罗贯中

罗贯中

Identity

Luo Guanzhong Memorial, in Dongping County, Shandong

The location and date of Luo's birth are controversial. One possibility^{[citation needed]} was that he was from Taiyuan, and lived in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty by the record of his contemporary, the playwright Jia Zhongming (賈仲明), who said that he had met him in 1364^{[citation needed]}. Another possibility was that he was born in Dongyuan, the province of Shandong, in about 1280 – 1360. Literary historians suggest other possibilities for his home, also including Hangzhou and Jiangnan^{[citation needed]}.

According to Meng Fanren^{[citation needed]} (孟繁仁), Luo can be identified in the pedigree of the Luo family, and Taiyuan is most likely his hometown. But, his name is not in this pedigree, and some people believe that pedigree of the Luo Family can't prove that Luo is the author of Three Kingdoms. Some people doubt that If Luo came from Taiyuan, why he had intimate knowledge of people life in Shandong, and he had taken all his time and energy to write them not those people in Taiyuan, Shanxi. Some people believe that the source of Taiyuan statement, which was written by Jia Zhongming (賈仲明), is most likely wrong in handwritten copy. According to the recent research, there were two Luo Guanzhong (陈辽，Chen Liao), one is Drama artist who came from Taiyuan, another is author of Three Kingdoms who came from Dongping.

Recent research has suggested that his date of birth was between 1315–1318. But other sources state it was nearer to 1330.^[which?]

Works

The stories forming the bulk of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin are thought^{[citation needed]} to have been developed by many independent storytellers. Shi Nai'an is thought^{[citation needed]} to be the first to assemble Water Margin into a unified work, and Luo subsequently brought it to the current form of 100 chapters. Luo is usually considered^{[citation needed]} the author of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

The Three Sui Quash the Demons' Revolt (平妖傳) is a shenmo fantasy story attributed^{[citation needed]} to Luo with 20 chapters, developed from the original pieces of storytelling based on a rebellion at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, and later expanded by Feng Menglong (馮夢龍)^{[citation needed]} into 40 chapters. Can Tang Wudai Shi Yanzhuan (殘唐五代史演義傳) is a chronicle of the end of the Tang Dynasty and the following Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, a compilation of storytelling pieces based on the rebellion of Zhu Wen^{[citation needed]}.

Bibliography

• Can Tang Wudai Shi Yanzhuan (残唐五代史演義, "The End of Tang Dynasty and the Period of the Five Dynasties")
• Fenzhuang Lou (粉妝樓, "Cosmetical Building")
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms
• Sui Tang Zhizhuan (隋唐志傳)
• Sui Tang Liangchao Zhizhuan (隋唐兩朝志傳, "The Chronicle of the Sui and Tang Dynasties)
• The Three Sui Quash the Demons' Revolt (attributed)
• Water Margin (editing)

Notes

References

• Roberts, Moss, tr. (1991). Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22503-1.
• Yoshikawa Kojiro; Shimizu Shigeru (translators) (16 October 1998), 水滸伝 [Water Margin], Iwanami Shoten
• A record of a conference on Romance of the Three Kingdoms in China in 1999 (in Japanese)
• Zhao Qiping, "Luo Guanzhong", Encyclopedia of China (Chinese Literature Edition) (1st ed.), archived from the original on September 29, 2007

External links

• Works by Luo Guanzhong at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Luo Guanzhong at Internet Archive
• Andrew West, The Textual History of Sanguo Yanyi - Authorship