except for the 10% discount on the above-mentioned "man-beast communication". There is also the third discount of the dream. Feng Menglong approved: "If it weren't for the appointment of Qian Media, Zhang was corrupt and didn't attract outsiders to see his niece. It was originally inappropriate, but now it has been corrected. " ?
Feng Menglong often uses this fictional method in his novels and plays. According to the available data, it can be concluded that this novel "Three Repays for Old Men" was written by Feng Menglong. This scholar is smarter than when he was a child. At the age of eight, he was a child prodigy, but at the age of eleven, he failed again and again. At the age of 30, according to the data, it was time to pay tribute, but he disdained the small future of paying tribute and paid tribute for eight times in a row until he obtained the provincial examination at the age of 57 and was a scholar at the age of 6/kloc-0. He is very grateful to accept his mentor Kuai many times and repay Kuai and his descendants after becoming an official. The protagonist of the novel is fresh and homogeneous, and obviously has the shadow of the author. Shi Jing Tong Yan was written in the fourth year of the Apocalypse, when Feng Menglong was fifty-one. This old protege is considered to be this year or not long ago. At this point, Feng Menglong's situation is basically the same as that of Xianyu, who took the same exam. He has also participated in the imperial examinations many times, and he is in his fifties. He doesn't even have a juror. According to the regulations at that time, Feng Menglong already had the qualification to pay tribute, and it is likely that he will pay tribute many times like Xian Yutong. Yu Yutong's talk about being an official in the imperial examination is an expression of the author's true thoughts. However, Feng Menglong did not get the bright future of his characters. Until he was 57, he was still paying tribute. At the age of sixty-one, he became a junior official in Shouning County. The novel "Old Puppet" can be said to be a fiction made by the author based on his own experience and feelings and taking other people's events as the material. Many famous Ming Dynasty plays in Sanyan, such as Du Shiniang's Angry Box, Joe's satrap's chaos, and Qian Xiucai's mistaken occupation of Phoenix, are all fictional on the basis of real events. ?
Feng Menglong's early legend A Tale of Two Cities is also mixed with truth and falsehood. His friend Qi Biaojia pointed out in the articles Yuan Shantang Qupin and Shuang Xiong: "This Feng Youlong wrote when he was a teenager, but he was able to make smart remarks at the right time. Trapped by Shu, he went to the righteous brother; And Liu Fangzheng spared no effort to save it. There is no shortage of Dan Miki in Shigu, and there is also a Liu Fangzheng! Gusu has something to do recently and invited Feng Jun to disperse it with black powder. " . Volume 12 of "A New Drama in Taixia" contains Feng Menglong's Sanqu "Complaining about Brothels", which is methodical: "You are a good friend with Bai. It's against the rules, so I give it to you. Say goodbye to six years, tears streaming down my face, thronged with voices, hastily made an appointment, but there was no news after I left. Every little fan has a lump in his throat. Is there a plum in the world? To write this word. " There is a postscript after the song: "Zi still writes A Tale of Two Cities. White for Huang Sunniang, for, pawn moved to. What do you mean, a scholar is three inches without spirit? " "A Tale of Two Heroes" is based on the true story that an uncle in Suzhou was rescued by his brother, and Dongshanliu was separated from a prostitute. The story of Dongshan Liu and Suzhou Yixiong is adopted in the play, not the characters in real life. ?
Feng Menglong's exposition on artistic fiction is mainly aimed at story novels and dramas, but in his view, it is not suitable for literary creation with historical themes. Feng Menglong created the historical novel New Biography, and revised historical dramas such as Zhongjing Banner, Inn and New Irrigation Garden. It reflects his basic understanding of historical literary creation and historical truth. First of all, we must affirm that Feng Menglong's creation of "The New Biography" is meritorious. Compared with Biography of Li, it not only increased the length several times, but also described clearly and meticulously, and greatly improved its literary value. It can be said that it is Feng Menglong's rewriting that makes this novel a historical novel with the influence second only to The Romance of the Three Kingdoms in China's novel history. ?
