Novel 'Journey to the West'

Background

Regarded as one of the Four Great Classical Novels, Wu Cheng'en's masterful Journey to the West has long been considered not only a great re-imaging of Xuanzang's pilgrimage to India, but a classic tale which continues to delight children and adults alike.

Journey to the West was published in the Ming Dynasty (16th century), but was done so anonymously.

Authorship and Literary Style

The novel does not have a clear author. Scholars, however, have so far pinned it down to Wu Cheng'en. While his other works to not refer to this novel at all, people of Wu's hometown did attribute it (quite early too) to Wu, and kept records dating back to 1625. [1]. There was a trend at the time to write literature to imitate the classical literature of the Qin, Han, and Tang dynasty, which was written in Classical Chinese. However, Journey to the West was written in vernacular tongue, which carried a poor reputation among works during the period. Scholars claim this is why the novel was published anonymously. Wu probably decided to write in this "vulgar" language form because of the great influence popular stories and folktales had on him. By writing in everyday language, he could replicate a story that normal everyday people could understand.

One important issue with Journey to the West is its contents. Much of the tales and myths contained existed far before the novel itself. In addition, the novel has shown up in many different forms and genres. This suggests that publishers and editors felt free to revise and adapt it at will. This is a stark contrast between The Plum in the Golden vase, it was shown with a high degree of respect by publishers and editors as all later versions of the novel show very little differences. However, the book is easily broken up into pieces for reading, performance, storytelling, etc. which not only helped in its popularity, but to why others edited it so freely.

Wu Cheng'en

Wu Cheng'en was born in Lianshui (Jiangsu province) although right after moved to Huaian. There he flourished with a great love for literature. His father, Wu Rui, was good at studying and had a good primary education; however due to finances he would only remain an artisan. Wu grew up with a very similar disposition.

Wu did take the imperial examinations several times in attempt to become a mandarin (a scholar official – standard vocab for the Ming Dynasty). However he never passed.

He did however, enter an imperial university and became an official. This happened in his middle ages, and sadly he never enjoyed his work. He resigned and sources speculate he probably spend the rest of his life writing stories/poems in his hometown. It was during this time he rose to become an accomplished writer, and became friends with several other “famous” contemporary writers. He later became a hermit because he thought the world was corrupt and did not approve of the political climate. Sadly, he remained poor and child-less.

He is mainly attributed to have written Journey to the West but he did write a lot of other poems and stories. Sadly most have been lost. They have been described as stubborn and was very critical of society’s corruption. Again his works do not follow the classical styles, but they weren’t as vulgar as the Journey to the West.

References

1. Hu Shih (1942). Introduction. New York: Grove Press. pp. 1–5.