A Research On The Comments On Characters In Zhang Wenhu’s Foreign History Of The Confucian Scholars

Novel criticism is a literary criticism activity that integrates criticism and revision,originating from poetry and prevalent in the fields of novels and dramas.It is the main form of Chinese novel criticism.Since its publication,"The Foreign History of the Confucian Scholars" has been highly valued by critics,and the four main criticism systems of Woxiancaotang,Huang Xiaotian,Qishengtang,and Zhang Wenhu have gradually formed a stable and closed system.Among them,Zhang Wenhuping’s criticism system has the greatest influence outside of Woxiancaotang,with a focus on character criticism.This article takes Zhang Wenhuping’s character criticism as the research object,and combines the novel text to analyze the basic overview of "The Foreign History of the Confucian Scholars" criticism,the basic content and theoretical connotation of Zhang Wenhuping’s criticism,and highlights his character-centered criticism tendency.It further explores the important value and significance of Zhang Wenhuping’s character criticism in the history of ancient Chinese novel character criticism.Based on the theoretical foundation of previous critics,Zhang Wenhuping created a new path of criticism,using character criticism to explore the author’s hard work and seek the way of literary life.He constructed a criticism system with the core of character image evaluation and functional character setting,establishing the basic style of his character criticism.In the evaluation of character image,Zhang Wenhuping focused on the transcendental nature of character shaping and the individualized writing of character language,revealing the artistic nature of novel character shaping.Based on the specific connotation of literary life,he emphasized the independent personality centered on "elegance",regarding the elegance and virtue of a literati as the fundamental principle of the intellectual’s life,and regarded timing and situational awareness as the primary measure for intellectuals to handle entry and exit.He explored the tragic fate of characters in the conflict between fame and wealth and literary life displayed in the novel.In the evaluation of character setting in "The Foreign History of the Confucian Scholars," Zhang Wenhu started from the perspective of functional character setting,combined with the novel’s theme and narrative characteristics to think about the functionality of characters,and interpreted and summarized the functionality of characters in deepening the novel’s theme,shaping character images,and constructing plot structures,gradually constructing the theory of "character functionality".In summary,Zhang Wenhua has advanced the development of character criticism in novels through his unique approach and mature theoretical framework.He has laid a solid theoretical foundation for future novel criticism,particularly in the construction of character criticism systems.