Sima Qian's Scene Depiction And His Dramatic Narration Of History

The historical narration of Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) displays "dramatic" characteristic which is full of imaginations upon the history. This MA dissertation holds that such characteristic is mostly determined through Sima Qian's understanding and arrangement of the historical figures, events and literature. There is a unique and macroscopic strategy existing in his narration, which was achieved in the course of his close observation toward the vicissitudes of several dynasties. By adopting this strategy, he depicted the human action driven by the power of interest, and turned this power into the theme of his work, exploring humanity through his in-depth historical narration of people's combat for interest. The strategy also helped to shape Sima Qian's point of view in narration and style in textual layout. Carefully following his strategy, he edited source material, set plots of the story and developed the central theme legibly through the portraying and arrangement of the scenes, making his historical narration dramatic and real.The first chapter of this dissertation deals with Sima Qian's "macroscopic strategy", "central theme", and "narrating strategy" (by which he built a scene to recreate the historic events and to explore the humanity), and makes a conclusion on the basis established by the dramatic narration of Shiji. Chapter two will further discuss how Sima Qian developed his "central theme" by constructing his historical scenes based on his understanding of history and humanity. Chapter three explores Sima Qian's dramatic rhetoric device in constructing the scenes through close reading and comparison of the text.