Transcending And Return

"The Biography of The Heroic Youth" is an excellent work whichis affected by "A Dream of Red Mansion" in later Qing Dynasty. Wen Kang who wrote this novel has more or less the same life experience and feeling with Cao Xueqin. "The Biography of The Heroic Youth" is affected by "ADreamof Red Mansion" deeply. The two novels have the extremely similar plot, but different result. A part of scholars had made the comparison research with "A Dream of Red Mansion".This article chooses three angles to analyze, the difference between "the tragic flavor" and "the comedy flavor" of the two works, the difference between "sentiment" and "principle ", as well as the different attitudes toward the Confucianism culture. The main goal is to discuss the basic reason which causes the differences. It will lead to a comprehensive and clear understanding on "The Biography of The Heroic Youth".This article is constituted by the introduction and the main text.The introduction narrates the present research situation of "The Biography of The Heroic Youth", as well as the goal and significance of this article.In the first chapter I compared the differences between "the tragedy atmosphere" and "the comedy atmosphere" of the two works. "ADreamof Red Mansion" is a tragedy. "The Biography of The Heroic Youth" is a comedy. I want to find the reason why they are so different. Wen kang and Cao Xueqin, whose families changed from rich to poor, shared the similar life experience. When they became very poor, they started to write the novel. Cao Xueqin had despairs of the society. But Wen kang still had the hope. He was unsatisfied with the result of "ADreamof Red Mansion", so he changed the result of story in his novel. Therefore, "The Biography of The Heroic Youth" is a comedy. It manifests his goals of regret elimination and happy ending.In the second chapter I will analyze their different attitudes toward "sentiment" and "principle". I collected some major pointsabout this subject in Chinese thought history. From that material we can clearly see that there is a romanticism tidal current in the Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty, which defined by "sentiment". "ADreamof Red Mansion" beard the advocacy of "sentiment" in this period. The "sentiment" has many meanings. The main meaning is the love between man and woman, including the broad fraternity and universal love. Wen Kang advocated both "sentiment" and "principle". He thought the "sentiment" is limited by the "principle", while the "principle" is stressed by the "sentiment". So the clash between "sentiment" and "principle" was eliminated artificially, and than the story ended in a happy end. Cao Xueqin's thought is very complex. Briefly, his workdisplayed the clash between "sentiment" and "principle", and finally ended in a tragic end. "A Dream of Red Mansion" is "the love letter". Cao Xueqin emphasized "genuine love between man and woman", not "emotive excess". It also involved the "principle", but the cultural power in the ethics of Confucianism was more important. He wanted to melt the pain of life through the wisdom of the Buddhism and the Taoism. Tragedy flavor is all over the novel.What described in the third chapter are their attitudes toward the value and the idea of the Confucianism. Facing the deterioration of the country and the family, they both had positive recovery consciousness. Wen Kang stressed education. He wanted to promote the motherland and the family through the education, While Cao Xueqin stressed "the sentiment". Cao described the TaKuanyuan to achieve his dream of stressing "the sentiment". There is also a great difference in their attitudes toward the value of the Confucianism. And it is the basic reason why the different flavors existed in the two novels. Wen Kang believed in Confucianism, so he propagated the value and the ethics of the Confucianism in his novel. Cao Xueqin, however, believed in the Buddhism and the Taoism, while he criticized the Confucius ideals.