"In the Dream of the Red Chamber is drawn a vast panorama of Chinese family life, represented by the great house of Chia with its two main branches, their numerous offshoots, and a proliferation of kinsmen, as well as a large retinue of dependents and domestics. [...] Most graphically described in the Chinese novel are the life and activities of some thirty main characters flanked by four hundred or more minor ones who flit in and out of the novel in their secondary roles. This immense body of materials, presented in a realistic manner, provides one of the best documents for a study of the extended Chinese family: its structure, organization, and ideals such as clan solidarity and honor, respect for old age, parental authority, filial obedience, sex relationship, the position of women, the role of the concubines, maidservants, and other domestics."
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Wu-chi Liu, An Introduction to Chinese Literature (1966), p. 238
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dream_of_the_Red_Chamber
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Dream of the Red Chamber
Dream of the Red Chamber (红楼梦 Honglou Meng), also called The Story of the Stone (石头记 Shitou Ji), composed by Cao Xueqin, is one of China's Four Great Classical Novels. It was written sometime in the middle of the 18th century during the Qing Dynasty. Long considered a masterpiece of Chinese literature, the novel is generally acknowledged to be the pinnacle of Chinese fiction.
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