A brief introduction to the artistic achievements of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms"

"The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is a famous long historical novel that was produced earlier and had greater influence in our country. It describes the conflicts and struggles between feudal ruling groups in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and the entire Three Kingdoms era. It occupies an important position in the history of Chinese literature development. It has also accumulated a lot of experience worth learning from in artistic creation.

"The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is the pioneer work of chapter novels in my country. It begins with "Let me tell you..." and ends with "If you want to know what happened next, please listen to the explanation next time." These are all traces of oral speech. The storyteller tells the story one paragraph at a time, which becomes the chapters of the later novel; each paragraph has a title, which is a chapter. The earliest storytelling involved speaking and singing, so chapter-style novels often included some poetry and rhyme. This form has long been popular among the people.

"The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" represents the highest achievement of ancient historical novels. It adopts simple classical Chinese with "not very profound writing and not very vulgar language", which is clear and fluent, and is helpful for readers to master ancient Chinese. Its writing style is full of changes, contrasts, side views, swaying, and twists and turns, and it also inspires readers in writing. Its structure is magnificent, and it organizes the numerous and complicated events and numerous characters in a hundred years or so completely and tightly, and the narrative is orderly and orderly, and closely linked to each other.

"The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has many artistic achievements, among which war description and character description are the most prominent.

"The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" fully draws on the successful experience of describing wars in ancient historical books such as "Zuo Zhuan" and "Historical Records", and also advances the development. This is not only the most outstanding in historical novels, but also rare in all classical novels. "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" writes about so many wars, but readers do not find it boring. The reason is that it describes the characteristics of each war, that is, it describes the use of different strategies and tactics under specific conditions, without exaggerating the main content. Spend time in a pure competition of strength and martial arts. In the entire grand structure of the novel, the wars written in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" are related to each other, making the entire description appear to be well-proportioned, harmonious, and ups and downs. In the Battle of Guandu, Cao Cao unified North China; in the Battle of Chibi, the world was divided into three parts; in the Battle of Yiling, the situation of the tripartites began to transform into unification; these key and major battles are the focus of the description of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms". In the development of things, there is always a process from quantitative change to qualitative change, and there are always causes and consequences. Therefore, "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" also describes many wars, large and small, as foreshadowing or aftermath, between the wars it focuses on, and the priorities are coordinated. . If all the works are filled with the sound of fighting from the beginning to the end, then not only will the war descriptions appear flat and monotonous, but readers will also inevitably become bored over time, and will only be able to do something after doing nothing. Just as music has pauses, stages have silence, and images have blank spaces, "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" also describes other activities while describing the war, which is in line with the requirements and laws of artistic appreciation. After Liu Bei jumped on his horse over Tanxi River, he was so shocked that he did not expect that another realm would appear before his eyes. What he saw was "a shepherd boy coming astride the back of an ox, playing a piccolo" and what he heard was "the sound of the piano is very beautiful" in a quiet village ( Chapter 35). On the battlefield of the fierce battle at Red Cliff, as the saying goes, "the ship is thousands of miles away, the flag covers the sky", but several lyrical interludes are added: meeting again after a long separation, drinking and composing songs (Chapter 45); reading at night in a thatched cottage on a barren mountain (Chapter 40) Chapter 7); Jiang Ping is resting in the waves, chanting poems to the moon (Chapter 48). Descriptions like this are not divorced from the war itself. They are either the prelude to the war, or the auxiliary means of the war, or a certain aspect of the war. However, the thrilling and intense war is thus shown to have a unique character. The melody and rhythm are poetic and picturesque, achieving fascinating artistic effects.

The biggest feature of the character description in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is "taking the spirit from the outline", not simply pursuing the verisimilitude of details. It often uses the character's own words and actions or the surrounding environment to exaggerate the character's thoughts and personality in a romantic exaggeration. Cao Cao was treacherous, and his every move seemed to be hiding a conspiracy. Zhang Fei is outspoken and outspoken, with a hint of innocence and recklessness everywhere. Zhuge Liang has clever calculations and is always so handy and calm when dealing with situations. The use of atmosphere to express the mental outlook of the characters is a very successful expression technique used in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms". For example, in Chapter 42, "Zhang Yide makes a big fuss at Changban Bridge", only through three loud "sounds like huge thunder" Drinking it makes Zhang Fei's mighty and brave character come alive.

After the first drink, Cao Cao's soldiers "all trembled", and Cao Cao "hurriedly ordered to remove the umbrella cover"; after the second drink, Cao Cao was "quite willing to retreat" and "the rear army's positions moved"; after the third drink, "the shouting continued", Cao Cao The general Xia Houjie was so frightened that his "liver and gallbladder were shattered and he was knocked down by his horse." Cao Cao's soldiers "abandoned their guns and dropped their helmets at once, countless of them." ". In fact, Zhang Fei was just "riding on the bridge with angry eyes and spears" alone. The fifth chapter describes Guan Yu's beheading of Hua Xiong. There is no frontal battle scene at all, and it does not directly describe how powerful Guan Yu's martial arts is or how Hua Xiong was beheaded. It only creates momentum from different aspects and uses the reactions of the surrounding characters as a foil. Hua Xiong challenged him, but both Yu She and Pan Feng were killed one after another, which shows that Hua Xiong was an extraordinary general. Cao Cao made a toast, firstly to wish Guan Yu victory, and secondly to embolden Guan Yu. However, Guan Yu refused to drink and said, "I will come as soon as I go." This shows that Guan Yu is confident of victory. The following is completely based on what the princes from all walks of life heard, saw and reacted to. First, it is written that when the princes heard the cry of killing outside the pass, the heaven and earth were shaken. It can be imagined that the battle was fierce and that defeating Hua Xiong was by no means an easy task. Here, the "fright" of the princes is used to contrast Guan Yu's calmness. Then he wrote that the princes were worried and were about to send someone to inquire, but they saw that Guan Yu had already rode back to the camp and beheaded Hua Xiong. The work returns to the glass of wine at the end. The wine is still warm, which further highlights the short time to kill Hua Xiong. At the same time, one can also imagine Guan Yu's heroic demeanor while drinking. In this way, there is not much ink, but the image of Guan Yu's bravery and skill in fighting has already appeared on the page, leaving a deep impression on the readers. All the descriptions are not elaborate in details, but mostly rely on the outline of rough lines and the rendering of the environment and atmosphere to make the characters' expressions vivid and the images lifelike.

In addition, "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has successful artistic experience in describing characters in sharp and fierce struggles and using contrasting methods to depict the characters' thoughts and personalities. However, it should be pointed out that there are also some shortcomings in the character descriptions of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms". The book shows feudal orthodoxy through descriptions such as respecting Liu (Bei) and suppressing Cao (Cao). This is mainly due to the author's historical idealism. caused by perspective. The characters described by the author are born to be very great. There is no internal connection between the characters' thoughts and personalities and the social environment and personal experiences of the characters at that time. They are stereotyped as soon as they appear, and there are also many superstitious elements in the characters' activities. And slandered the Yellow Turban Peasant Uprising. The ideological dross of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has brought certain damage to its art.