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中国四大名著英文简介
Chinese Literature - Novels and fiction
Hongloumeng
红楼梦
Red
Chamber
Also called
(Shitouji
石头记
)
Cao Xueqin
曹雪芹
(d. 1763) is
said to be
the greatest masterpiece of
Chinese fiction.
A wide branched
scholarship does not
consent about the
main theme of this novel,
should it be
a novel of sentiment, of
Daoist-
Buddhist enlightenment, of social
observation, of the decay of an
aristocratic
familiy, or even a veiled
attack on Manchu
rule. The frame of the
novel is the contest
of a Buddhist and
a Daoist priest who
make be born a
young noble boy called Jia
Baoyu
贾宝玉
and his girl
cousin Lin
Daiyu
林黛玉
. With a loving detail
describing the life of the two cousins
in a
huge noble mansion, between
gardens
and palaces, the red thread is
the
triangular love between Baoyu,
Daiyu and
a second girl cousin called
Xue Baochai
薛宝钗
that is of more plumper character
than the ever sick Daiyu. Switching
between their life, the divine world
and
dreams, Baoyu becomes deranged
after
the disappearance of a stone (the
origin of
the second title) he had in
his mouth when
he was born. Not
knowing, his love Daiyu
died, he is
tricked to marrying Baochai.
Becoming
aware of being tricked, Baoyu
leaves
the world of the
becomes a monk. With
hundreds of
persons and their stories,
paralleling the
life and feelings of
servants to the life of
the main
persons, the story is very
complex and
full of symbolisms, but very
interesting and convincing for its
encyclopedic character, depicting the
life
of a noble familiy in the 18th
century Qing
China
清
.
三国演义
Romance of The Three
Kingdoms
Romance of The
Three Kingdoms is one of
the great
chinese classics and is compiled
into a
semi-fictional literary masterpiece
during the Ming Dynasty by Luo
Guanzhong. The novel comprises around
70+% fact and 20+% fiction. Some issues
such as Guan Yu's weapon weighing
around 40+ kilograms, the capabilties
of
Lu Bu, Liu Bei's horses as well as
the
existence of the Hill of the Fallen
Phoenix
and some others are probably
fictional.
That period in
history can be said as the
golden age
of chivalry and although it
happened
more than 1700 years ago,
characters
such as Liu Bei, Cao Cao,
Guan Yu,
Zhang Fei and Zhuge Liang
have become
household names among
the chinese.
Tales of their exploits,
courage,
adventures and many more are
told in
the novel
Kingdoms
It is one of the most
turbulent periods in
China's history
taking place toward the end
of the Han
Dynasty where corruption is
rampant in
the imperial court due to
eunuches
holding power. Coupled with
natural
disasters such as floods, plague
and
locust swarms devouring the crops
grown
by the peasants, hunger and
disatisfaction among the peasants soon
escalated rapidly until a major
rebellion
known as the
led
by Zhang Jiao broke out. (It was
dubbed
rebels tied a yellow scarf on their
head).
Initially just a small band of
rebels, due to
widespread hunger and
ill-sentiment
among the populace,
swarms of common
folks joined in the
rebellion across many
parts of the
country.
三国演义人物介绍
刘备
Liu Bei (161
–
223
AD), styled Xuá
ndé
(
玄
徳
), was a
general, warlord, and later the
founding emperor of Shu Han during the
Three Kingdoms era of China. Although
having a later start than his rivals,
also
lacking both the material
resources and
social status they
commanded, Liu Bei
overcame his many
defeats to carve out
his own realm,
that at its peak spanned
modern day
Sichuan, Guizhou, Hunan,
part of Hubei,
and part of Gansu.
Culturally, due to the tremendously
popular novel Romance of the Three
Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, Liu Bei is
widely known as the ideal benevolent,
humane ruler who cared for his people
and
picked good advisors. His character
was to
advocate the Confucian set of
moral
values, such as loyalty and
compassion.
张飞
Zhang Fei (?-221 AD) was a
military
general of Shu Han during the
Three
Kingdoms era of China.
Zhang Fei was
shown to have been a
masterful general
rather than simply a
warrior. He
treated his superiors with
respect, but
had little respect for his
underlings.
He was often warned by Liu
Bei that his
habit of over-punishing his own
soldiers by lashing and killing would
eventually bring himself disaster.
Zhang Fei
married Xiahou Yuan's
daughter, who was
captured by Zhang
Fei's troops as she
was out gathering
firewood. They had a
total of two