Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Author: Luo Guanzhong (Ming Dynasty)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: The Yangtze River rolls eastward, its waves erode the heroes. Success and failure turn to emptiness; the green mountains remain, and the sun sets red time and again. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is also known as Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It is one of the most famous and outstanding long, chaptered historical novels in the history of Chinese fiction. The author of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is Luo Guanzhong, a person from the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. Before its completion, the "Three Kingdoms stories" had already undergone hundreds of years of historical development. In the Tang Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms stories were widely circulated, even familiar to children. With the development of urban literature, the "storytellers" of the Song Dynasty had specialists who told the Three Kingdoms stories, known as "telling the Three Kingdoms." The Three Kingdoms from the Yuan Dynasty, The Story of the Three Kingdoms, was essentially a manuscript used by storytellers. Although it was relatively brief and rough, it already had the scale of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Based on folk legends and the creations of folk artists, Luo Guanzhong also drew on the materials cited in Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms and Pei Songzhi's annotations (including materials from The New Tales of the Times and its annotations), and through immense creative effort, wrote the magnificent masterpiece—Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is an excellent historical novel created from the historical facts of the Three Kingdoms period and folk legends. Its content is rich and varied, leaving readers with profound and diverse insights. The story begins with Liu, Guan, and Zhang sworn brothers in the peach garden during the reign of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, describing major historical events in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period over nearly a century, as well as numerous heroic figures who shook the world. Through vivid and moving stories, the author reveals the darkness and corruption within the feudal ruling class, condemning the cruelty and vileness of the rulers. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, warlords fought for power, with the so-called "Eighteen Kingdoms" alliance marching against Dong Zhuo under the banner of "supporting the imperial family and saving the people," but in reality, they engaged in intrigue and deceit, each harboring ambitions to become king. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is an outstanding historical masterpiece in the history of Chinese fiction. If Chinese chaptered novels are divided into four major categories—"historical romances," "heroic legends," "myths and legends," and "social realism"—then Romance of the Three Kingdoms is undoubtedly the representative of historical romances. After its publication, the "Three Kingdoms" stories were largely fixed and received unprecedented response and popularity. In mountain villages and waterside towns, shepherds and woodcutters, as well as scholars and refined gentlemen, all discussed it with great enthusiasm. The great Qing Dynasty poet Wang Shizhen read Romance of the Three Kingdoms and wrote a poem titled The Fallen Phoenix Slope and the Hanging of Pang Shiyuan. Lu Xun said, "This 'Fallen Phoenix Slope' only appears in Romance of the Three Kingdoms and has no historical basis. Wang Yuyang was so captivated by it that he was confused." (Historical Changes in Chinese Fiction) This shows how deeply the novel has penetrated into people's hearts and how influential it is. Romance of the Three Kingdoms has had a particularly significant impact on later literature, especially fiction and opera. Since its publication, numerous romance-style works have appeared in historical novels, from the creation of Pangu to the Qing Dynasty, with romances being produced almost every dynasty, and even a long novel that covers the entire Twenty-Four Histories. However, no later works have surpassed Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In the history of opera, plays based on the "Three Kingdoms" stories were not only popular in the Yuan Dynasty but also in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, ranking first in quantity and still performed today. As for folk arts, in the late Qing Dynasty, a Three Kingdoms Guzhi (a narrative song form) over 120 volumes long was compiled by several bookstores and took months to perform. In local folk arts, such works are countless. The popularity of the 1990s television series Romance of the Three Kingdoms filmed in mainland China further proves that people's interest in the novel has not diminished. Since its birth, Romance of the Three Kingdoms has had nearly seven hundred years of history. In the 20th century, academic research on Romance of the Three Kingdoms has achieved fruitful results. The novel has been translated into multiple languages, including English, French, Russian, and Japanese, and has spread overseas, gaining the love of readers worldwide and exerting an increasingly widespread influence.