The Red Chamber Dreams as an Intra- and Interculturally Integrative Masterpiece of World Literature with Unique Characteristics

Abstract

The Red Chamber Dreams (this is the title under which the first excerpts of this novel were published in Great Britain in 1819), displays in its contents interculturality, both the mixture of Manchu and Han culture as well as the impact of foreign culture in late Qing China. Time in the novel was claimed to be timeless, and the culture displayed in this novel is not genuinely Manchu or Han Chinese. Instead, the author, Cao Xueqin 曹雪芹, draws a picture of a Chinese culture which has successfully integrated Manchu, Han, and foreign cultures into Qing Chinese culture. Cao Xueqin often plays with the cultural elements of both Manchu and Han by mixing them, which was easily recognized by the readers of his time. This chapter shows that the integration of the best cultural achievements serves the development of individual personalities and the growth of humanism with examples from this novel of the integration of foreign cultures, foreigners, and foreign objects (such as watches, clocks, and glass) into everyday family life, and the combination of Han and Manchu traditions in clothing, which serves the characterization of the social status, personalities, and moods of the characters. Both Cao Xueqin and, even more, his protagonist Jia Baoyu賈寶玉 are early humanists, universalists, and world citizens. The novel Red Chamber Dreams functions worldwide and has a global impact. It is a complex showroom of diverse aspects of Chinese culture (in its integration of Han and Manchu elements), and foreign cultural elements, and is the embodiment and essence of Chinese culture. It is unique in its cultural integration. It shares humanism with other world literature novels. Therefore, it should be honored as an item of “World Documentary Heritage.”