A Comparative Study Of The Romance Of The Three Kingdoms And The Romance Of The Gods

Composed in Ming Dynasty,the two full-length novels The Romance of the Three Kingdoms andThe Legend of Deificationwere all molded from histories,and were named of “yanyi”(historical romance in Chinese).However,both novels enjoyed different creation models and writing styles.As the masterpiece of historical romance,The Romance of the Three Kingdoms was faithful while not limited to the history with great artistry.By contrast,The Legend of Deificationonly employed the framework of toppling the regime of King Zhou by King Wu,and focused upon the fairy story of the investiture of the gods,thus bringing with a historical story gods and spirits.With many similarities in historical,moral,and heroic outlooks,the cultural connotations of two stories were complicated.Specifically,both novels enjoyed common subjects in “destinies”,“human affairs”,and “loyalties and righteousness” with particular emphases.Embracing orthodoxy,the keynote of The Romance of the Three Kingdomswas to advocate the regime of Liu while against the regime of Cao.Nevertheless,in the descriptions of the images of Liu Bei and Cao Cao,this novel denoted the moralities and political ideas of the public.By virtue of the moralities and justices,The Legend of Deificationspoke highly of the crusade against one's emperor by the officials,thus the heterodoxy against the orthodoxy.Both in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Investiture of the Gods,there were “determinism” and “fatalism”,discussing the contradictions between the gods' will and human affairs.Specifically,The Romance of the Three Kingdomsrecognized the gods' will while was more concerned with human efforts,singing highly of the firm faith within human.By contrast,The Legend of Deificationhighlighted the inviolable will of gods,which demonstrated the helplessness against one's fate.Both books shaped numerous heroes,including many “loyal and righteous” heroes in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms like Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang and rebellious and unique heroes inThe Legend of DeificationTaking the wars as the narrative emphases,both books depicted various battle scenes.To be more specific,The Romance of the Three Kingdoms summarized the experience of wars,in which it played up the wisdom in war narrations.In other words,it focused on the heroes in wars with flexible narratives.With richimaginations,The Legend of Deificationinherited the war narrations of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms while placing stresses on thezhenfa(Chinese magic nexus)of two parties.By virtue of the bewildering and dazzling people and treasures,it opened up a brand new model of war narrations.