Luo Guanzhong integrated culture from two different levels of elegance and vulgarity, and distorted it according to his own subjective understanding, values and artistic likes and dislikes, thus making his works rich in cultural connotations. In The Romance of The Three Kingdoms, there are not only the refraction of the ideology of the upper ruling class, but also profound folk thoughts. It is a visualized history of the rise and fall of the Three Kingdoms and a political and military history in the eyes of the people.
Because most of the materials come from the people, it certainly provides rich materials for the creation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but it also brings great pressure to the writers. When they enter the novel text, they are accompanied by the infiltration of different ideas and different aesthetic tastes. However, folk feelings and the spirit of good history are not always consistent, and may even conflict with each other, which puts a severe test on the writer's creation. Luo Guanzhong's greatness lies in properly handling the relationship between folk feelings and good historical spirit and creating an artistic world with great tolerance.
The historical works of the Three Kingdoms not only provide the basic material and historical framework for The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but also directly affect the novel's creation mode and basic tendency. The spirit of seeking truth from facts and the consciousness of seeking truth from facts are the basic characteristics of historiographer culture, which are reflected in the compilation of historical books. Editors are required to take an objective attitude and pay attention to summing up and exploring historical experiences and lessons in order to achieve the purpose of "governing the country with capital" and educating people. These characteristics are well reflected in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
An important feature of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is that it is based on history. The purpose of the author's creation is to describe a vivid history of the rise and fall of the Three Kingdoms, and the intention of summing up historical experience and lessons is very clear. The narrative of the novel starts from the first year of Emperor Ling of Han Dynasty (184) and ends in the first year of Taikang in Jin Dynasty (280), which gives a relatively complete account of the rise, development and demise of the Han, Wei and Wu Dynasties. Drawing lessons from the compiling mode of chronological history books, the novel takes the historical process of the Three Kingdoms War as the main line and the rise and fall of Wang Ye as the main line, and organically organizes historical stories for nearly a hundred years. It mainly describes the political and military struggles in the Three Kingdoms period, and the author's interest lies in revealing how various military groups flourished and perished in this period. For example, the main content of the first 33 chapters is the struggle between Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, and the focus of contradiction is the struggle between the two factions. The author compares them many times, focusing on the summary of the lessons of rise and fall, which is the main idea of the author. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the last fifteen chapters mainly shows the contradictions within the Three Kingdoms, especially the profound description of Sima's usurpation of Wei, the trust of the empress and the tyranny of Sun Hao. Although the plot is short, the focus is still on how to live and how to die. With the attitude of seeking truth from facts, the author objectively and completely shows the historical process of more than 100 years, and the summary of historical experience and lessons has left a lot of inspiration for future generations, which is very attractive.
In creation, Romance of the Three Kingdoms inherits the spirit of traditional historiography, and "seven realities and three vacuities" can be said to be the basic principle of drawing materials for this book. Although there are many fictional elements in the novel, all major historical events are taken from the chronicle, and the characters and experiences of the main characters are basically in line with historical facts. Faced with rich and complicated historical materials and folk stories, the author mainly carried out two aspects of work:
First of all, based on historical facts, the absurd and vulgar elements from folk culture and the plot that does not conform to the character's character are eliminated. The Story of the Three Kingdoms is a master of the folk stories of the Three Kingdoms, and it is also one of the most important reference materials when writing the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Most of the plots in the book are based on folk rumors, and there are many absurd plots, such as the story of Sima Zhong's escape from prison and the ending of Liu Yuan's destruction of Jin and Xing Han, which makes the book have obvious karma color. This arrangement represents a desire of the lower class, but it is not only uncoordinated but also absurd in historical novels. Luo Guanzhong deleted this ending, which not only avoided the branches and vines, but also played down the color of karma, making the novel a historical tragedy with richer implications. In addition, some plots in Pinghua that are inconsistent with historical facts or characters, such as Liu, Guan and Zhang's going to Taihang after killing Du You, and Liu Bei's private escape from the Yellow Crane Tower, have been abandoned by the author.
Secondly, carefully refine the plot and enhance the literariness of the novel. Historical works such as History of the Three Kingdoms and History as a Mirror provide rich materials for the creation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The author's main task is to recombine and refine these chaotic original materials. The success of Romance of the Three Kingdoms lies in giving full play to his imagination on the premise of respecting history and making the plot framework conform to historical facts, and refining these various materials from historical books and folk into one vivid one after another. The author has abridged a lot of all kinds of folk legends and plots that are too absurd and inconsistent with historical facts, but kept some stories that are contrary to historical facts but do not deviate from rationality and character, such as Peach Blossom Garden, Three Heroes Against Lyu3 bu4, A Chain of Tricks, The Lone Ranger, etc., and made them a very important part of the novel.
Generally speaking, although the Romance of the Three Kingdoms retains many fictional stories, it pays attention to the vividness and interest of the stories to a certain extent, and at the same time, it is as close to history as possible. When dealing with the inevitable conflicts between the two sides, it basically abides by the principle of historical facts first. Zhang Xuecheng said that The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is characterized by "seven realities and three vacuities". Whether this statement is accurate or not, he reveals a secret of the success of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms-"reality" is an integral part of official culture, while "emptiness" is mostly related to folk culture. Only by integrating various cultures can novels be enriched. However, only through careful integration can various heterogeneous cultures blend and the artistic taste of the novel be improved.
