ABSTRACT
The chapter introduced a few influential literary critics famous for their comments on novels like The Dream of the Red Chamber, The Romance of the Western Chamber, The Plum in the Golden Vase, and The Outlaws of the Marsh. Since few works of literary theory have a chapter like this, the originality of the author, who fully acknowledged the outstanding achievements of Jin Shengtan, Mao Zonggang, Li Zhuowu in the field of literary criticism, is also worth mentioning. Li Zhuowu and Jin Shengtan took writing notes and comments on others’ novels as a sacred career of discovering “great writings of the world” and “masterpieces of the past and present for gifted scholars.” Jin Shengtan and Zhang Zhupo considered their annotated editions of The Romance of the Western Chamber and The Plum in the Golden Vase as their works, obviously deeming commenting on other writers’ novels as literary creations. Devoted to reviewing the books they chose, commenters like Li, Jin, and Zhang could not cease discovering their beautiful aspects. Hence their comments have become indispensable aids for readers eager to understand these novels. The author also proves convincingly that commenters like Jin, Mao, and Li have played an immeasurable role in improving the system of Chinese narrative literature and canonizing the masterpieces of it.
