Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Traum von der Grünen Laube
Go deeper: the whole of Traum von der Grünen Laube
About 12 h 50 min to read.Für wen es gedacht ist
You will enjoy it if you love poetry contests, drinking games, garden parties and the elegant social life of old Suzhou, or if you like stories of friendship and devoted feeling.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
What if a young scholar set out to find a woman who truly understands him, and found thirty-six? Dream of the Green Bower, written by Yu Da, opens with a Daoist, a bronze mirror and a vision of flower fairies sent down to earth. It follows Jin Yixiang of Suzhou through the pleasure quarters of Wu, where poetry, wine and tenderness fill every day. You get a lively tour of one man's loves, and you turn first to his search for a kindred spirit.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A dream mirror sets the whole story goingFree
- 2Yixiang defends the women of the pleasure quarters
- 3Gatherings of beauties fill the city with poetry
- 4Love brings trouble, jealousy and fear of loss
- 5Niu Aiqing, the woman worth waiting for
- 6Honor, rescue and the prize of marriage
- 7Partings scatter the circle one by one
- 8Friendship gives him help when he needs it
- 9What the story is really about, and how it is told
Punkt 1 von 9
A dream mirror sets the whole story going
The book opens with a narrator who receives a bronze mirror from a white-haired Daoist. Gazing into it, he sees thirty-six flowering trees, each with a fairy beneath it, and hears a judge sentence the flowers to be born among mortals. He wakes and writes down what he saw as a tale of love.
The hero, Jin Yixiang, is born into a comfortable family in Changzhou County, near Suzhou. At sixteen he refuses an arranged marriage, saying he wants to find someone capable of true feeling first. His parents indulge him, and he delays his examinations for the sake of this search.
So the mirror is the frame for everything that follows. Yixiang's loves are shaped by fate, and the story keeps returning to that sense of destiny.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of Traum von der Grünen Laube
About 12 h 50 min to read.Questions about Traum von der Grünen Laube
What is Dream of the Green Bower about?
It follows Jin Yixiang of Suzhou, a scholar who loves poetry and the company of gifted courtesans. He seeks a woman who understands him and finds a circle of gifted friends.
Who is Jin Yixiang?
He is the hero, a young man of a comfortable Suzhou family. He is also called Qizhen and is known for his gentleness toward women. His earthly life begins within the narrator's dream.
What is the meaning of the title?
The green bower means the pleasure houses of the story. The word dream tells us the whole experience, with its beauty and its loss, is a vision that passes.
Is Dream of the Green Bower a true story?
It is a work of fiction from the Qing dynasty. Its narrator says the characters may not have existed, though some events may have happened, and the book borrows from real places such as Tiger Hill in Suzhou.
Is it easy to read?
Its chapters are short and each ends with a hook for the next. The story moves through parties, games, journeys and farewells, and the many poems are easy to follow when read aloud.
Cite this edition
Yu, Da. Dream of the Green Bower. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/dream-of-the-green-bower.
Yu, D. (2026). Dream of the Green Bower. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/dream-of-the-green-bower (Original work published 1878)
Yu, Da. Dream of the Green Bower. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/dream-of-the-green-bower.
@book{yu2026dream,
author = {Yu, Da},
title = {Dream of the Green Bower},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/dream-of-the-green-bower},
note = {First published 1878}
}