Feng Menglong criticized the Biography of the New Guo Li: "There are many omissions in the old records, and they are all inconsistent. They are fabricated according to their own opinions, regardless of right and wrong." Therefore, he rewrote the Biography of Guo Lie from two aspects. The first is to supplement the "missing" part of the old record. "The major events in each country must be prepared one by one, so there will always be success or failure, and the clues will be well organized and well connected." The second is to modify the "fiction" and the wrong part. Including inaccuracies in name, time, events, system and place names. There are also folklores used in the original works, such as Qin Aigong Lintong Doubao. His creative attitude is no less rigorous than that of historians. Mainly based on Zuo, Guo and Historical Records, he participated in Confucius' Family Remarks, Ram, Gu Liang, Jin's Cheng, Chu's Empty Lang, Guan Zi and Yan Zi. Feng Menglong is a Confucian scholar, famous for his study of Chunqiu, and an expert in the history of Chunqiu. He is very familiar with the history of the Spring and Autumn Annals and the Warring States Period, which provides convenience for him to strictly abide by historical facts and write novels. ?
However, there are two differences between Feng Menglong's rewriting of New Guo Liezhi and historical research: First, he made a choice in historical facts. "Wang Xuan to Wu Zhou, more than five hundred years. From the beginning of the East, to the five tyrants, to the twelve countries and seven countries, there are endless stories of ups and downs in the middle. One hundred and eight times, the preparation is limited, but it is difficult to guarantee the integrity of the search. " [25] Second, the description of details has increased, which is what a considerable Taoist said: "The performance is not without increase, and the description is not without polish." [26] The New Biography written by Feng Menglong undoubtedly influenced the literary value of this novel. Mr. Lu Xun once commented on historical novels, including History of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty: "Generally speaking, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is not as effective as it is. Although it is above it, it is also based on historical facts, so it is not good at wording and is afraid of narration. Cai's Reading the History of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty said:' If it is a serious book, it is a novel after all. ..... But to say that he is a novel, he has been handed down from one classic to another. This is beautiful, and the disease of history is also here. "[27] Chronology of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty is actually a chronicle annotation of the New National Records, but Cai has not changed much. Mr. Lu Xun's comments on novels such as the History of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty actually revealed the fatal weakness of the New Compilation of National History. Feng Menglong's revision of historical dramas is also a strict adherence to historical facts. He once revised "Zhong Jing Banners" and thought that "the slang of the old book as a discipline is inaccurate", so "it was spread in the official history and entered the Tang Temple". Write down the facts and make up a new play. [28] He revised "The Maid in the Inn" and studied it in Han Shu, Han Jing and other historical books, arguing that Qin Hongjiang "took Du Qiao's daughter as Li Xie's wife" ... and Teng's daughter as a concubine, and the plot was complicated and inaccurate ". It is more "practical" to change it to "Tenggong married Li Xie with his daughter". In the twelfth compromise, in order to change his surname, Feng Menglong made a special textual research: "Qin edition is the supporting period, and Hanshu and Zhisou are the friends." "Han Shu" Note:' Friends, surnames are also'. Only "Dongguan" is regarded as a branch, and "Han Ji" is regarded as a positive. "Garden" also contains beautiful friends in Liang Ji's time. Han You's way of being kind is plain. "He changed the book" Restaurant Servant "and was selective about historical facts." There are so many righteous men in Guli that I can't remember them. Let's talk about Wang Cheng, Guo Liang and so on. "("Restaurant Servant's General Comment ") Feng Menglong's revision of historical dramas is consistent with his attitude of rewriting the new history of the country. Feng Menglong's creation and revision of historical literary works in this way reflects his basic view on historical literary creation, which has two sides. ? On the one hand, he asked writers who wrote historical themes to have extensive historical knowledge and even to have in-depth research on the history they wrote. This requirement is reasonable and correct. On the other hand, he asked writers who wrote historical themes to abide by historical facts, not to invent and create at will, to make choices between people and things