Water Margin is a Chinese historical novel . It is considered one of the four classics of the Chinese literary tradition. The other three are Dream of the Red Chamber, Journey to the West, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Water Margin is also known by several other names, notably Outlaws of the Marsh and All Men Are Brothers.
Water Margin consists of stories about 108 bandits (105 men and 3 women) who lived during the early 1100’s, a lawless period in Chinese history. The bandits include a cross section of Chinese society of the time—government officials, scholars, peasants, army officers, craftsmen, monks, and innkeepers. The narrative is filled with battles and journeys. The stories have been criticized for their graphic violence, sexual content, and vulgar language. However, the novel’s use of vernacular (everyday) language rather than the literary language of the elite classics, and its vivid character portraits have made it one of the most popular Chinese novels.
The novel developed out of oral folk stories that tell of a band of outlaws who hid on Mount Liang, then surrounded by swamps and marshlands in what is now modern Shandong province in China. The 108 characters may have some basis in Chinese history of the 1100’s, specifically in the career of the outlaw Song Jiang and his 36 companions.
Water Margin is made up of several manuscripts, but their variations are so considerable that scholars cannot date the text with any accuracy. The book’s authors also cannot be identified with certainty. The novel is traditionally attributed to Shi Nai’an. But some scholars claim that it was later revised by Luo Guanzhong, who perhaps worked with Shi Nai’an on the revisions. Various editions of the work contain 70, 100, or 120 chapters. The standard edition of the 70-chapter novel in Chinese dates from 1614. The standard English translation of the 70-chapter version was published in 1937 by J. H. Jackson; the 100-chapter version, by Sidney Shapiro, was published in 1981; and the 120-chapter version, by John and Alex Dent-Young, was published from 1994 to 2002.
The novel has had a major influence on Chinese culture. Several of its characters are among the most popular in Chinese literature . Episodes in the novel have been common subjects in Chinese art and drama. In modern times, the novel has inspired comics, motion pictures, television shows, and video games.
