Three Kingdoms

Author: Guanzhong Luo
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520344553
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 477

Book Description
“A material epic with an astonishing fidelity to history."—New York Times Book Review Three Kingdoms tells the story of the fateful last reign of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 220), when the Chinese empire was divided into three warring kingdoms. Writing some twelve hundred years later, the Ming author Luo Guanzhong drew on histories, dramas, and poems portraying the crisis to fashion a sophisticated, compelling narrative that has become the Chinese national epic. This abridged edition captures the novel's intimate and unsparing view of how power is wielded, how diplomacy is conducted, and how wars are planned and fought. As important for Chinese culture as the Homeric epics have been for the West, this Ming dynasty masterpiece continues to be widely influential in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam and remains a great work of world literature.

Three Kingdoms and Chinese Culture

Author: Kimberly Besio
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791480496
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Book Description
This is the first book-length treatment in English of Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi), often regarded as China's first great classical novel. Set in the historical period of the disunion (220–280 AD), Three Kingdoms fuses history and popular tradition to create a sweeping epic of heroism and political ambition. The essays in this volume explore the multifarious connections between Three Kingdoms and Chinese culture from a variety of disciplines, including history, literature, philosophy, art history, theater, cultural studies, and communications, demonstrating the diversity of backgrounds against which this novel can be studied. Some of the most memorable episodes and figures in Chinese literature appear within its pages, and Three Kingdoms has had a profound influence on personal, social, and political behavior, even language usage, in the daily life of people in China today. The novel has inspired countless works of theater and art, and, more recently, has been the source for movies and a television series. Long popular in other countries of East Asia, such as Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, Three Kingdoms has also been introduced to younger generations around the globe through a series of extremely popular computer games. This study helps create a better understanding of the work's unique place in Chinese culture.

The Three Kingdoms, Volume 3: Welcome The Tiger

Author: Luo Guanzhong
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 146291439X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 710

Book Description
This exciting new translation of the Chinese classic is designed to delight modern readers. The Three Kingdoms is an epic Chinese novel written over six centuries ago. It recounts in vivid historical detail the turbulent years at the close of the Han Dynasty when China broke into three competing kingdoms and over half the population was killed or driven from their homes. readers will experience the loyalty and treachery, the brotherhood and rivalry of China's legendary heroes and villains during the most tumultuous period in Chinese history. Part myth, part reality, The Three Kingdoms is considered the most significant work in classic Chinese literature. Many Chinese people view it not only as a work of art but also as a moral guide to success in life and business. Foreigners often read it to gain insights into Chinese society and culture. From the saga of The Three Kingdoms, readers will learn how great warriors motivated their troops and enhanced their influence while disguising their weaknesses and turning the strengths of others against them. Complete with footnotes and a detailed character list, this readable new edition is sure to thrill today's readers from all over the world. Full of dramatic twists and turns, this third volume offers an exciting conclusion to the tale of Liu Bei, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Author: Luo Guanzhong
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788892532168
Category : Chinese fiction
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, attributed to Luo Guanzhong, is a historical novel set in the turbulent years towards the end of the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history, starting in 169 AD and ending with the reunification of the land in 280. The story - part historical, part legend, and part mythical - romanticises and dramatises the lives of feudal lords and their retainers, who tried to replace the dwindling Han dynasty or restore it. While the novel follows hundreds of characters, the focus is mainly on the three power blocs that emerged from the remnants of the Han dynasty, and would eventually form the three states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu. The novel deals with the plots, personal and military battles, intrigues, and struggles of these states to achieve dominance for almost 100 years. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is acclaimed as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature; it has a total of 800,000 words and nearly a thousand dramatic characters (mostly historical) in 120 chapters. The novel is among the most beloved works of literature in East Asia.

Three Kingdoms

Author: Guanzhong Luo
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520215856
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 520

Book Description
As important for Chinese culture as the Homeric epics have been for the West, this Ming dynasty masterpiece tells the story of the fateful last reign of the Han dynasty (206 C.C.-A.D. 220) when the Chinese empire was divided into three warring kingdoms.

Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language

Author: Anonymous
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
ISBN: 162466525X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Book Description
The saga of the Three Kingdoms—which recounts the dramatic story of the civil wars (ca. 180–220 CE) that divided the old Han Empire into the Shu, Wei, and Wu states—remains as popular as ever in China, having served as the basis of not only traditional operas and ballads, but also, in more recent years, of movies, television dramas, and video games. Translated into English for the first time here, the Sanguozhi pinghua (thirteenth century CE) provides a complete and fast-paced narrative account of the events of the period, from the beginning of the civil wars to the demise of the Three Kingdoms and the short-lived reunification of the realm by the Jin dynasty. Shorter, clearer, and more accessible to Western audiences than Luo Guanzhong’s later, greatly expanded Romance (Sanguo yanyi)—and beautifully rendered in this edition by two modern-day masters of the art of Chinese literary translation—the Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language provides an ideal introduction to one of the foundational Chinese epic traditions. Tables of major Chinese dynasties and reigns, a guide to understanding formal Chinese naming conventions, a glossary of Chinese names and terms, and reproductions of some woodcuts from the original edition of the text are included.

Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies

Author: Moss Roberts
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 0307760421
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
This collection of tales opens up a magical world far from our customary haunts. Ghost stories, romances, fables, and heroic sagas: the forms are familiar, but the characters we meet surprise us at every turn. For those who know and love the tales of the Grimms and Andersen, the universal themes of fairy tale literature emerge in these classic stories, but with a sophistication that is uniquely Chinese and altogether entrancing. With black-and-white drawings throughout Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

Ithaca Forever

Author: Luigi Malerba
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520383192
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 179

Book Description
After twenty years, Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, but instead of receiving the homecoming he had hoped for finds himself caught in an intense battle of wills with his faithful and long-suffering wife Penelope. When Penelope recognizes him under the guise of a beggar, she becomes furious with him for not trusting her enough to include her in his plans for ridding the palace of the Suitors. As a result, she plays her own game of fictions to make him suffer for this lack of faith, inspiring jealousy, self-doubt, and misgivings in her husband, the legendary Homeric hero. In this captivating retelling of the Odyssey, Penelope rises as a major force with whom to be reckoned. Shifting between first-person reflections, Ithaca Forever reveals the deeply personal and powerful perspectives of both wife and husband as they struggle for respect and supremacy within a marriage that has been on hold for twenty years. Translated by PEN award-winner Douglas Grant Heise, Luigi Malerba’s novel gives us a remarkable version of this greatest work of western literature: Odysseus as a man full of doubts and Penelope as a woman of great depth and strength.

The Halberd at Red Cliff

Author: Xiaofei Tian
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684170923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 472

Book Description
"The turn of the third century CE—known as the Jian’an era or Three Kingdoms period—holds double significance for the Chinese cultural tradition. Its writings laid the foundation of classical poetry and literary criticism. Its historical personages and events have also inspired works of poetry, fiction, drama, film, and art throughout Chinese history, including Internet fantasy literature today. There is a vast body of secondary literature on these two subjects individually, but very little on their interface.The image of the Jian’an era, with its feasting, drinking, heroism, and literary panache, as well as intense male friendship, was to return time and again in the romanticized narrative of the Three Kingdoms. How did Jian’an bifurcate into two distinct nostalgias, one of which was the first paradigmatic embodiment of wen (literary graces, cultural patterning), and the other of wu (heroic martial virtue)? How did these largely segregated nostalgias negotiate with one another? And how is the predominantly male world of the Three Kingdoms appropriated by young women in contemporary China? The Halberd at Red Cliff investigates how these associations were closely related in their complex origins and then came to be divergent in their later metamorphoses."

Three Kingdoms, A Historical Novel

Author: Guanzhong Luo
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520224780
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 556

Book Description
"The Three Kingdoms gives us The Iliad of China. First of the five great works of traditional prose fiction, this master narrative transforms history into epic and has thereby educated and entertained readers of five centuries with unforgettable exemplars of martial and civic virtue, of personal fidelity and political treachery. Moss Roberts's translation, the first complete rendering in English, is one of surpassing excellence and impeccable scholarship. It should delight and captivate Western readers for many more years to come."—Anthony C. Yu, University of Chicago "Moss Roberts's elegant and powerful translation of China's most important historical romance has a stunning directness that aptly conveys the dramatic boldness of the original episodic narrative. English readers may now finally understand why this 15th-century novel so strategically shaped the political world-view of generations of Chinese."—Frederic Wakeman, Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley