The Literary Value Of Song Shu

Songshu, compliled by Shen Yue, a famous schlolar in Nan Dynasty,is a history book of biographic style, which records sixty years' history ofLiu and Song regimes. From the point of view of historiography, thisbook receives poor evaluation in history field. The author consulted asmuch study of Songshu by contemporary experts and scholars.Althoughsome experts has reevaluated and approved the historical value ofSongshu , there is no works that has made comprehensive and detailedstudy on its narrative style and characteristics. It is, therefore, ofsignificance to study the literary value and narrative style of Song shu.Focusing on this field, this thesis mainly studies the function andvalue of Songshu towards other, history books and its all kinds ofrepresentation in literary narration.There are four parts in this thesis:Chapter one approves complete course and system of Songshu so asto explore his influence on the style of writing in Songshu.Chapter Two introduces the state of Liu Song literature preserved inthis book, and analysed the achievement of record writings.On the base ofthe record writings;the relation between literature and history is furtherexplored.Chapter three analyzes the narrative method of Songshu to show thecharacteristics of the book in describing the characters and recording thehistorical events. Refering to former historical biography, Songshu usedmany kind of means to depict and shape historical character.Most kind ofcharacter in Songshu had his own personality, and the type of characterwas rich and colorful in Songshu.Although clues of events were quitetanglesome,some long biographies were rather elegant to organize the stories of characters and structure of narration,and the clues of narrationof these long biographies were very clear and fluent.Chapter four discusses the characteristics of historical theory inSongshu and the achievements it has made. Xu,Jun clealy had tendencyof pianlihua that was consistant to the vogue and style of literaturewriting in South Dynasty.A conclusion is drawn that Songshu, though a disputed historicalwork, has made great achievements in both literature and historiography.