The "time" boundary between historical narration and literary narration
2022-03-09
Traditional historiography takes narration as the presentation and composition of history, and the original meaning of historical narration points to the history of narration. Blurring the boundary between historical narration and literary narration is the main way for the west to deconstruct narrative historiography. This understanding has not caused more feedback in the domestic historiography circle, which has an impact on domestic academic research. Narratology theory is an important medium. Equating historical narrative with literary narrative is based on the cognition of western historical texts. It is a current consideration without macro observation: it reverses the order of historical narrative and narrative, ignores the inclusive relationship between historical narrative and literary narrative, and ignores the strong sense of time in Chinese ancient texts. There is a clear "time" boundary between Chinese historical narration and literary narration. Historical narration is to narrate in a historical way To find the boundary between historical narration and literary narration, the first thing is how to locate historical narration. In short, that is: whether to regard historical narration as "Narration of historical events", or as narration in the way of history. The former is to observe the existing text from the current position with the later narrative theory, and the latter is to trace the writing tradition that narrative began with narrative history, so as to confirm the uniqueness of historical narrative in form and content. In ancient Chinese texts, historical narration is the most primitive form of narration. The concept of narration develops or expands on the basis of historical narration and cannot affect the fact that historical narration exists as an existing form. The Western understanding of historical narration is based on the modern narrative cognition, which determines its regulation of the concept of historical narration. In essence, it regards historical narration as "historical events", and focuses on the narration in the modern sense. Such discussion undoubtedly weakens the central position of history in the object of discussion, which also weakens the particularity of historical narration. One of the insurmountable obstacles in the cognition of historical narration in western academic circles is the sequential relationship between Narration and historical narration. The concept of narration is greater than historical narration, but there is no narrative practice that precedes historical narration. The relationship between historical narration and narration is similar to the relationship between history and history. Under the modern academic system, the category of the latter is greater than the former, but the former is earlier than the latter in the production time. Therefore, we must be careful to use the state of recording and interpretation in current history and the similarities and differences between truth and fiction in current narration to investigate the existing texts. This kind of investigation is especially not suitable for the Chinese historical texts cultivated in the historian culture and the academic tradition of telling without doing. Historian culture is an important carrier of early Chinese culture. According to the records of Lv's spring and Autumn Annals, China had a "Taishi" in the Xia Dynasty. Oracle bones and Oracle Inscriptions irrefutably showed the classification of historians in the Yin and Shang Dynasties, and works such as three rites showed the maturity of the historian system in the Zhou Dynasty. The developed historiographer culture has created a unique form of Chinese historical records, such as historical records, historical narration, historical reflection and interpretation, and also determines the connotation basis of Chinese historical narration with the truth of history as the core. Historical narration, that is, narration with historical methods, focuses on history. Chinese literary narration is derived from historical narration The proposition that "narration begins with the narration of history" not only has the self evidential logic that is connected with the meaning of history, but also reflects the actual existence of Chinese classic texts. Another due cognition of Chinese classical texts is that history is the content and literature is one of the methods, and these so-called literary methods contain the interpretation meaning under the influence of modern discipline division. In this regard, we can look at the time of historical narration and literary narration: Chinese literary narration is derived from historical narration and even chronicles. The use of the word "derivative" here is a basic explanation for the partial coincidence of historical narrative and literary narrative methods, and also to clarify the non subjectivity of literary meaning contained in historical narrative. Text is one of the carriers of historical narration, and the written text is also the foothold of this paper's discussion of historical narration. At this level, we will see that there is some overlap between the methods of historical narration and literary narration, but this overlap does not affect the independence of the methods of historical narration. First, there is a literary narrative system corresponding to historical narration in the early Chinese texts. In addition to the narrative poetry in the book of songs, we still emphasize the broader "poetry with historical pen", while the academic circles are more inclined to bring poetics into the category of literature, and historical narration is another independent existence. Second, in the text in the form of "prose", there is a clear sequential relationship between the methods of historical narration and literary narration in the production time. Some methods originally belonging to historical narration are used for reference by literature, and even the methods that reverse affect historical narration have nothing to do with the independence of "historical method". Third, to say the least, even if the method of historical narration is fully applicable in literary narration, it can not constitute a sufficient condition for historical