| Predecessors carried on the comparisons between Shi Ji and Han Shu in the field of literature and the history, but they didn't make the detailed comparisons between these two history books' expositions and argumentations, words of praise and prefaces. Although the record of Shi Ji and Han Shu have many overlap places in the historical time, they have their own views to the same history events, from which we can find out Sima Qian and Bangu's respective idea in the thought and the literature. On the basis of the definition of the literary characteristic, the source and course and the style of Shi Ji and the Han Shu's expositions and argumentations, words of praise and prefaces, author carried on the comparison in the respect of the thought and the artistic achievement.Then he brought forward their similarities and differences.Different dynasties had different views about the literary style of expositions and argumentations, words of praise and prefaces. Besides indication author's meaning, "prefaces" also contained 'the grading priority'. 'Biographical commentaries' was the author's special essays on history, the purpose of which is to discuss and solve the significant history issue. The source and course of expositions and argumentations, words of praise and prefaces may trace to "Collection of Ancient Texts", "Zuo Zhuan" and other pre-qin books on history. Shi Ji, written by Sima Qian, made this form of historical essay stereotype. The "words of appraise" of Ban Gu''s Han Shu inherited the tradition of "Shi Ji ", but Fan Ye in South Dynasty took much think of writing of history essay and made it to be a characteristic of "History of Eastern Han ". Emperor Taitsung of Tang Li Shimin composed partial historical treatises personally of "History of Jin ". By the way of writing personally and borrowing from other historians in previous dynasties, the number of historical treatise of 'Zi Zhi Tong Jian' written by Song Dynasty Sima Guang, has reached 209. Moreover, many classical literatures have themodel of historical essay in the literature style. Considering the predecessor's comprehensive elaboration, author summarized Shi Ji and Han Shu's expositions and argumentations, words of praise and prefaces as following: One, to expound a aim;Two, to lift the incident or one by example of other;Three, to pick the anecdote outside the official story to make up its leak;Four, to expound mutually and contrast purport and style of a literary work;Five, to test various what they saw and heard. In Han Shu's expositions and argumentations, words of praise and prefaces, the fifth above hadn't been talked about.The thought comparison included the comparisons in Way of Heaven, conception of history, academic thought and others. (1) In the respect of Way of Heaven, Sima Qian displayed his thoughts obviously, believing in human ability and casting suspicion about Heaven, through inquiring into the relations between Human and Heaven. At the same time, he also has revealed certain thoughts about God's will and right of the crown because of the limitation of era and academic resource and course. Ban Gu's feudal legitimate thought was thicker than "Shi Ji ". He has publicized greatly idea that history occurs in cycles, theory of divine right of king, correspondence between man and heaven and other preaches. But in the concrete record, he also emphasized human ability in some way;(2) In the conception of history, Sima Qian believed the history developed and changed unceasingly, and this kind of development and change has the mark to follow. But the essential method to understand the development and change was to observe and research the past, the contemporary and to foresee the future, and to study the reason of thriving and prosperous and declination. He advocated to discover the causal relations between historical personage and the world's development to find out the intrinsic cause of replacement of one dynasty by another. Bang Gu advocated to have a thorough understanding of Five Classic to write history. That is to say Ban Gu not only tried to reflect the realism and change of Han Dynasty as possible as he could;but also persisted stubbornly in the theory of organic whole of three and five virtue going round and round when he studied the entire history;( 3 ) Ontheir academic thought, Sima Qian did not refuse to talk about himself to be the single opinion in his Preface. His all-inclusion came from the compatibility of Taoism and the confluence of various Confucian doctrines. Ban Gu inclined to be a pure Confucian. He criticized when it was thought not accordance with the say of Kong Zi, even to Sima Qian. Ban Gu was neutrality regarding Taoism. But he was completely negative to the knight-errant.On the artistic achievement ,(1) To the application of emotion, Sima Qian excelled in singing. He was always full of the emotions and had the intense lyricism when to do the character appraisals. That kind of artistic style increased the work's esthetic sense and the artistic attraction. Ban Gu inherited more in Confucian doctrine of the mean as a traditional Confucianism. He often paid great attention to the objective rationality, straight and pure discreet in his most words of praise. (2)In the way of expression, Sima Qian took much attention to the article's winding relapse, unconstrained of the style, and methodical variation. The commonly used method by Sima Qian was narration interspersed with comments. Ban Gu inherited the merit of Sima Qian in a way, and understood Sima Qian's charm deeply. He either expounded mutually to makes up the book's bleakness, either exercised the integrated technique to sum-up the related historical evidence, either made the finishing point to promulgate the theme, and so on. (3) In the application of language, Sima Qian's language was either elegant, only pursuing the literary talent sedulously, nor strange weird, going all out with ostentation and extravagance, but natural levelly , neat and strict. He also managed lots of wise words and folk sayings. However, Ban Gw's language was elegant, concise, and gradually to be antithesis. In general, Han Shu often wrote in the ancient Chinese characters, but 572/ Ji most in unauthorized characters. |
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