[a] The former estimate is based on the fact that Jin's son was 10 years old in East Asian age reckoning in 1641, and is generally accepted by scholars.
Jin's family was of the scholar-gentry class, but was constantly plagued by sickness and death, which led in turn to little wealth.
[3] Early in life, he took the style name "Shengtan", a phrase from the Analects meaning "the sage [Confucius] sighed".
The 20th century scholar Zhang Guoguang attributed this change to the fall of the short-lived Li Zicheng regime.
In a 1933 essay, noted writer Lu Xun admits that this quote may be apocryphal, but condemns it as "laughing away the cruelty of the human butcher".
This list contained both highly classical works, like Li Sao and Du Fu's poems, and novels or plays in vernacular Chinese that had their origins in the streets and marketplace.
[11] Jin's first major critical activity, completed in 1641, was a commentary on the popular Chinese novel the Water Margin.
The novel itself comes next, with introductory marks preceding each chapter, and critical comments inserted frequently between passages, sentences, and even words of the text.
In order to bring the modified text to a conclusion, he composes an episode in which Lu Junyi has a vision of the execution of the band, and amends this to the second half of chapter 71.
Secondly, Jin makes the text more compact by removing sections that he feels do not advance the story, and by excising the incidental Shi and Ci verses.
[16] Later readers of Jin have advanced two main theories for his divergent positions of admiring the bandits and yet denouncing them as a group.
His Buddhist and Taoist beliefs advocated natural development for every individual in society, while the Confucian part of him respected the emperor and the state as the ultimate authority.
He praises the vivid and lively characters of the novel, saying, "The Water Margin tells a story of 108 men: yet each has his own nature, his own temperament, his own outward appearance, and his own voice".
Finally, Jin appreciates the technical virtuosity of the author, and names 15 separate techniques used by Shi Naian.
Many changes are made in order to make the play's two young lovers, Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying, act and speak in accordance with their high class backgrounds.
Jin particularly expresses his admiration for Yingying's beauty and character, and modifies any scenes which he feels painted her in too vulgar a light.
The end result is that Jin's version of the play is an excellent literary work, but was viewed by contemporaries as unfit for the stage.
In doing so, Jin also has the goal of portraying the play as worthy of study due to its deep technical, artistic, psychological, and social dimensions.
This opinion can be seen explicitly in his comments, as well as in the fact that he does not make structural alterations to the play to nearly the degree as in his version of Water Margin.
Jin agrees with this view, criticizing the last part as being inferior in quality to the previous sections and continuing the story past its vital point.
Qian Qianyi, a famous scholar, official, and historian of the late Ming dynasty, proclaimed that Jin was possessed by a spirit, explaining his talent.
[23] After the May Fourth Movement in 1919, scholars such as Hu Shih began to advocate the writing of novels in Vernacular Chinese.
Hu Shih himself praised Jin in the preface to his commentary on the Water Margin, saying, "Sheng-t'an's ability to debate was invincible; his pen was most persuasive.
Liu Bannong, another scholar of the era, also praised Jin's version of Water Margin as the best edition in terms of literary value.
Under the Communist government, Water Margin became a tale of peasant resistance to the ruling class, and Romance of the West Chamber symbolized the casting off of the outmoded traditional marriage system.