Talk:Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Addition to historic events.

I would like to add more information about some of the events like "The Yellow Turban Rebellion", "Dong Zhou's reign of terror", and other topics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tio Oso (talk • contribs) 16:46, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome to do so, but not here. The plot summary here is very long and somewhat overly detailed already. Please try other articles such as Yellow Turban Rebellion, Dong Zhuo and Campaign against Dong Zhuo instead. I hope you're aware of the differences between fact and fiction and won't mix them up. LDS _{contact me} 03:33, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

rating

@Sadads:

OK, I put it as A just wanna attract editors' attention to the article. If not A, why not B? I mean, it has a good length and good content. SzMithrandir (talk) 01:04, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

You shouldn't make such edits to attract attention. See WP:POINT. A polite post at one of WikiProject talk pages would have been sufficient.

The grading of C versus B is not based simply on length but on a range of six points:

1. The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations where necessary.
2. The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies.
3. The article has a defined structure.
4. The article is reasonably well-written.
5. The article contains supporting materials where appropriate.
6. The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way.

Currently the article falls down mainly on point 1 as much of the "Story" section is unreferenced and some other areas could be referenced better and have been tagged with "citation needed". I'm not competent enough on the subject matter to judge point 2. Point 3 seems OK. On point 4 there is a link that needs disambiguation and some other WP:MOS issues that need fixed. Point 5 and 6 seem to be OK.

So there are a few things needing done to get this to be graded B rather than C.

-- Rincewind42 (talk) 04:08, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Also, within point 2 depth: as a major piece of literature, I would expect a much larger section discussing style, themes, and major critical discussions per advice like Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Novels; as a historical piece of writing, I would expect much more depth of coverage on historiography. Both are substantially missing from this version of the article, especially considering it cultural/historical signficance. The depth of coverage, and strong emphasis on summary/plot was my main concern for moving towards c, rather than b, Sadads (talk) 19:51, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Also, I imagine there is much more coverage of meta issues related to translation in the scholarship, Sadads (talk) 19:53, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with both Rincewind42 and Sadads. The article is not even B quality because it does not have enough references and doesn't suitably cover the topic. I added a Cultural impact section, which should be expanded before I would consider the article B-class. Only the lead even mentions how influential this work is. --Odie5533 (talk) 06:20, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

THese are all strong points. In addition, when I looked into the notes of this article, I found a number of mistakes. I have started to work on them, but there is much left to do. Among the issues are the differences in interpretation between what Roberts calls the TS (Tongsu) edition of 1522 and the edition which he says "eclipsed" it and pushed it into oblivion. Anyone with access to the Afterword to the Roberts 1991 translation, which is in paperback, can pitch in! (I don't think the condensed version has the Afterword.) ch (talk) 04:41, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

His Afterword is over 100 pages. Is there anything specific you want to know from it? --Odie5533 (talk) 22:01, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Good of you to ask! I have a copy, but just wanted to encourage everyone to pitch in and not wait for me. Sorry to mislead. ch (talk) 23:20, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Authorship

We've gone back and forth on this, but the best compromise seems to be to say "attributed to Luo" but "published in the Ming." Roberts "Afterword" seems to be the most reliable source, which says that the authorship has been "traditionally assigned to the late Yuan-early Ming" and that "many accept this approximation, if only because the presumed author Luo Guanzhong lived at that time..." but that "there is a gap of about one hundred years between the presumed date of Luo's death and the 1494 preface" which is the first mention of any association between him and the novel, and "there is no record prior to this" connecting Luo to it. Thus, he goes on, "at the present time, a Ming author and a Ming audience ... seems likeliest." (Roberts "Afterword" pp. 938-939). The more detailed study by Andrew West (see External Links) also backs it. Roberts later refers to the "unsolvable problem of the author" (p. 963), and this is before we even get to the problem of the Mao Zonggang recension and what constitutes the text, which probably should be mentioned in the lede as the text used in all English translations, but I'm not sure how. In any case, "attributed to" still seems the best, esp. since it is a phrase used in the body of the article. ch (talk) 02:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Opening lines

I replaced "It is a general truism of this world that anything long divided will surely unite, and anything long united will surely divide." This translation is from [Wikisource ROTK], Initially translated by A-cai] but as far as I can tell left off after a few years. This translation misses the mark by saying "anything that is divided." Brewitt-Taylor's translation has been widely quoted: "Empires wax and wane; states cleave asunder and coalesce." This makes it seem like a general principle. Roberts has it "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been." (p. 5) Roberts seems preferable because "the empire" is singular, implying that it is the "Chinese" empire that is at stake, not empires in general, and thus more applicable to the Ming/ Qing dynasty. I will also restore the note that whoever wrote the earlier version, Luo or not, this sentence was added by Mao. ch (talk) 02:36, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I sneaked in a link to Tianxia on the phrase "the empire" because the original text (天下; pinyin: Tianxia) actually has a wikipedia article to explain it. Ahyangyi (talk) 08:00, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Language: Chinese?

Could someone clear up whether this is Classical Chinese, some sort of Mandarin, or what? Thanks!

Fdezcaminero (talk) 00:29, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Excessive plot details

The storyline should be a summary, not such a long section with 54 sub-sections. Perhaps there should be a consensus on how detailed the storyline is. Jenxi (talk) 04:30, 31 October 2022 (UTC)