Abstract: The narrative thought of China's classical novels is mainly manifested in the novel criticism. Following Jin Shengtan's comment on Water Margin, Mao Zonggang made a systematic study and in-depth summary of the artistic achievements of The Romance of Three Kingdoms. His understanding and grasp of the narrative behavior in the process of comment embodies the consciousness and maturity of narrative consciousness, and has made important contributions to the theoretical construction of China's ancient novels.
[Keywords:] Mao Zonggang commentary narrative
If the study of novel criticism in Qing Dynasty can be regarded as the first "literary consciousness" in the history of China's literary theory development, then the novel criticism in Ming and Qing Dynasties is the second "literary consciousness" in the history of China's literary theory. On the one hand, the critics of novels in Ming and Qing dynasties tried to clarify the text consciousness of novel style and separate novels from historical biography literature, which was similar to the "dispute over brushwork" in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. On the other hand, they studied and analyzed the text characteristics and narrative skills of the novel narrative, such as paying attention to the aesthetic concept of narrative structure, exploring various literary and artistic arrangements of narrative composition, and appreciating the grammar and rhetoric of narrative literature. Mao Zonggang was born under this cultural background. He, Jin Shengtan and Zhang Zhupo were also called the "Troika" of novel criticism in Ming and Qing Dynasties.
First of all, the difference between notes and narratives
The true narrative tradition in ancient China began with the historical narrative of historians. In this way, in the cultural history of China, a "historical" thinking based on history and historical facts was formed. Thus, China's ancient literary creation can be carried out and developed within the scope of historical facts. Therefore, the purpose of ancient literati writing novels is often to "correct the blank of history", and their value judgment is based on "seeking truth". In writing, the ready-made documentary writing style and biographical narrative skills are adopted. This "historical" thinking not only restricts the theme of novel creation, but also limits the imagination of literary creation to a certain extent, and restricts the important role of "fiction" in the process of literary creation.
Of course, on the other hand, the developed historical biography literature naturally created and accumulated a lot of narrative skills and experience, which made up for the shortcomings of China's epic and legend before ancient novels, and provided valuable material accumulation and method summary for later literary creation, especially novel creation. It is on the basis of fully absorbing the creative skills of historical biography literature that Mao Zonggang put forward his own views and opinions. A breakthrough has been made in the understanding of the concept of "narrative" and it has been put into the concrete practice of reviewing the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. For example, there are the following words in Reading the History of the Three Kingdoms:
The narrative quality of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is similar to that of Historical Records, but its narrative difficulty is twice that of Historical Records. Historical Records is divided into books in different countries, so there are differences in biographies, families and biographies. Today's History of the Three Kingdoms is not like this. It is almost combined with history, family and biographies. Short articles are easy to write, but long articles are difficult to do well.
Obviously, Mao Zonggang determined the position of Romance of the Three Kingdoms in many historical books in artistic treatment, which is completely different from the narrative goal of traditional historians. Comparing the Romance of the Three Kingdoms with Historical Records, Mao Zonggang's most prominent point is to pay attention to the integrity and integrity of the artistic structure. This in itself shows that the structural principle-wholeness, as one of the formal elements of the novel narrative text, is the first consideration for novelists in narrative methods. That is to consider how to do a good job in the overall layout and interspersed design of the content. It can also be understood as considering "how to say" rather than "what to say". This comparison actually shows that Mao Zonggang's main purpose is not to complete the recording task, but to pay attention to the author's artistic ingenuity in the recording process, that is, the author's aesthetic pursuit and artistic creation in the narrative process. Therefore, Mao Zonggang was able to put aside the shackles of "historical facts" and successfully applied fictional and other artistic techniques to The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Although Mao Zonggang declared that The Romance of the Three Kingdoms was "authentic" and "certain" when he read The History of the Three Kingdoms, he took it as proof and argument that The Romance of the Three Kingdoms was superior to The Journey to the West and The Water Margin. However, in his conscious aesthetic pursuit and revision of The Romance of Three Kingdoms, he used a lot of elements such as fiction and adaptation to highlight the overall charm and artistic value of the novel, which was reflected in his "transformation" of The Romance of Three Kingdoms. It is Mao Zonggang who endows "narrative" with a brand-new concept and creative idea that will deliberately pursue the exquisiteness and ingenuity of the novel text, make it better and better, and make its comments have the opportunity and value handed down from generation to generation.
