Two Novels Of The Revolutionary History Narrative

The historical novel has been a highly controversial marginal literary style for a long time, and more research on this kind of writing is from the literary perspective, while less attention was paid by history circle in which it is not regarded as a standard piece of historical research. However, one undeniable fact is that historical novels play a great role as an historical writing. Many people get a certain history idea (Sometimes even history knowledge) from historical novels rather than from regular history works. One of the most notable facts is that Romance of Three Kingdoms is more popular than The History of the Three Kingdoms by Chen Shou. Even many entirely imaginative details and characters in the fictions are also regarded as historical facts, which showed the significance of historical novels.On this problem, some views put forward by the New Historicism are quite instructive. For example, Hayden white believes that though it is necessary for historians to do some work similar to the work of detectives and scientists such as textual criticism in the historical research stage, it is also absolutely indispensable for them to carry on such literary operations as choosing materials or constructing plots when they begin to write history. It is just these literary operations that make it possible for historical novels to imitate historical writing, and this kind of imitation caused historical novels to have some characteristics of historical writing and share the history's specific concern. Due to its popularity and fun, historical novels attract so many readers that it is not surprising that some historical novels with some entire fictions are more significant than regular history works.Historical writing is facing a predicament of losing ordinary readers day after day, so the research into historical novels which have the successful experience is undoubtedly meaningful. This paper takes two different historical novels, the Novel on Revolution History and the New Historical novel, as research subjects. By comparing both of successful historical novels which have different description contents and history ideas, we hope to draw some useful experience to improve historical writing.This paper addresses the issue from the following three parts:In the first part, we discuss the possibilities and advantages of narrating history in the form of novel. Some concepts, such as "Objectivity" and "historical facts", have been regarded as the dividing line between history and fiction, and this paper fully questioned the reliability of this line. Firstly the paper defines the concept of "history", and points out that "history" may include "the history on ontology meaning" and "the history as one kind of knowledge". It is impossible for the recorder of "The history as one kind of knowledge" to avoid his subjectivity; the "history fact" similarly is unable to get rid of the subjective mark. The social scientific history's pursuit of entire objectivity is also an illusion and is impossible to realize, because the history's objectivity is limited by both subjective and objective factors. Afterwards Hayden white's research on the textuality of history was discussed in detail by this paper. It is the crux that why the historical novel and historical writing can be interlinked, as well as the theoretical basis of this paper. At the end of the first part, this paper briefly reviews the whole situation and achievements of Chinese historical novels, and elaborates the superiority of historical novels in historical writing.In the second part, the specific situation of the Novel on Revolution History is analyzed from three aspects: "fact choosing", "narrative story", and "history understanding". Specifically as follows, the Novel on Revolution History mainly chose "history of victory" and the ordinary revolutionist's revolutionary life in the New Democratic Revolution as subjects of expression, and especially the heroes and the revolutionary theory were taken as the focus of narration. The choosing process has the characteristic of reversing the effect and cause; namely, transforming the writer's memory of revolution with the present judgment. Using these modified historical facts, the writers of the Novel on Revolution History have mainly created three models of narration: "Epic", "Folk Legend" and autobiographies, among which "Epic" is the most important form. These narrations are aimed to prove the legitimacy of modern nation through Social Darwinism's view on time. The Novel on Revolution History is mainly a national history and a political history.In the third part, this paper analyzes new historical novels. New historical novels reflect a wide historical field of vision. Because the New Historical Novel has touched on the forbidden area of the Novel on Revolution History, such as failures of revolution, and more importantly, the New Historical Novel turned its attention from great problems, such as nation or group history, to the life and destiny of ordinary people, which greatly expanded the depth and breadth of the historical performance of fiction. Because most of the writers haven't experienced revolution personally, fictionalization becomes the main method used in constructing "history fact". They integrate the emotion experience of humanity into the imagination, pursuing a kind of artistic reality of human nature. The stories they narrated are very complex and not easy to be categorized. From the folk perspective, some writers wrote unofficial history; at the same time, some woks such as Bai Lu Yuan aim to write national secret history or cultural history; but more writers is trying to narrate the tragic history of personal life in the sharply historical changes. The New Historical Novel is a kind of small, microscopic, or everyday historical writing.