Chin Ping Mei: An Erotic Book or not? ——— A Controversy in the400 Years’ History of Studies of the Novel

The controversy whether the novel ChinPing Mei is an erotic book or not has been over400 years. The core of such controversy lies in whether it is an erotic, or sexual or anti-corruption novel. However, the people who take it as an e- rotic book hold that the book gives much description to sex and has integrated the views of non-erotic novel which criticizes the
current affairs, and the vice versa. The two views tend to merge into each other and can unify the sexual description with cur- rent affairs criticism. The unification between the two is in fact the purport of ChinPing Mei. With the increasing integration of the two views, the erotic and non-erotic opinions tend to vanish. They will be sealed up in the historical file as the two con- cepts. Further, with the development of the times, peoples’ views of sex have been changing. They will not take a novel of which the most is the sexual description as an erotic one. At most, they consider it a sexual one. The erotic-book view will def- initely disappear. This is just the conclusion that the author of this paper has drawn after he gives a careful consideration to the controversy whether the novel is erotic or not.