The Literary Value Of Romance Of The Three Kingdoms

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a classic historical novel of enormous influence, is widely known in China as one of the four great Chinese classic novels. Its author Luo Guanzhong, as the textual research goes, was a scholar lived in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, but his exact birth and death years are not known.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is based on the history of the three kingdoms, Wei, Shu and Wu that strove to reunite the empire at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The history of this period is expounded in the renowned history book Three Kingdoms, and stories of the heroes and their deeds within have also come down from various folk tales, plays, ballads and verses. Out of historical records and folktales, Luo Guanzhong created the enduring historical and literary masterpiece.
The last years of the Eastern Han Dynasty was a period of chaos and disorder, with various military forces rising to fight with one another. The three forces led respectively by Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Quan, which were stronger powers at that time, all wanted to take over the power and reunify China, so the political and military fights with one another were very fierce. Romance of the Three Kingdoms takes those historical events and combats among the kingdoms into account and gives a full range of vivid and poignant portrayal of the political stratagem and warfare, among which the stories of Three Heroes Swear Brotherhood in the Peach Garden, The Battle of Red Cliff, and The Stratagem of the Empty City etc. are so well received that they have been common subject matter of other literary genres like drama and exerted an ever expanding influence.
The literary value of Romance of the Three Kingdoms lies much in the vivid characters sketched in the novel: witty Zhuge Liang, valorous Zhang Fei, loyal Guan Yu, young hero Zhou Yu, and imposing Cao Cao who is full of duplicity. All these figures are so vividly portrayed that in the conception of Chinese people, the characters and their characteristics are firmly connected, and thus have gradually influenced the concepts and customs of the Chinese people in the long history. For instance, Guan Yu is revered by later generations as "the Martial Saint" ("the Literal Saint" is Confucius), the saint of loyalty and courage.

Song Of Mulan Is A Long Narrative Folk Song China

Song of Mulan is a long narrative folk song of northern China in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The song narrates the story of a girl named Mulan who disguised as a man and joined the army in place of her father. She feared no hardships and fought for ten years and made outstanding military feats. After return triumphal, she was unwilling to be granted the title of an official but only desired to recover her former status of a common woman. The song depicts the immortal character of Mulan, who is vivid and moving, and of legendary color as well. Mulan is a woman of outstanding ability, and a common person at the same time. She is not only a heroine but also a common girl. She is the combination of a brave warrior and a beautiful girl. She is industrious and kind yet fortitude and brave, honest and modest yet alert and energetic, loves her family yet makes her contribution for the country. She does not admire high post with handsome salary but is enthusiastic for a peaceful life. For over a thousand years, the story that Mulan went to the army in place of her father has become a household story in China and the image of Mulan has always been loved by people. The song has profound folk song character and described many life scenes and loves between the young people, so it is rich in the trace of life. In the long spreading process, Song of Mulan has remained the character of folk songs that is easy to remember and recite.
Song of Mulan is also a Yuefu poem. Yuefu (Music Bureau) was originally the music institution set at the reign of Emperor Wudi of the Western Han Dynasty. The responsibility of the institution was in charge of the music played in the palaces and to collect folk songs and music. After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Yuefu became the name of a type of poems while the poems collected and sang by the Yuefu (Music Bureau) of the Han Dynasty were collectively called Yuefu poems. Yuefu poems are mostly the songs popular among the people and their forms can be in five words, seven words and irregular lyric. They pay close attention to narration; thus, demonstrate the social lives of the ancient times. Together with The Book of Songs, the Yuefu poems laid the realistic foundation for the Chinese poems. They are the precious heritage in the history of poem of China.
The Anthology of Yuefu Poetry compiled by Guo Maoqian of the Song Dynasty includes one hundred volumes. It is the most complete collection of Yuefu poetry that includes abundant materials. The collected works can be divided into two parts, i.e., the southern songs and the northern songs. Song of Mulan is selected from the collection.

The Book Of Dou E Yuan

Guan Hanqing was a famous Zaju (the Yuan Drama) playwright of the Yuan Dynasty, and one of the representative figures of ancient Chinese opera play writers as well. His best known work is Injustice to Dou E, which is one of "the four great tragedies of the Yuan Drama", the other three being Autumn in the Han Palace by Ma Zhiyuan, The Firmiana Rain by Bai Pu and The Orphan of Zhao by Ji Junxiang.
The period Guan Hanqing lived in was a time characterized by political corruption, social turbulences, and sharp class and national contradictions (mainly those between Meng and Han ethnic groups). People were living in great misery. Guan Hanqing's plays vividly reenact social reality and have a strong tinge of that period.
Injustice to Dou E exposes the dark side of the society of the Yuan Dynasty through the tragic death of a girl named Dou E. The heroine loses her mother at the age of 7 and is separated from her father at 10, when she was sold as a child bride to offset the debt. Not long after she grows up and gets married, her husband dies. Later she is subjected to the bullying and humiliation of hooligans and gangsters. As a result, she is wrongly accused of involvement in a murder case. Under the torture of the corrupt interrogating officials, she confesses to the false charge and is sentenced to death.
Being wronged, Dou E strongly condemns the corrupt officials, the heaven and the earth at the execution ground, vowing to retaliate against the injustice of real life. She makes three pledges before being executed - snowfalls in June, all her blood splitting on the 3-feet white silk sheet, and 3 years' drought in the local area. Through the depiction of Dou E, a kindhearted and unyielding girl resisting the feudal forces, the play expresses the author's heart-felt compassion for the oppressed people and strong denouncement against the dark side of society. It is an immortal treasure shining through the history of Chinese literature.

