Construction Method Of The Historical Facts In Wangchong's Lunheng

Lunheng was published in the period of the most popular theory which is called chenwei.Compared with other classic works of Confucianism,Lunheng has its own peculiarity and profound criticalness.Wangchong,as a ideologist with materialistic thinking in the feudal society,he expressed his thinking on the world and life,the nature and human relations in his book.While reading Lunheng,historical facts are mentioned in his argumentation.To construct historical facts of pre-Qin period,Wangchong used the special way which was based on the experience from learning the spirit of historiography in the Eastern Han Dynasty and his own theories.This thesis probes into Wangchong's logic expression through analyzing his special way of constructing historical facts,starting with facts of pre-Qin period.The introduction part mainly introduces the historical background of Lunheng,especially focuses on academic atmosphere and Wangchong's personal factors.In addition,it states the research history and status of this topic,and the purpose and methods of research in this thesis.The first chapter illustrates Wangchong's concepts of history and the historical background of his construction of history.In this thesis,the author tries to state that under the influence of two kinds of historical atmosphere,Wangchong comprehensively showed reality and practical use of history,which showed progressive historical concepts.This process is illustrated from three aspects——Wangchong's thoughts on historical facts,his evaluation of historical figures,and his attitude towards historical process of development.Meanwhile,the reason why Wangchong could construct historical facts from various points of view is the duality of history according to the research.The second chapter is the strategic analysis of historical facts' construction in pre-Qin period in Lunheng.There are two aspects of Wangchong's strategies.One is content,which showed his own logic;the other is language expression.Wangchong's concept of language was related to his proposition of practical policy of literature,so language expression in Lunheng is straight forward.The third chapter is the diachronic analysis.In this chapter,the author selected several examples from the book to demonstrate it according to Wangchong's two different attitudes towards history.As Wangchong's main way of constructions,variation and reconstruction appeared mainly in the theory of fate determination,the relation between nature and human,taboos of ghosts,but it is not that definite.In the theory of fate determination,he also showed his acceptance of history in some parts,which showed his active attitudes towards the theory of human nature.But in the part of illustrating prosperous history of Han Dynasty,Wangchong quoted a number of recorded fortunate facts to criticize the absurd theory of Han is weaker than Zhou.This showed his acceptance and inheritance of history.The fourth chapter is the synchronic analysis.Wangchong used two methods——the same thing with different construction and different things with the same construction,to deal with historical facts from various points of view and make choices of the material.Besides,he used abundant ways of historical argumentation,which showed Wangchong's historical thinking patterns.The thesis reviews the historical background of Lunheng,which reveals the value of Wangchong's courage and rebelling spirit of challenging the feudal society.We can know through Liu Zhiji's Shitong and Liuxie's the Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons that Wangchong's influence on historical views and view of literary creation.