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

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.