Xu Xiake’s main works

"Xu Xiake's Travels" is a Chinese geographical masterpiece mainly written in the form of a diary.

Xu Xiake has been traveling for more than 30 years and has written 17 travel notes on famous mountains such as Tiantai Mountain, Yandang Mountain, Huangshan Mountain and Lushan Mountain, as well as "Zhejiang Travel Diary", "Jiangyou Travel Diary", "Chu Travel Diary", "Chu Travel Diary" Apart from the lost ones, he also left more than 600,000 words of travel notes, which were compiled into "Xu Xiake's Travel Notes" by others after his death.

There are several versions of Shizhuan, including 10 volumes, 12 volumes, and 20 volumes. It is mainly based on the diary of the author's travel observations from the 41st year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty to the 12th year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty (1613-1639). It records geography, hydrology, geology, plants and other phenomena in detail. Achievements in excellence. "Xu Xiake's Travels" has opened up a new direction in geography to systematically observe and describe nature. It is not only a geographical masterpiece that systematically examines the landforms and geology of the motherland, but also a travel masterpiece describing China's scenic resources. It is also a literary masterpiece with beautiful words. It has won praises both at home and abroad. Have far-reaching consequences.

"Xu Xiake's Travels" has been praised by later generations as "the true text, the greatest text, and the strange text in the world". Its main literary characteristics are:

(1) Describe scenes and record events, and follow them carefully. It is based on reality and has a strong sense of life;

(2) Strive to be precise when describing scenery, often using dynamic description or anthropomorphic techniques, which is far more detailed than previous travel notes;

(3) Rich vocabulary, quick to create; never follow formulas or fall into stereotypes;

(4) Pay attention to lyricism when describing scenes, embody emotions in scenes, blend scenes, and at the same time pay attention to expressing people's subjective feelings;

(5) Through rich description methods, the travel notes show high artistic quality and have lasting aesthetic value.

In addition, while recording travels, he often also included the life of residents, customs and customs, the settlement distribution of ethnic minorities, wars and annexations between chieftains, etc., which were mostly documented by official historians. Not contained, it has certain historical and ethnological value. "Xu Xiake's Travels" was praised by later generations as "the true text, the greatest text, and the strange text in the world".

Represented by well-known scholars and experts such as Hou Renzhi, Ren Mei'e, Shen Peng, Zhou Tingru and others, they have conducted pioneering research on the research and evaluation of Xu Xiake. There are three outstanding contributions: first, discussing the scientific value of Xu Xiake and his "Travel Notes"; second, affirming the status of "Travel Notes" in the history of earth science and world science; third, using the perspective of historical materialism, discussing the production of "Travel Notes" 》Social background.

Professor Joseph Needham of the University of Cambridge in the UK pointed out: "The Travels of Xu Xiake does not read like something written by a scholar in the 17th century, but rather like an investigation record written by a 20th century field explorer.

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