《镜花缘》·李汝珍与连云港板浦

《镜化缘》是中国文学史上第一部以妇女作为社会主角来加以公平讨论和深刻刻画的优秀小说,不但通过创造许多鲜明的人物形象来演绎了一段段五光十色的神话典趣,而且利用浓重的愤世嫉俗的辛辣讽刺揭露了世事人情的人间百态,并肾扣海内海外生意买卖的离奇体味张扬了"中学为本,西学中用"的开放意识。《镜花缘》,李汝珍所作。板浦者,古海州府治,今连云港灌云县所辖。李汝珍19岁至板浦,"久作寓公",在此著书立说,先后有《李氏音鉴》、《镜花缘》、《受子谱》等,其中尤以《镜化缘》为之精华而传之久远。而正是时为"盐府"的板浦的经济富足、商贾云集、名人辈出、人文荟萃的丰富沃壤和李氏自身久居此地所接受良好教育的淳厚底蕴,共同成就和孕育了《镜化缘》这篇"永垂不朽的大文"。

Flowers in the Mirror, Li Ru-zhen and Banpu

Flowers in the Mirror is the first Chinese classic that treats women as the main characters with fair and profound delineations of them. It not only presents many a very vivid and interesting legend, but also reveals in an ironical way the vicissitudes of society and the pluralities of people and their attitudes toward life. Through the characters' adventurous experience and depiction of domestic and overseas business dealings at the time, it conveys the novelist's opening consciousness of absorbing the Western ideas into the Chinese system. The writer of the novel is Li Ru-zhen and Banpu, the capital of ancient Haizhou Prefecture and now a town under Guanyun Count of Lianyungang City, is the place where Li lived since he came there at the age of 19. Li wrote many novels there, the most famous of which is the Flowers in the Mirror. It is believed that the economic prosperity, the gathering of rich men and literary celebrities and the good education Li received there all contribute to the great fame and popularity of the novel itself.