narration to be equivalent to literary narration, because the method of literary narration obviously can not be fully applicable in historical narration. The non subjectivity of the meaning of historical narrative literature mainly points to the interpretation and acceptance of future generations in its literary meaning. It can be simply expressed as "we think it is literary" or "later it becomes literary", which is rooted in the differences in text cognition and the influence of literary works. "The sigh of the babbler" is a topic repeatedly mentioned when discussing the literary meaning of historical texts. For what the assassin of Zhao Dun said before he "touched the locust tree", commentators often question its authenticity with "psychological activities". In fact, this understanding only focuses on the "sigh" in the "sigh speaking" and ignores the "word", that is, it is clearly expressed. The door of Zhao's house has been opened, and Zhao Dun has "fully dressed and will face the Dynasty". Then it is normal for the Zhao family and others to get up and hear "the sigh of the babbler". If the locust touched by the babbler is the locust in the outer court of Jin linggong, its speech is more likely to be recorded. The authenticity of historical texts cannot be categorically denied because of cognitive differences. In addition, the acceptance of historical novels will also affect the judgment of the authenticity of historical texts. Including the literary expression of historical events, including the interpretation of history in literary works, as well as the synaesthesia brought about by similar events. Time consciousness determines the text boundary of two kinds of narration The fundamental reason for the different understanding of historical narration between China and the West lies in the differences between the observation objects. There was no pure narrative text in ancient China, such as the first four histories and Zuo Zhuan. For example, the text composition of Zuo Zhuan includes at least four forms: Interpretation of scriptures, recording of events, discussion of events and narration. On the one hand, the advantages of narration in text volume are not fully proportional to its historical value. On the other hand, the large number of dialogue in narration also ensures the objectivity of expression. As a part of the classic text, the existence environment of Chinese historical narration is historical. At the same time, the expression method of Chinese historical narration is also historical, with a strong sense of time and a broad time span. Chinese historical narrative attaches great importance to the time of events. For the historical writing of ancient China, according to yuzao, Yiwenzhi and other records, there are words and events. The preface to Zuo Zhuan summarizes that the method of recording events in the "history of Lu" is "the event is the day, the day is the month, the month is the time, and the time is the year", that is, what Liu Xie calls "connecting events through four seasons". In the spring and Autumn Annals, we can see that the division of recording words and events has been fully reflected, and the systematic recording method of "Lu Shi Ji" linking events with time has been broken through. In Zuo Zhuan, on the one hand, both words and things have been combined, and even things have been achieved through words. On the other hand, in addition to specific dates such as Ding Chou and Wu Wu, time expressions such as "the beginning of the year", "the son of Jin's heavy ears and the difficulty of it", "the age of... And so on" have been created. The time expression of Zuo Zhuan is inherited by the chronicles and narratives such as historical records and Hanshu, and the accuracy of time has generally leaped from "using things to tie the sun" to "using things to tie the year". The strong sense of time in Chinese historical writing is also confirmed by unearthed documents, such as bamboo chronicle and Tsinghua bamboo slips · chronology. We should pay attention to that these are two "complete" works. The time order established by Chinese historical narration ensures that the historical truth is objectively stated. It is the presentation of the difference between historical narration and literary narration in the text. The wide time span determines that Chinese historical narrative focuses on historical facts rather than historical significance. The continuity and comprehensiveness of events is another perspective to observe the clear boundary between Chinese historical narration and literary narration in time. The events in literary narration are generally continuous in time, or expressed as the continuity of the occurrence time of the event itself, or the continuity of shaping characters, or the continuity of conveying a certain meaning. Historical narratives are mostly composed of fragment events, and the characters rely on events, resulting in the "one sidedness" of the characters' images. For example, Zheng zhuanggong is "uneducated", "polite" and "unethical"; The event depends on time, which affects the comprehensiveness of the event. For example, to find a complete battle of Chibi, we need to observe multiple biographies of the annals of the Three Kingdoms. The linear narrative is a kind of historical narrative, which gives us more enlightenment. China's historical narrative text reflects the narrative method with history as the core. The narrative focuses on the meaning of things rather than people or events. The explicit time order ensures the uniqueness and independence of China's historical narrative. To find the boundary between Chinese historical narration and literary narration, we must jump out of the shackles of the thinking mode brought by the division of modern disciplines. Its realization path is to build a hierarchical system of the occurrence and development of history and literature from the text. Clarifying the boundary between historical narration and literary narration is not only the basis and premise of positioning the nature of classical texts, but also the significance of the concept of historical narration in China's academic discourse system, that is, academic increment. (outlook new era)
Edit：Yuanqi Tang Responsible editor：Xiao Yu
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