Dictionary of Appreciation of A Dream of Red Mansions

A Dream of Red Mansions is an "e;encyclopedia"e; of feudal society covering astronomy, geography, animals, plants, architectures, clothing, medicine, fortune-telling, astrology and phrenology, lyre-playing, chess, calligraphy and painting, layout of household utensils, etc. The author describes characters, narrates stories and reveals the theme in an artistic way by composing and quoting plenty of ancient Chinese poems, songs, memorial speeches, riddles and drinking game verses, which form an important part of the whole novel. Besides, A Dream of Red Mansions also contains numerous idioms and allusions and all kinds of knowledge. The author references techniques of writing as adopted in The Spring and Autumn Annals, hiding the truth and providing hints and metaphors in rustic village language. This unique artistic way makes A Dream of Red Mansions appear to be complicated and confusing. This book is intended to help general readers to appreciate A Dream of Red Mansions by providing instructions. Mr. Pei, the author of this book, follows four principles in annotation of entries: first, for general difficult words, clarifying the context without citing the classics or tracing the source; second, for idioms and allusions, indicating their origins, explaining their original meanings and illustrating their extended or metaphoric meanings; third, for various names and descriptions of things (such as architectures, clothing, official institutions, official positions, lyre-playing, chess, calligraphy and painting, medicine, fortune-telling, astrology and phrenology, etc.), transforming technical terms into public language for easy understanding of readers; fourth, for ancient Chinese poems, idioms and allusions, riddles, drinking game verses with metaphors or insinuations, revealing the hidden meanings in addition to providing annotation, as they relate to plot development and description of personalities and destinies of characters.