Dream Story

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Modern (post-1949) continuations tend to follow after the eightieth chapter, and include those by Zhang Zhi, [75] Zhou Yuqing, [76] Hu Nan [77] and Liu Xinwu. He set many of the novel's classical verses to music, taking as long as four years to deliberate and complete his compositions. In the 1920s, scholars and devoted readers developed Hongxue, or Redology into both a scholarly field and a popular avocation.

In the frame story, Baoyu, in his previous incarnation as the Deity Shenying, watered the Fairy Crimson Pearl, Daiyu's incarnation. Qin Zhong and the novice Zhineng ( 智能, "Intelligent"; "Sapientia" in the Hawkes translation) fall in love but Qin Zhong dies soon after from a combination of his father's severe beating, sexual exhaustion, grief and remorse.In the beginning there is a profusion of intimate feelings, which is followed by tears and lamentations. Undeniably the most worldly woman in the novel, Xifeng is in charge of the daily running of the Rongguo household and wields economic as well as political power within the family. The first recorded translation into English was in 1812 by the Protestant missionary and sinologist Robert Morrison (1782–1834), who translated part of chapter four for the second volume of his unpublished 1812 book Horae Sinicae. This culminates in the masquerade ball, an event of masked individualism, sex, and danger for Doctor Fridolin, the outsider.

His novella Dream Story tells the tale of a young married man who, after a discussion with his wife about their fantasises, embarks on a eery reverie through Vienna's underbelly. A reworked version was performed in 1982 in Beijing by China Opera and Dance Drama Theatre featuring lead dancer Chen Ailian. It is still debated whether Gao and Cheng composed these chapters themselves and the extent to which they did or did not represent Cao's intentions. In 1981, Jiangsu Song and Dance Ensemble premiered a dance drama version of Dream of the Red Chamber. When a young woman warns him to leave, Fridolin ignores her plea and is soon exposed as an interloper.There’s a similarly delicious sense of schadenfreude in watching Fridolin, a would-be alpha male who fantasises about living a double life as a “ profligate, seducer and cynic“, trying and repeatedly failing to ensnare the various women who present themselves to him.

The second complete English translation to be published was by David Hawkes some century and a half after the first English translation. neither the reality of a single night nor even of a person's entire life can be equated with the full truth about his innermost being. It is modernized and Americanized, set in New York City in 1999 during the Christmas season, rather than in Vienna 1900 during Mardi Gras.

She is disdainful of Xiren's attempt to use her sexual relation with Baoyu to raise her status in the family. One of the Jia daughters is made a Royal Consort, and to suitably receive her, the family constructs the Daguanyuan, a lush landscaped garden, the setting for much of subsequent action. Grow your library with additional story collections from Random House and The Berenstain Bears (each sold separately). One remarked that the novel is a remarkable example of the "dialectic of dream and reality, art and life, passion and enlightenment, nostalgia and knowledge.