Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Author: Luo Guanzhong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a mature, long, serial historical narrative novel in Chinese literary history. With its great success in various aspects such as narrative ideas, character development, plot structure, narrative methods, and literary language, it opened up a brand-new artistic realm. Marked by this achievement, Chinese literature completed its transformation from lyricism to narrative, poetry to prose, and classical language to colloquial language. Romance of the Three Kingdoms thus established its in the history of Chinese literary development.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms follows the rise and fall of the three states of Wei, Shu, and Wu, depicting a century of history from the late Han Dynasty to the unification under the Jin Dynasty. It describes the political and military struggles within the ruling class and between the three states, reflecting the chaotic social conditions of the time and shaping numerous characters such as Zhuge Liang, Cao Cao, Zhou Yu, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei. It demonstrates a clear orthodox ideology of supporting the Shu state and opposing Cao Cao, as well as Confucian ideals of benevolent governance. At the same time, it criticizes the chaotic warfare among warlords and the harsh rule of tyrants, expressing the people's longing for a wise and benevolent ruler and social stability.