Three Remarks on Historical Novel

This article raises three arguments. Firstly, the novel should be reality-imitating fiction in which the main subject matter is the record of real figures and events in previous age, excluding various pure imaginary works and those derived from fiction. Only by insisting on this can one avoid trans-genre criticism of novels. Secondly, current novels mostly adopt the methods of traditional Realism and Reality-imitating Romanticism. This does not mean that the authors stick to old literary ideas; it is the nature of the novel that makes authors do so. Realism, or the combination of Realism and Romanticism, provides boundless artistic space for the creation of novels. Thirdly, the modern novel is not a river of stories, but an ocean of life; most of its content must be fabricated. This greatly increases the possibility of fabricating history carelessly, and the historical reality bears the distinct characteristic of speciousness. Under these circumstances, only if one faces up to history, is familiar with history, and pays attention to similarity between novel and reality, can he/she possibly create excellent works which are not only similar to but also surpass the history.