on the basis of strictly observing history, to describe historical facts in detail, and to create historical themes entirely with historical truth. This requirement is undoubtedly too rigid, conservative and harsh. After all, historical dramas and historical novels are different from history. They belong to literature, and writers should be allowed to make fiction and create on the basis of historical facts. Different from ordinary story literature, they want to show the true colors of history, rather than simply retelling historical stories. At this point, Xie and Feng Menglong's contemporaries know better than him. Xie said, "All novels, zaju and operas. It must be half true and half false, and it is the pen of samadhi. We should also stop this situation, regardless of whether it exists. Ancient novelists such as Miscellanies of Xijing, Biography of Yan Fei, Tianbao Legacy, Biography of Campus, Red Line, Tibetan Mother and White Ape, and zaju writers such as Pipa, The West Chamber, Chai Jing and Meng Ji. Recently, people laugh at those novels that are slightly grotesque. However, if you write a new drama, such as "Huansha", "Blue Shirt", "Breastfeeding" and "Orphan", everything has to be tested for official history, and the year and year are different, and the surnames and characters are different, so you dare not do it. In this way, reading historical biography is enough. What is a play? " [29] This kind of "half truth and half falsehood" is more in line with the law of literary creation than strictly observing historical facts.
Understanding Feng Menglong's view of historical and literary creation in this way will encounter a difficult problem. There are also many historical stories in Sanyan. Why didn't Feng Menglong revise them according to historical facts? I think novels such as Sanyan are based on legends rather than history, and most of these novels are compiled by speaking artists according to folklore. Feng Menglong actually treats these novels as ordinary story novels, and his famous "theory of truth and falsehood" was put forward in Warning. There are novels adapted from historical legends in Warning. Feng Menglong's comments on Sanyan did not require historical novels. "Yang Jiaoai gave his life for everything" is based on his most familiar story "Spring and Autumn Annals", from which Feng Menglong picked out two places that are inconsistent with history. First, the novel froze to death in Liangshan, Qiyang. Feng criticized: "According to Guangdian, Zuo died in Heyang County, Anzhou, Shaanxi Province, and Liangshan was on the border of Qishan in Ganzhou." [30] Secondly, the main plot angle of the novel is to lament that Jing Ke's war is fiction. He said, "According to legend, Jiao Yun mourned for the doctor in Chu, buried Tao Bo with ceremony and mourned himself as a martyr. Never heard of beating Jing Ke. Besides, Ai Jiao died before Jing Ke and Gao Jianli. The author covered up that Jing Ke had mistakenly dropped Taizi Dan, and he was ashamed by Ai Jiao. "[3 1] Feng Menglong not only didn't blame the inconsistency between the novel and history, but also didn't change it according to the history books. Instead, he expressed his understanding. Feng Menglong once supplemented The Legend of Ping Yao, which was based on the historical events of Wang Ze and Yong Er Uprising in Zhou Bei in the Northern Song Dynasty. However, Feng Menglong made it extremely unreal and grotesque, as Zhang said: "There is no danger, ghosts are real and virtual." [32] "Water Margin" is also based on the historical facts of the Sung River Uprising in the Northern Song Dynasty, and the stories are mostly legends and fictions. Feng Menglong spoke highly of this book, calling it one of the "Four Wonder Books", and participated in the collation of Li Zhuowu Water Margin. It can be seen that Feng Menglong also regards the above novels as ordinary story novels. Some people may wonder whether Feng Menglong's requirements for story literature and historical literature are so different that there is a contradiction between them. In fact, the so-called contradiction is entirely our modern feelings. No one questioned it at that time. However, Li Yu, who was later than Feng Menglong, shared the same view with Feng on this issue. In his book "Casual Sentiment, Quci Series", he put the two together to compare and discuss: "If you don't pay attention to current affairs. Non-special deeds can be illusory, and names can also be fabricated out of thin air, that is, empty. If you use the past to make a question and make a name for an ancient person, it will be full of colors, all of which are ancient people, and you can't name it; What people do must be based on books, and classes can be tested. It is impossible to create a fact. " Knowing Li Yu's view of truth and falsehood, there is no need to doubt Feng Menglong's different views on story literature and historical literature. What seems contradictory to people today can be well unified by the ancients.
