ZHOU RUCHANG, China’s leading scholar of classic novel “A Dream of Red Mansions,” died at age 95 in his home at midnight Thursday. His death is being mourned nationwide and has inspired a new tide of interest in the literary masterpiece, which is one of the zeniths of Chinese culture.

Zhou began his lifelong study of the book in 1947. He kept working even from his sickbed, though he had bad eyesight and was almost deaf, and dictated a 12-point synopsis on a new book to his daughter Zhou Lunling, only a week ago.

“My father did not care about fame and did not fear death. Being able to do more in-depth research on the book is the only thing he couldn’t let go of,” the daughter said. “He wished he would be able to accomplish more.”

“Zhou is the only one to have devoted so much time — 65 years — to delving deep into the novel’s world,” said Zhao Jianzhong, a Tianjin Normal University professor and council member of the Chinese Society of “A Dream of Red Mansions.”

“His devotion and contribution are beyond the reach of many others,” Zhao said.

Zhou was considered the trendsetter in modern studies of the book, which is also known as hongxue. He unveiled information about the life, family and history of Cao Xueqin (1715-1764), the mysterious author of the book, using credible sources to help reveal the hidden aspects of the text.

Born to a well-off family in Tianjin, Zhou got a good early education in traditional classics and was a fluent English speaker who later became an English-language major at Yenching University. His linguistic talent helped him introduce the Chinese classic and related culture to foreign readers, especially when he visited four American universities, including Princeton, in the 1980s.

After graduation, Zhou became a teacher at Sichuan University. In 1953, as a professor at the English language and literature department of the university, Zhou published his first book “New Commentaries on ‘A Dream of Red Mansions.’” The 400,000-word book offered a systematic and specialized method on the research of the classic and was hailed as an epochal work. Renowned Sinologist Jonathan Spence described it as “a work of such subtlety and meticulous scholarship that it is hard to fault.”

“This book provides an unsurpassable standard for hongxue researchers,” said Sun Yuming, president of the hongxue institute at the Chinese National Academy of Arts (CNAA). Zhou’s work on collecting resources for the study of Cao and his family history has had a great impact on hongxue researchers, said Sun.

In his book, Zhou clearly expressed his view that the classic novel was actually autobiographical, a reflection of Cao’s own family life.

After publishing the landmark book in 1953, Zhou threw himself into hongxue. His research was interrupted in 1969, during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when his papers were confiscated and he was sent to the countryside for “reeducation.” But upon his return to the city, he continued to work, publishing a total of 47 books covering a wide range of topics, such as the prototypes of the stories in the book, whether there was a second author besides Cao, and Cao’s real intentions in writing the book.

Hongxue is as full of academic quarrels as many other subjects. Zhou was a member of the “investigative” group, which stressed careful research and the collection and analysis of historical resources, along with his mentor Hu Shi (1891-1962), a noted poet, historian and philosopher. They saw the book as largely autobiographical.

In contrast, the “allegorical” group focuses on the work’s wider allusions to events during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and elite culture. Leading proponents include Cai Yuanpei (1868-1940), a historically important educator and the first president of Peking University.

Cai and Hu fiercely clashed over the book’s interpretation. Cai believed that Cao intended to oppose the foreign Manchu rulers of the Qing Dynasty and advocated the restoration of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and that the figures in the books stood for various historical characters. In Hu’s view, the book was an intimate description of the author’s own family history.

Hu, also a former president of Peking University, who eventually became president of the Taiwan Academia Sinica in the 1950s, praised Zhou as his best student. Zhou’s research was used for the 1987 TV serialization of the book, one of Chinese television’s many versions of the four classic novels.

“Zhou was a first-class hongxue scholar when it came to investigative research, especially on the family background of Cao Xueqin,” said Liu Mengxi, president of the Institute of Chinese Culture at CNAA. Liu added that while not all of Zhou’s views were widely accepted, his research would remain a cornerstone of hongxue studies for generations.

Zhou himself did not agree on drawing a clear distinction among different schools of hongxue. He once said the two groups should not oppose, but complement each other, since one concentrated on interpretation and the other on method.

Besides hongxue, Zhou’s research touched on poetry and calligraphy. He anthologized the poems of Fan Chengda (1126-1193) and Yang Wanli (1127-1206), two great poets of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279).

He also provided a dictionary to aid students in appreciating poems of the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1127) dynasties, used by many appreciative high schoolers. “His interpretation of Chinese classic poems is really superb and inspired us a lot,” commented one fan online.

As a pioneer of hongxue, Zhou also made great contributions to the popularity of the classic novel among ordinary readers.

In 2008, despite already being 80 years old, he appeared on “Lecture Room,” a popular TV program inviting scholars to provide lectures on various disciplines, mainly Chinese history and culture.

Zhao, Tianjin Normal University professor, said he had the greatest respect for Zhou’s diligence and passion. Because Zhou in recent decades wasn’t able to write and read, he dictated his last books, and his children recorded and read them to him for revision.

“When it came to ‘A Dream of Red Mansions,’ he had such irrepressible energy that his children sometimes couldn’t keep up with him,” Zhao said.

“Because I’m cut off from the outer world (because of deafness and poor vision), I’m very good at inspecting my inner thoughts,” Zhou told Chinese media in 2011.

Zhou was also an accomplished calligrapher, “who was generous and never traded his artworks for money,” as Zhao said.

Zhou Lunling said her father died peacefully surrounded by his family. She said the family will honor his wish of “leaving the world silently with no memorial services.”

“I have lived a life with no regrets, though there were expectations I didn’t live up to,” were Zhou’s last words.

(SD-Agencies)