On Evolution of Comments on Outlaws of the Marsh in Ming Dynasty

The comments on Outlaws of the Marsh began from YU Xiang-dou's edition and was finished by JIN Sheng-tan whose comments have become the model of the critic of the future novels. Although such comments had undergone nearly fifty years several editions, the historical changes of them can be clearly seen. Either from the form of the comments(including their styles, items and amount of words)or from the content(including their language used and the specific content), such comments are characterized by transition from being popular to being elegant and literary, and then to being specialized and versatile