Book Of Etiquette And Ceremonial

 
The Yili (仪礼; literally "Etiquette and Rites") or Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial is a Chinese classic text about Zhou Dynasty rituals. The Yili, Zhouli 周礼 "Zhou Rites", and Liji 礼记 "Record of Rites" — collectively known as the "three ritual texts" — are Confucianist compilations of records about rites, ceremonies, protocols, and social customs.
Title
The title Yili combines the Chinese words yi 仪 "demeanor; appearance; etiquette; ceremony; rite; present; gift; apparatus" and li 礼 "ceremony; rite; ritual; courtesy; etiquette; manners; propriety; social customs". In modern Standard Mandarin, the compound yili 仪礼 means "etiquette; rite; protocol".
This ritual text was first called Yili in the (ca. 80 CE) Lunheng. During the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), it was also called Shili 士礼 "Rites for Common Officers", Lijing 礼经 "Classic of Rites", Ligujing 礼古经 "Old Classic of Rites", or simply Li 礼 "Rites". Among Zhou Dynasty feudal ranks, this shi 士 was a "low-level noble; yeoman; common officer; scholar".
History
Many early Chinese texts were lost during the Qin Dynasty (213-206 BCE) burning of books and burying of scholars. When texts were restored during the early Han Dynasty, the Yili was extant in two versions: "Old Text" (supposedly discovered in the walls of Confucius's residence) and "New Text" (supposedly transmitted orally). Zheng Xuan (127–200) compiled an Yili edition from both the Old and New Text versions and wrote the first commentary. Wang Su (195-256 CE) wrote two books about the Yili and criticized Zheng, but Zheng's version became the basis for later studies and editions.
The Yili text was carved into the 837 CE Kaicheng Stone Classics, and first printed from woodblocks from 932-953 CE. In 1959, archeologists excavated some 1st-century Han tombs at Wuwei, Gansu and discovered a cache of wooden and bamboo textual copies. They include three fragmentary manuscripts of the Yili, covering more than seven chapters.
The first Western translations of the Yili were in French (Charles-Joseph de Harlez de Deulin 1890 and Seraphin Couvreur 1916). John Steele (1917) translated the full text into English.
Content

The Classic Of Poetry

The Book of Songs, formerly called Poetry, is the earliest general collection of ancient Chinese poems. It is also called Three Hundred Poems, for it includes 305 poems in total. Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Poetry was regarded as a must read by the Confucians, so it is called The Book of Songs. The interpretation and study on The Book of Songs has been carried on generation after generation, and it is not stopped until now.Collected in The Book of Songs were poems popular around the region from the north of the Yellow River basin to the Jianghan Drainage Area during the period from the early Western Zhou Dynasty (the 11th century BC) to the mid Spring and Autumn Period. It is said that they had been compiled by Confucius.In the ancient times, poems are lyrics for accompanying tunes. The Book of Songs is classified into three parts according to contents, namely Feng (ballads), Ya (peoms from intellectuals or aristocrats), and Song (songs for praying). Feng, also called Guofeng, is mostly the collection of folk songs. It is divided into 15 groups and has a total of 160 poems, which mainly express the love between men and women and the dissatisfaction of the people toward the emperor. Ya contains 105 poems, including 31 articles of Daya and 74 articles of Xiaoya, most of which were written by court officials and aristocrats. Song collects 40 poems, which are songs for offering sacrifice and praising emperors by the aristocrats. They are usually accompanied with dance during the performance. Although the Book of Songs is a collection of works of many people, authors of most works are unknown, just a small part of them were researched out by later generations.The Book of Songs exerted a very profound effect on ancient China in terms of politics, culture, language, and even thinking. During the Spring and Autumn Period, diplomats often expressed words that they didn’t want to say by themselves or that were difficult to say by quoting sentences from the Book of Songs, which is similar to today’s diplomatic language. Confucius, a sage of China and who gave a high praise to the Book of Songs, claimed that people’s cultures, observation abilities and interpersonal skills could be highly improved through the study of the Book of Songs.