Cao Xueqin

Chinese novelist

• Born: 1715?
• Birthplace: Nanjing, China
• Died: February 12, 1763
• Place of death: Beijing, China

Cao Xueqin, China’s greatest novelist, wrote the popular and illustrious novel, Dream of the Red Chamber, a massive, encyclopedic work exploring a wide range of experiences from everyday life. It is a vast compendium of late imperial Chinese culture as well, and it introduces autobiographical elements and a unique psychological realism that were uncommon in Chinese literature.

Early Life

Cao Xueqin (chow sway-chin) was born in southern China. His exact date of birth, like much of his life, remains unclear, but it is thought to have been sometime in the spring of 1715. He was born into a rich and distinguished Han banner family, which had served under the control of the imperial household and had an unusual history. Banners (brigades) were companies of military units, including members’ families, which were garrisoned around the country.

Cao’s ancestors were from Liaoyang city, in northeastern China, in the area later known as Manchuria. In the early seventeenth century, family members became bond servants, or slaves, of the Manchu aristocracy and members of the Plain White Banner, which was directly under the command of the Manchu ruler. When the Manchu conquered China in 1644, members of this group rose in social status and became important officials and agents of the emperor.

For three generations, a total of forty-eight years, members of the Cao family were employed as textile commissioners in Nanjing. This post involved overseeing the huge imperial silk factories and managing the transportation of goods to the Imperial City in Beijing. The position was one of the most lucrative in the country and also required acting as a confidential informer to the emperor, reporting on the activities of other high-ranking officials in the region and keeping him abreast of local matters and rumors. The most renowned of these commissioners was Cao Xueqin’s grandfather, Cao Yin (1658-1712), who was textile commissioner from 1690 to 1712, as well as a poet, dedicated bibliophile, dramatist, and accomplished calligrapher. A favorite of Emperor Kangxi (1662-1722), Cao Yin hosted Kangxi on an impressive four occasions during the emperor’s celebrated tours of the south.

Because of the affluence of his family, Cao Xueqin grew up in very luxurious circumstances. The Cao family compound in Nanjing consisted of large gardens, thirteen separate houses, with 483 rooms, and 114 servants. The family even had its own theatrical group, which on occasion performed several plays written by Cao Yin. Cao Xueqin’s father is now generally believed to have been Cao Fu, Cao Yin’s nephew and adopted son.

In spite of the great wealth and power of the Cao family, its status was in the end dependent upon the caprice of the emperor. In 1728, Emperor Yongzheng (1723-1735) suddenly ordered that all Cao property be confiscated. Yongzheng disapproved of bond servants, thinking them corrupt and inefficient, but the exact reason for his action is still unclear. Some historians believe that the Cao family owed money and others believe that Yongzheng had concerns over its loyalty. Cao Fu was textile commissioner at this time, having inherited the position from Cao Yin’s son Cao Young. Cao Fu was removed from office and charged with financial mismanagement. After this incident, the Cao family moved to Beijing, where it had several houses and some distant relatives. Cao Xueqin was thirteen years old during this dramatic reversal of his family’s fortunes, and he never recovered economically or psychologically from its effects. Though well educated and extremely artistic, he had a great deal of difficulty finding steady employment and worked sporadically as a secretary in the imperial household bureau and as a teacher in the imperial clan’s school for the children of the nobility and banner men. Little else is known of his life during the next few years, but it is believed that he began writing his famous novel Hongloumeng (1792; Dream of the Red Chamber, 1958; also known as The Story of the Stone, 1973-1982) in 1744.

Life’s Work

Details regarding the composition and content of Cao Xueqin’s great work Dream of the Red Chamber are fraught with controversy and unanswered questions. The novel’s original title, Honglou-meng, means “dream of the red chamber,” where “chamber” (lou) refers to a traditional two-storied building in which young women, usually unmarried, stayed or lived. The color “red” (hong) is significant because in China it symbolizes beauty, happiness, fortune, and youth. The word “dream” (meng) relates to one of the main themes of the novel—the illusionary and dreamlike nature of life and of everyday notions of truth and falsity.

