A Study Of Ideas Of Su Zhe’s Ancient History

The reconstruction of Chinese cultures,as well as a profound understanding of Chinese cultural traditions,is a major foundation for Chinese cultures to get known broadly.Considering that the historiography of the Song Dynasty was an extremely glorious period in the history of Chinese historiography,the case study of Su Zhe’s writing practice of ancient history is part of the investigation of the Chinese cultural spirit.The Confucianism Revival in the Northern Song Dynasty became deepening on the basis of its middle Tang origin,along with the awakening subject consciousness of literati and officialdom.In the middle North Song,after the period of Ouyang Xiu(欧阳修),some schools came into being originating from Confucianism.Historical study flourished owing to the idea of historical science applications on reality.And Confucianism faced challenges from Buddhism and Taoism,thus requiring reform.Because of such background,new features could be found in historical research fields,among which Ancient History(《古史》)was an important work of the Shu School(蜀学),leading to this study.This essay is intended to discuss the thoughts and state of this work,throwing light to thoughts of Su Zhe(苏辙)and the Confucianism of middle and late period of the Northern Song Dynasty.There are 3 parts apart from the Preface and the additional discussion.The Preface introduces the era background,and shows the main criticisms and researches of Ancient History.Meanwhile it gives descriptions to study of Su Zhe’s literature and Confucian classics studies.Chapter 1 is divided into 3 parts,the first of which is concerned with the historical record of Su Zhe and the writing of Ancient History.Part2 explores the background of development of Confucianism and its influence,and the last part pays attention to paternal teaching and influence of this book.In Chapter 2,Ancient History’s political ideas are discussed,based on the idealizing of“Three Dynasties”and“Sacred Kings of the ancient times”;secondly,it discusses on the way Su Zhe compromised Confucianism with Taoism to explain his view of ancient history.And it can be thought of as the primary construction of Confucianism’s metaphysics.Chapter 3 analyzes Su Zhe’s attitude to morality.Su Zhe advocated officials’loyalty and the significance of earning the trust of monarch through his explanation of the concept of“Yi of a ruler and his ministers”(君臣之义).Thoughts of the book from a view of the table of contents are also discussed in the second part of this chapter,thus we can see the topic of self moral perfection.In the additional part,Chu Hsi and Huang Zhen’s criticisms are reviewed to discover the changes and discussions of Confucianism in the Song Dynasty.