The Theory Of Historical Narrative Of Liu Zhiji In The Historical Critical Context

By organizing the theory of historical narrative in Shitong,this thesis systematically analyzes Liu Zhiji’s theory of historical narrative in the critical context in order to grasp his ideological logic and study his basic opinions and characteristics.This thesis takes the manifestation of history books,i.e.the genres of history books,and character expression of history books as the main contents,systematically researching Liu Zhiji’s theory of historical narrative by combining the two aspects of contents in order to analyze the purport,the methods,and the viewpoints of the theory.Liu Zhiji’s theory of historical narrative has its own ideological logic: the manifestation of the social and historical functions of historiography relies on the perfection of the history books.That is to say,the narrative,event and meaning of the history book ought to be an organic unification: the narrative ought to be concise and appropriate,the event ought to be authentic and complete,and the meaning ought to be normative and well-founded.The three elements take the event as core element,supplementing each other.If a history book is unable to attend every element at once,it will be fragmented and feeble.The narrative,which takes the genres and character expressions as its main manifestations,ought to serve the authentic,clear and complete narrative of the historical event,and ought to accord with the requirement and expression of the meaning of history books(including reason,logic and the ethical and moral values).Moreover,the narrative itself ought to follow the principle of conciseness.In consideration of the disadvantages of historiography caused by the occupation of literati and literary style in the historical field,Liu Zhiji thinks that the narrative,especially the character expression of history book should get rid of the flippancy and impetuosity and should take the narrative of the historical event as proper business.He even thinks that literati shouldn’t meddle historiography by discussing the selection and attainment of the official historians.These thoughts underline and preserve the regularity and the social and historical function of historiography.Chapter one first discourses the basic meaning of the character “wen” and“historical narrative”,and retrospects the history of the theory of historical narrative before the Tang dynasty.Based on this knowledge background,chapter one also combs the logic of Liu Zhiji’s historical criticism.Chapter two discourses Liu Zhiji’s understanding and theory about the genres of history books,including his theory of“six categories and two genres” and the reasons of their existence and abolition,his comments on the five styles of history writing characterized by the presentation of emperors and influential personalities,his judgments on historian’s commentary,prologue,titles,time range,arrangement,appellation and other contents that relate to the genres of history books.Chapter three analyzes Liu Zhiji’s theory of character expression of history books,including the important status of the narrative of history books,the standards of the narrative of history books,the shortcomings of the narrative of history books and the reason of their appearance,and the methods ofsolving these shortcomings from the perspective of the differences between historiography and literature.Chapter four discourses the purport,the methods,and the viewpoints of Liu Zhiji’s theory of historical narrative,and discusses the position of Liu Zhiji’s theory of historical narrative among the history of historical criticism.