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. This paper mainly tells the story of four disciples, the Monkey King, Pig Bajie, Friar Sand and Bai, who protected the Tang Priest to learn Buddhist scriptures in the West. They went through eighty-one difficulties along the way, subdued demons, saved the day, and finally arrived in the West to learn Buddhist scriptures. According to Tang Sanzang's Buddhist scriptures and Han folklore.

2. Creative background

In the first year of Zhenguan of Emperor Taizong (627), Xuanzang, a 25-year-old monk, went to Tianzhu (India) on foot. After starting from Chang 'an, he passed through Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and finally arrived in India. He studied there for more than two years and gave a speech at a large-scale debate on Buddhist classics, which was well received.

3. 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.

Extended data:

The influence of later generations

1, domestic influence

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. So The Journey to the West is the pinnacle of ancient romance novels. In the history of world literature, it is also a masterpiece of romanticism and a pioneer of magical realism.

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 western game, with 10 copies and 240 copies. 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.

2. International influence

According to preliminary statistics, there are many versions in The Journey to the West, such as Japanese, English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Czech, Romanian, Korean, Vietnamese, Polish, Hungarian, Esperanto, etc. There are at most about 30 Japanese versions. Overseas people attach great importance to The Journey to the West's research, and discuss it from the aspects of subject matter, historical background, book writing process, language features, edition origin and so on, and give high praise to his works.

1At the World Chinese Book Fair held in Singapore in May, 988, there were more than 50 kinds of The Journey to the West books, such as cartoons Monkey King Thrice Defeats the Skeleton Demon, Mount Flaming, Make a scene in Heaven, etc., for children to fondle them. The image of the Monkey King, the hero of The Journey to the West, frequently appears in Japanese books, cartoons and TV advertisements.

The Monkey King's image the Monkey King is a household name in South Korea. The Monkey King in Time and Space, edited by Dr. Liang Ting of the United States, links science and technology with the Monkey King, and makes the Monkey King show his magic power in space. The Monkey King, as an emissary of cultural exchange between China and the West, appeared in Kite co-produced by Chinese and French filmmakers.

Pig Bajie is not far behind. At the International Puppet Festival held in Hungary, the puppet show named Zhu Bajie's wife won the highest prize. A large number of facts show that the westward journey culture has gone beyond the scope of the work itself and China, and moved towards the world.

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