Containing 120 chapters and more than 700,000 words covering 1,500 pages, the Dream of the Red Chamber also features more than thirty main characters and at least four hundred minor characters (more than in all of William Shakespeare’s work). There has been a long-standing and intense debate among scholars over how much of the novel Cao Xueqin actually wrote. There are eleven manuscript versions of the first eighty chapters (frequently with revealing commentary by two unknown individuals), which were circulated among Cao’s friends and relatives starting in 1754. When the novel was finally published in 1792, an additional forty chapters had been added by the publisher Cheng Weyiuan. Cheng claimed he had acquired the chapters from booksellers, and that he had his friend edit what he found. It is generally believed that his claim is true and that his friend heavily edited these chapters and altered parts of the novel’s ending, probably for political reasons.

The plot of Dream of the Red Chamber concerns the rise and fall of the wealthy, aristocratic Jia family in Beijing. The main character is the indulgent aesthete and scion of the family, Jia Bao-yu (precious jade). The heart of the story concerns his love affair with his cousin Dai-yu (black jade) and his prolonged but successful quest for identity and philosophical understanding.

However, the story is much more than a simple tale of love and redemption, for the narrative operates on many levels. It is also a tragedy, a metaphysical allegory with much foreshadowing, and an extremely realistic novel surprisingly modern in tone and much concerned with describing the minutiae of everyday life. In addition, the novel is a brilliant, dense, and vast compendium of late imperial Chinese culture, encompassing topics from clothing, food, sexual habits, religious practices, marriage and funeral rites, medicine, customs, festivals, and law to the educational and banking systems, all the traditional Chinese literary forms, music, and painting, as well as garden and architectural design. The work is also populated with precisely described individuals from all classes of society. Its linguistic and visual richness clearly demonstrates Cao Xueqin’s deep interest in painting and drama. The distinguished Dream of the Red Chamber scholar Zhou Ruchang has compared the novel to a long, elaborate scroll, woven from the silken threads of the lives of the novel’s many characters and their individual stories.

What makes the book even more remarkable for its time are the autobiographical elements in the story, which were rare in traditional Chinese literature, and the unique and sophisticated psychological realism of the characters, where the inner feelings and motivations of each person are deftly shown. (It is worth noting that while Cao Xueqin was working on Dream of the Red Chamber, the rise of the novel was beginning in England.)

Cao Xueqin never knew of the popularity of his work. He spent the last eight years of his life living in poverty in a small village in the western hills of Beijing while he struggled to support himself as a painter (of rocks) and finish his novel. He died on February 12, 1763, perhaps of grief caused by the death of his son the year before. He was described as rather stout, short, and mustached. He was fond of drink and was known as an entertaining and witty conversationalist.

Significance

Cao Xueqin’s Dream of the Red Chamber represents the highest achievement of Qing Dynasty literature, forming an essential part of Chinese culture. The novel is still very much a part of China’s national culture. Plays, operas, ballets, and a widely watched television drama in 1987 have retold the story. It is the most studied work of Chinese literature, even claiming a special field of Chinese literary studies called Hongxue (redology). The entire novel has been translated into English and more than a dozen other languages.

The publication of Dream of the Red Chamber in 1792 created a sensation, but it was not until the advent of China’s New Culture Movement (1916-1925), with its appreciation of the vernacular style in literature, that the work began to receive critical acclaim and analysis. The encyclopedic nature of the novel, as the scholar Zhou Ruchang has observed, makes it the best general and most enjoyable introduction to traditional Chinese culture and life available. Because of its psychological and philosophical sophistication and its sheer realism, the novel is comparable in scope and detail to such classics of world literature as Dante’s La divina commedia (c. 1320; The Divine Comedy, 1802), James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), Miguel de Cervantes’ El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (1605, 1615; The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha, 1612-1620), and Murasaki Shikibu’s Genji monogatari (c. 1004; The Tale of Genji, 1925-1933).

Bibliography

Cao Xueqin. The Story of the Stone. 5 vols. Translated by David Hawkes and John Minford. London: Penguin Books, 1973-1986. Generally considered the best English translation of the novel, with its alternate title in translation.

Ho, An. Dream of the Red Chamber: An Experience in Traditional Chinese Aesthetics. Atlanta: Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, 2000. An exhibition catalog that features the work of artist An Ho, who brings to life the twelve central female characters of Cao Xueqin’s novel, including commentary on each of the characters and their roles in the book. Also includes an introductory essay.

Levy, Dore. Ideal and Actual in the Story of the Stone. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. A good introduction to Cao Xueqin’s novel.

Spence, Jonathan. Ts’ao Yin and the Kang-hsi Emperor. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966. A famous biography of Cao Xueqin’s grandfather and the Cao family.

Yu, Anthony. Rereading the Stone. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997. A well-written literary analysis of the novel, with many intriguing insights.