| In ancient China,“xiaoshuo”(小说)has always been regarded as a“small talk”,which experienced a difficult process from xiaoshuo to classics.With the great changes of ideology and culture in the middle and late Ming Dynasty,Taizhou School,Wang Yangming’s theory of mind and Li Zhi’s theory of childlike innocence set off a wave of reform in the field of culture,and xiaoshuo and traditional opera flourished under the influence of this wave.Scholars began to change their view of xiaoshuo and traditional opera,no longer regarded as“beyond history”,but as independent genres.The romance of the Three Kingdoms came into the vision of the literati in the name of the Three Kingdoms.Luo Guanzhong’s literati adaptation made it win the brand of elite class naturally.The literati regarded the romance of the Three Kingdoms as a popular reading material to popularize history and educate the people.The“Romance”system of Jiajing&Renwu edition and Zhouyue collation edition increased its historicity,while Ye Fengchun’s edition,Yu xiangdou’s edition and Zhu Dingchen’s edition reduced the difficulty of reading aiming at interests.The decrease of the cost of publishing made the romance of the Three Kingdoms no longer be limited to elite scholars,but also open the door to ordinary literate people with low cultural level,greatly promoting the spread of the romance of the Three Kingdoms.After Li Zhi broke the stereotype of literati,Ye Zhou imitated Li Zhi’s criticism of Water Margin and commented on the romance of the Three Kingdoms.He really pulled himself out of the boundary of history and regarded it as a literary work.On the meanwhile,the publishers changed the traditional form of volume arrangement,and merged 240 sections of the romance of the Three Kingdoms into 120“hui”(回),although at this time the hui were not antithetical and exquisite.The two sections are only a simple merger,not a complete integration.However,according to the form of the compilation,it marks the change of the stylistic orientation of the romance of the Three Kingdoms,and plays an important role in the canonization of the romance of the Three Kingdoms.After that,Mao Zonggang and his son inherited Jin Shengtan’s Water Margin to revise the romance of the Three Kingdoms in a wide range,making the language style of the romance of the Three Kingdoms unified,the characters more typical and the ideological theme sublimated,thus creating a real classic text,replacing all previous editions and becoming the mainstream text.This dissertation mainly discusses the different development trends,reasons and characteristics of different versions of the romance of the Three Kingdoms.It thinks that the evolution of the version of the romance of the Three Kingdoms has gone through the process of being literary,historicization,popularization and academic trend,which jointly promotes the establishment of the classic text of the romance of the Three Kingdoms.The romance of the Three Kingdoms,with the bookseller as the main publisher and arranger,naturally owns the attributes of commodity and literature.Different bookstores face different readers with different emphases.The Jiangnan edition pays attention to its literariness and historicity when giving consideration to the commodity attributes.Therefore,it presents the trend of becoming literary and historicization,which makes the romance of the Three Kingdoms become a popular historical reading material,winning a higher status in the hearts of scholars.Jianyang edition has formed a competitive advantage with Jiangnan edition at a low price.It also reduces the reading threshold by adding images,and inserts the well-known hero stories of the Three Kingdoms to attract the interest of ordinary people.It promotes the wide spread of the romance of the Three Kingdoms,making the book no longer limited to the elite,but replace the popular stories of the Three Kingdoms,becoming the main channels for the general public to understand the stories of historical figures in the Three Kingdoms.With the rise of xiaoshuo criticism in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties,the literati’s understanding of the romance of the Three Kingdoms is also deepening,from the early as a popular historical book to pay attention to the difference between romance and history,no longer regard the romance of the Three Kingdoms as a“spare time”and a tool to educate the people,but began to pay attention to the literary value of historical romance itself.A new understanding of the style of historical romance is the key for the romance of the Three Kingdoms to get rid of“beyond history”and return to the context of xiaoshuo criticism,which makes a theoretical preparation for the canonization of the romance of the Three Kingdoms.The romance of the Three Kingdoms summarized the experience of literati,historicization,popularization and academic trend,and formed a literary style of both elegant and popular tastes.Meanwhile,it strengthened the theme of“supporting Liu and opposing Cao”,which made the romance of the Three Kingdoms consistent with the traditional Confucian ideas and the interests of the ruling class,and was accepted by the upper and lower classes.The version of the romance of the Three Kingdoms evolved under the joint effect of economy and ideology and culture,and finally formed the classic version of“Maoping”(毛评本).The establishment of the classic text laid the conditions for further expanding the influence of the romance of the Three Kingdoms,and was the foundation for the establishment of the classic status of the romance of the Three Kingdoms. |
