Comment On The Critique Of Li Zhi To The Water Margin

The Water Margin as a classical novel suffered various kinds of defamation andattack as soon as it was published, and in the traditional literature, this novel did not getits due status. Until the Ming dynasty, with the development of the market economy, thenovel creation stepped to the mature stage. Meanwhile, the novel critique of Li Zhiupgraded the novel to a higher status. His critique to The Water Margin which is theearliest and the most complete version in the existing traditional Chinese versionsmerged the critique of social history, aesthetics, literature, and so on. His novel critiquecan be acted as the precedent of the novel criticism in the Ming and Qing, and possessesa very important position in the history of Chinese novel criticism. And his critique toThe Water Margin has enlightened the later generations’ study. But as time goes by, thecritique of Li Zhi to The Water Margin is not valued as much as Jin Shengtan’s. Thisdissertation reviews all the comments on Rong Yu Tang’s edition of The Water Margin,trying to find the basic concept through systematacially study on the critique of Li Zhi toThe Water Margin with the theoretical background knowledge of the reviewer, and tosummarize the theoretical contribution of the reviewer and to reveal the historical statusof the critique of Li Zhi to The Water Margin.This article is divided into five parts. The first part is the introduction, mainly aboutthe topic of this dissertation and some related versions. The second part discusses thecultural background of Li Zhi’s novel critiques. The third part gives the basic viewsembodied in the comment of Li Zhi’s critique to The Water Margin from his three viewsof the truth, the talent, the loyal and remission. The forth part, from the discussion of thesource and the content of the novel, the shaping of the figure, the arrangement of the plot,and accuracy of the language description, summaries the theoretical connotation of LiZhi’s critique to The Water Margin. The last part points out the influence of Li Zhi’scritique to The Water Margin on the novel critique of Jin Shengtan and the status andimpacts of Li Zhi’s critique to The Water Margin in the history of Chinese novelcriticism.