"四大奇书"命名的文化意义

《三国演义》、《水浒传》、《西游记》、《金瓶梅》被明末著名通俗文学家冯梦龙称为“四大奇书”,这一称谓一直沿用至今。“四大奇书”之称与明中后期的资本主义萌芽、市民文化勃兴、传统儒家经典遭到怀疑、大众文化需要确立自身经典的社会文化背景相关联,与通俗小说成为大众的主要文化消费对象、通俗文学对大众精神生活和文化生活产生重大影响的社会现实相关联。因此,“四大奇书”的命名具有深刻的文化意义。

The Cultural Significance of Naming "Four Wonderful Books"

The novels "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", "Journey to the West" and "Plum in the Gold Vase" together were regarded as "Four Wonderful books" by the famous popular novelist Feng Meng-long. This way of naming has been used till today. The naming of the"Four Wonderful books" has some association with the rudiment of the capitalism in the late Ming Dynasty. It also associated with the beginning of the citizen's culture, the suspicion of the classic Confucianism, the need of building people's own social classic culture background at that time. The phenomenon that people tend to take the popular novel as their major culture consumption object and the popular literature's huge affection on the people's spirit life and culture life has also contributed to the formation of the naming in same aspects. Hence, the naming of "Four Wonderful books" has very profound cultural significance.