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Abstract
One of the most influential novels in late imperial China is the Romance of the Three Kingdoms which is commonly attributed to Luo Guanzhong (1330-1400). It is the subject of numerous academic studies spanning hundreds of years. Two influential commentaries on this novel are still published and read in the modern era and were written by Mao Zonggang and Shen Bojun. Published nearly 300 years apart, the socio-political contexts of each writer’s era were dramatically different. Therefore, it is meaningful to compare not only the modern and classical commentaries as literary works but as historical products. This thesis will compare and contrast Mao’s and Shen’s commentaries on the classic scene, "The Battle of Red Cliffs," from the perspective of New Historicism, which emphasizes the historicity of the two literary commentaries by relating them to the authors' ideology at the time. By comparing these works through a historical lens, we will see the two commentaries are not only the literary opinion of one individual. Instead, they can serve as a historical lens into the eras of the writers themselves.