Some thoughts of narrations in history and literature in response to CT.Hsia’s research detail in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms

• Main Author: Lê Thời Tân
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 2018-09-01
• Series: Tạp chí Khoa học Đại học Mở Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh - Khoa học Xã hội
• Subjects: hạ chí thanh; tam quốc; diễn nghĩa; tự sự tiểu thuyết; sử kí
• Online Access: https://journalofscience.ou.edu.vn/index.php/soci-vi/article/view/884

Our responses to C.T.Hsia’s research focus on his research detail of Bronze Sparrow Mansion Ode (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms). This detail shows that he unconsciously did not separate fictional characters/incidents and historical heroes/events. The habit of history worshipping and the trend to do documenting for documenting have unconsciously formed a barrier to understanding fictional narrations. While making use of his knowledge of history to interpret a single narrative incident in fiction, the researcher forgot that he was actually looking at the mansion ‘erected’ in literature, not a historical building. ‘Bronze Sparrow Mansion’ by Zhang River made its name known in Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi) and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi Yanyi) in different ways. As long as novels and history records are different, the review made by literature critics and that by history researchers cannot be the same. This responding article revolves around the above concept.