Feng Menglong's literary criticism, especially drama criticism. The theory of plot structure is discussed more systematically. It can be said that the plot structure theory is one of the most wonderful parts of Feng Menglong's literary creation theory. ?
Gorky has a famous conclusion about plot: "The third element of literature is plot, that is, the connection, contradiction, sympathy, disgust and general relationship between characters-a certain character, a typical growth history and composition history". [33] This passage brilliantly tells the relationship between the plot and the characters. We can't ask Feng Menglong to reach Gorky's understanding height. He did notice the problem. He believes that a good plot can fully express the character, otherwise, it will damage the character image. In The Love of Chu River, he criticized the original plot for "several shortcomings". The first point is: "Xu Changgong I, a great soldier, wanted to find a woman, but he couldn't find it back." How could he have the heart to abandon my concubine? " Its tricks are also very embarrassing! "He thinks that abandoning my concubine is detrimental to Xu Changgong's heroic image: one is cruel and heartless, and the other is foolhardy. Feng Menglong "cured this great creation" for it. Replacing abandoning concubines with prostitutes will not damage Xu Changgong's chivalrous character. Feng Menglong rewrote "Hanging Liu Qi with Many Names" according to the old book "Liu Yiqing Poetry, Wine and Play on the River Tower". In the original work, Zhou Yuexian, a geisha, took a fancy to her, but Zhou fell in love with Mr. Huang, refused to take advantage of Liu and Liu's position as county butchers, and ordered the boatman to rape Zhou on the boat, setting this deadly trap to get Zhou Yuexian. Feng Menglong thinks this novel is "vulgar and shallow, rich in teeth and fragrant". (Narration of ancient and modern novels) In his adaptation, all these plots were transferred to the rich Liu Eryuan. A comment is added here: "This article and the Story of Playing on the Tower of the River stated that the county butcher wanted to communicate with Zhou Yuexian and made the boatman use his tricks, which was extremely harmful and elegant." [34] Feng Menglong wrote this, mainly considering the relationship between the plot and the characters. There is nothing wrong with the plot itself. Feng Menglong did not give up rewriting, but changed his master. However, judging from its relationship with the characters, it is detrimental to Liu Qiqing's character and should not be added to his head. In the remake, Feng Menglong also increased Liu Qiqing's worth by 8,000 yuan, which is the plot of Zhou Yuexian's reunion with Huang Xiucai in addition to music. This kind of plot helps to shape Liu's image and is the best plot.
[23]? Lu Xun's How to Start a Novel, Complete Works of Lu Xun, Volume 4, p. 394. People's Literature Publishing House 1980. ?
[24][25] "New Biography, Example". Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House 1987. ?
[26]' New Biography',' Selected Novels of China' Volume I.. Jiangxi people's publishing house 1982. ?
[27]? Lu Xun's A Brief History of Chinese Novels, Complete Works of Lu Xun, Volume 9, p. 148. People's Literature Publishing House 1980. ?
[28] Quoted from "Qu Hai Jian Bian Compilation Abstract" Volume 9, Shanghai Dadong Bookstore 1928. ?
[29] Xie's Five Miscellanies. Zhonghua Book Company 1959. ?
[30][3 1] Ancient and modern novels Volume VII, Commercial Press, 1947 edition. ?
[32] "Criticism on the Biography of Sanshui Pingyao in Northern Song Dynasty", "Selected Novels of China in Past Dynasties" i. Jiangxi People's Publishing House 1982.
[33] Gorky's Conversation with Young Writers, Literature, p. 335. People's Literature Publishing House 1978. ?
[34] "Ancient and Modern Novels" Volume XII. The Commercial Press 1947 edition.