Four Great Classical Novels
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novels regarded as the greatest and most influential pre-modern Chinese fiction
Wikidata facts
- Part of
- Chinese literature
- Country of origin
- China
Show 3 more facts
- time period
- Qing dynasty
- topic has template
- Template:Classic Chinese Novels
- form of creative work
- novel
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~16 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Classic Chinese Novels (traditional Chinese: 古典小說; simplified Chinese: 古典小说; pinyin: gǔdiǎn xiǎoshuō) are the best-known works of literary fiction across pre-modern Chinese literature. The group usually includes the following works: Ming dynasty novels Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West, and The Plum in the Golden Vase; and Qing dynasty novels Dream of the Red Chamber and The Scholars.
These works are among the world's longest and oldest novels. They represented a new complexity in structure and sophistication in language that helped to establish the novel as a respected form among later popular audiences and erudite critics. The Chinese historian and literary theorist C. T. Hsia wrote in 1968 that these six works "remain the most beloved novels among the Chinese."
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Four Great Classical Novels” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.