A Study Of Wang Ruoxu’s Historical Criticism

Wang Ruoxu is a famous Confucian scholar,literary theorist and historian in China.He has a strict attitude towards academic research and is good at textualism.He dares to criticize the authority and classical philosophy.His historical criticism covers a wide range,including“Zuo’s Spring and Autumn Annals” “Historical records”“History of the Han Dynasty”“The History of the Three Kingdoms”“The new tang book”“Book of Tang”“History As A Mirror”“Comments on Works of History”and many other historical works.Jin Dynasty people compared him with Liu zhiji,he inherited and developed Liu’s historical thought,combined with his opinions,gradually formed his unique theory in the compilation of history books and history,in the academic field of the time,and others are very different,reflecting his unique historical theory,historical view.This paper mainly introduces and analyzes Wang’s historical criticism thoughts from four aspects.The first part introduces the historical background of the Jin Dynasty and the life of Wang,puts Wang into the background of the Jin Dynasty from prosperity to decline and finally extinction,and analyzes the formation and change of his thoughts based on his experience.The second part is the introduction and analysis of Wang’s thoughts on historical compilation,based on the compilation of relevant historical materials in the Hunan Yilaoji,sorting out Wang’s standards and requirements in historical writing,as well as his views on historical law,historical righteousness and historical writings.The third part,based on the many historians criticized in the Hunan Yilaoji,demonstrates what he considers to be the qualities of a historian.The fourth part combines the development of historical thoughts in the Song and Jin Dynasties,and expounds that Wang was deeply influenced by Neo-Confucianism in the Northern Song Dynasty.Although there are elements of Neo-Confucianism in his historical criticism,it is different from the tendency of the grandiosity of Neo-Confucianism in the Song Dynasty.He absorbed and digestizedthe Confucian thoughts of the Han and Song Dynasties,presenting his unique academic thoughtsWang Ruoxu was an erudite and brilliant scholar who made great achievements in many fields.His works and thoughts are of great help to our study of historiography in the Jin Dynasty,Records of the Grand Historian and Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Jin Dynasties.Wang’s position in historiography should not be ignored,and the study of his historiography criticism is still of reference significance to the field of historiography today.