To sum up, it is precisely because of Mao Zonggang's attention to the "pen of history" and the injection of "originality" that he effectively shows the author's subjective initiative in processing and polishing the text, which provides an opportunity and guidance for the novel narrative to be divorced from history and integrated into literature, so that narrative can be distinguished from notes and become an independent aesthetic pursuit and artistic goal.
Second, pay attention to narrative behavior.
Stories are super-narrative, and narrative works are also narrative of stories. Because of the different narrative methods, the original story book will naturally deform in one way or another when it enters the narrative text, and the different narrative concepts determine the different ways of deformation and the different angles of choosing events. Mao Zonggang pays more attention to "how to write" than "what to write", which is actually a concrete embodiment of narrative behavior, or a detailed embodiment of narrative behavior. For example, Mao Zonggang often uses "narrative transformation (illusion)" to express his sensitivity and concern about narrative behavior.
We can see that the narrator is in a strong position and the characters are in a passive position. The narrator realizes the narrative purpose by mobilizing the actions of the characters: Liu Bei has formal difficulties in breaking through the Yellow Scarf Army, which produces aesthetic pleasure in the reading process. Shi Mao thinks that the plot of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is strange and tortuous, unpredictable and full of contradictions and conflicts. For example, the 40th Review wrote:
The beauty of the article. The beauty is that you can't guess … you will know that there is something behind you after reading it, but you will know that there is something behind you after reading it, which is not a wonderful article.
In fact, the effect of Mao Zonggang's emphasis on "the change of narrative and law" is related and consistent with the concept of "defamiliarization" in western literary criticism. Mao Zonggang emphasized in his comments that Luo Guanzhong's plot twists and turns in the setting of characters, which brings a sense of surprise to readers, thus achieving a special aesthetic effect and reading pleasure. Of course, Mao Zonggang has a deeper understanding of "the transformation between narration and law" in other aspects, which involves the narrative perspective, and will not be discussed here for the time being.
Mao Zonggang not only expressed his concern about narrative behavior with "narrative transformation", but also further explained it through narrative order. Mao Zonggang, taking supplementary narration as an example, specifically explained the function of supplementary narration in Reading the Records of the Three Kingdoms:
Where narrative methods are used, what this article lacks is supplemented by something from another article, and what is in the first volume is even in the second volume. Not only does the previous article not procrastinate, but it also makes the latter one not lonely; Even if there is no omission in the past, it will contribute to the future, and it is also a wonderful product of this historian.
In the battle of Nanyang in the eighteenth year of Mao Ben, Zhang Xiu led the army to pursue Jun for the second time. Just at the moment of victory, he suddenly fought out a group of people to stop him. The commentator did not immediately disclose the details of the team. Continue to advance the narrative as usual. Mao Zonggang noticed this narrative strategy, and he criticized "He Jun is not mentioned here. Save it for the next article. Both Syria and France have changed. " After explaining Zhang Xiu, he came back to explain Cao Cao, only explaining its origin. Shi Mao criticized: "Make up what is not mentioned above, will you?" The battle of Nanyang has actually ended, but its time span in this paper has not been closed. Only by filling in this paragraph and finding the answers to all the riddles can it be considered as a deadline and complete. Mao Zonggang's repeated praise of "good" means affirming the aesthetic changes brought by narrative techniques to artistic effects.
For another example, Mao Zonggang emphasized that narrative should be meticulous and focused, and showed a clear and strong pursuit of narrative goals at the text content level. Mao Zonggang's understanding of narrative goal is centered on characters. He paid great attention to the methods of portraying characters in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and summed up the method of "lining the Lord with things". In addition, he also put forward a large number of terms in the process of commenting, which clearly distinguished and summarized the narrative focus and the author's intention, reflecting his concern and exploration of narrative goals.
To sum up, it is precisely because Mao Zonggang separated novels from history and regarded narration as an artistic creation rather than a copy that he consciously noticed the difference between "narration" and "notes" and paid more attention to narrative behavior. In a word, Mao Zonggang regards narrative criticism as an important content in the comments on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which shows the maturity and achievements of narrative theory in ancient novels.
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