Aesthetic criticism
The essential difference and identity relationship between history and literature is an ancient topic. Aristotle wrote in Poetics: "The difference between them is to describe what has happened and what may happen. Therefore, writing poetry is more philosophical than writing history and is valued. Because what is described in poetry is universal, history tells about individual things. " The writing subject of Romance of the Three Kingdoms obviously has no consciousness of distinguishing between history and literature, so the novel text does not present the concept of distinguishing between history and literature, and all story elements and discourse expressions of history and literature are chaotic and tangled. It is precisely because of the limitation of innate aesthetic concept that the novel is smeared as a mixed text that is neither history nor in line with the general provisions of literature. On the other hand, the identity of history and literature is related in philosophical sense. They should and inevitably show the objective laws of history and its contingent structure. In other words, history and literature must jointly imply historical rationality and dialectical logic.
Unfortunately, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms does not allow us to read the possibility that history and literature are the same in this philosophical sense. Thus, it presents an ideological scene that depresses readers: the differences between history and literature that should be distinguished are confused, and correspondingly, the historical reasons that should be related by identity are separated or absent. Therefore, Romance of the Three Kingdoms fatally chose such a sloppy and vulgar view of history: all historical forms only hide the mechanical movement of national politics and the logical cycle of power. In other words, history is just an arena of violence and power, and it is the transformation and balance of various social forces under the curtain of conspiracy and politics. In all narrative scenes, historical justice or historical reason is dissolved and eroded, only the remnants of messy historical stories appear, and accidental fragments become the protagonists of history.
The time narrative in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is scattered or scattered, but these scattered or scattered time narratives lack unified logical clues to connect them in series into a meaningful organic whole. Therefore, there are many phenomena such as multiple fractures between time and story, story and character, character and time. Corresponding to the broken narrative of time, the spatial narrative of Romance of the Three Kingdoms also has obvious limitations. The historical space and geographical area represented by the novel are quite broad and rich, and the story is generated, developed, gradually changed, sharply changed and ended in different spatial structures, so it is reasonable to develop many story scenes full of aesthetic surprises and pleasure for the novel. Regrettably, however, the richness and variability of the original historical region did not provide a free stage for the author of the novel, but made the author lost in the spatial narrative. The spatial structure of the whole novel was broken and messy because of the lack of logical order. The proper distinction between primary and secondary, before and after, light and heavy, contrast and depth was not clear enough, and the unity and organic nature of time narrative and spatial narrative were not subtly reflected.
Literary achievements
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is written in simple classical Chinese, vivid and fluent, appealing to both refined and popular tastes. Brush strokes are full of changes, contrasts, redundancies, twists and turns, and swaying. The structure is magnificent, and the events of about a hundred years and many characters with complicated clues are organized completely and closely, and the narrative is orderly, echoing, interrelated, interlocking and advancing layer by layer.
The artistic achievement of The Romance of The Three Kingdoms is more important in military and political description and characterization. Novels are best at describing wars and can write the characteristics of each war. Pay attention to describing the application of different strategies and tactics under specific conditions, and guide the exertion of subjective initiative in combat.
Instead of spending the main pen and ink on the simple strength and martial arts contest. For example, the Battle of Guandu, the Battle of Battle of Red Cliffs and the Battle of Yiling. The writing of each war also changes with the characteristics of the war. While writing about the war, other activities are also written as the prelude, aftermath or auxiliary means of the war, which makes the exciting and thrilling war seem relaxed and slow. Such as the cooperation between Battle of Red Cliffs's former grandson and Liu, the contradiction between Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, the temptation of Cao Cao, and the in-depth preparation of Sun Liu's allied forces to lure the enemy. In the aspect of characterization, the novel pays special attention to putting the characters in the sharp contradiction of real struggle and expressing their ideological character through their words and deeds or the surrounding environment. Such as Cao Cao's treachery, every move seems to hide intrigue; Zhang Fei has nothing but innocence and recklessness. Zhuge Liang has a well-thought-out plan, and he is always comfortable and leisurely in the face of things. Famous articles such as Guan Yu's "Killing Hua Xiong with Warm Wine", "Killing Six Generals after Passing Five Customs", Zhang Fei's "The Great Bridge in Changban", Zhao Yun's "Riding Alone to Save the Young Master", Zhuge Liang's "Rescuing Meng Huo Seven times" and "Scaring Sima Yi with an Empty City Plan" are widely circulated.
social influence
With a length of 750,000 words, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms created more than 400 characters with mature novel language, described the historical process of nearly a hundred years, and created a new novel genre, which not only made readers at that time "copy for viewing", but also inspired scribes and booksellers to continue writing and publishing similar novels. Since Jiajing, various historical romances have mushroomed and come out constantly, from the beginning to the present. According to incomplete statistics, there are about 200 kinds of historical romances in Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is famous all over the world and is also welcomed by foreign readers. As early as the third year of Qin Long in the Ming Dynasty (1569), it had spread to North Korea, and in the eighth year of Chongzhen (1635), Amin published The History of the Three Kingdoms, which was collected in Oxford University, England. Since the Japanese version of Popular Three Kingdoms was compiled and published by Japanese monk Wenshan in the 28th year of Kangxi (1689), Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Britain, France, Russia and many other countries have translated their own languages, published many research papers and monographs, and made valuable discussions and high comments on the novel Romance of Three Kingdoms.