Lǐ Guowén's New Review of Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Volume 1, 2, and 3)

Author: Li Guowen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-11-01
Features: Romance of the Three Kingdoms is also known as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and 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 was 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 children were familiar with them. With the development of urban literature, the "storytellers" () artists of the Song Dynasty had already specialized in telling Three Kingdoms stories, which were then called "telling the Three Kingdoms" (). The Three Kingdoms Zhi Pu Hua that emerged in the Yuan Dynasty was essentially a manuscript used by storytellers. Although it was relatively brief and rough, it already had the initial scale of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Based on folk legends and the creations of artists, Luo Guanzhong also referred to the materials cited in the Records of the Three Kingdoms by Chen Shou and the annotations by Pei Songzhi (including materials from the New Tales of the World and its annotations), and after tremendous creative effort, he wrote the grand masterpiece—Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a remarkable book. It is a historical novel that can be considered both widely circulated and profoundly influential in Chinese classical literature. Throughout history, countless writers, scholars, and intellectuals have commented on it. Renowned writer Li Guowen uses a contemporary perspective to critique the entire work, with introductory quotes before each chapter and summaries after each chapter, providing an outline of the chapter's essence. He also offers in-text comments and analyzes the wording and literary techniques. Therefore, this book not only offers a literary and artistic perspective, historical research, but also critiques aspects such as thought, society, life, and reality. Reading it allows not only to revisit the artistic essence of the classical masterpiece but also to gain historical lessons and inspiration from its rise and fall.