Study On Hanshiwaizhuan

Hanshiwaizhuan(韩诗外传) is an important document rarely handed down from the early Han dynasty up to the present. The poems of the earlier three schools of the Qi, Lu, Han, Mao schools in the Han dynasty have already died out, except that the poems of the latter Mao school are handed down. Although one book of Han school named Hanshiwaizhuan is left, it is attained with little importance for long. On one hand, most people refuse to take it as a work elaborating The Book of Odes so that they just use the poems cited in it to amend the words or phrases in the Maoshi. On the other hand, it is rarely mentioned about the value in the academics and literature reserved and contained in it. In this thesis, it is thought that it is compiled in an unconsolidated style. With reference of The Book of Odes and history, the interesting, smooth and exquisite expressions come into being. While it is elaborating The Book of Odes spontaneously, many fresh ideas and views are also expressed. In many narrative articles, there are some delightful improvements in the refinement of the dialogue and the methods of characterization. It is a valuable sample to study the formation and maturity of the early novel.There are three parts in this thesis.The first section includes introduction, the author and edition of this book as well as the existing research. The author tries to originate this research and systemize the historical documents and the existing edition to make the target text clear. To make out the thought and the research fruit for the author himself, it gives an outline and general comment on the history and current situation.The second section is to appreciate the value of this book on literature from three aspects.Firstly, this book interprets the meaning of poems, that is to say,"Hanshiwaizhuan interprets poems". It can be found that it is for the need of that time that the writers explored Odes of Poems from the model and methods of the four schools that has left partly. The difference among the Gu (故), Xun (训), Shuo (说), Neizhuan(内传) and Waizhuan(外传) is not strict. Through the comparison between Neizhuan and Waizhuan, Hanshuo(《韩说》), Hangu(《韩故》), it is found that the main methods and perspective of biographical poems are to expound argument directly, to take some thing as an image to convey the intended meaning, to explain certain system as well as the relevant social knowledge, to elaborate the logic, to gather the related material functioning as an introduction to the social knowledge and the background information. A part of this book is to interpret the poems directly. Yet the method for interpreting is not limited to the literature. It can be found that the cultural content including literature is the material through which the poems are explained and studied. These mainly contribute to social order and self-cultivation, the pursuit of the ideal.Secondly, the art of narration can be seen from the style of the novel in this book. The first is the narrative element in it. Based on the essence of novel, one hundred and fifty-five narrative articles are left after screening. Researching on the narrative text and the embryonic form of novel, the author outlines the forms of story or novel from the simple stage to intact and mature stage. It also lays the cornerstone for narrative feature in the analysis of the novels in the early years. The second is about the concept of novel and the stylistic meaning of the novels in this book. We can't adopt the concept of the modern novels to evaluate the Chinese old-styled novels in its original period. The concept of the ancient novels is never a stylistic one limited in pure literature and art. Instead, it is one in sense of culture and stylistics. Not all elements of modern novel are essential to ancient novels. The story, characters and plot are the essential elements, therefore one could not just in praise of Fantasies and play down novels of anecdotes from someone's treatise and history when reading ancient novels. There are several theories on the origin of novel in the academic field. To be more specific, novels are said to be originated from baiguan(稗官), alchemist, myth or polyphyletic theory. However, all these theories seem to bring forth new ideas by straying away from the main stream. To the contrary, those disfavored historical legends are more concerned with the essence of the question.3.The author of the book thinks that Waizhuan is the beginning of novels of anecdotes. Many historical legends and stories are freed from someone's treatise(子), and have independent significance so that the stories are no longer for the purpose of reasoning. The comparison between Waizhuan and Shuoyuan(《说苑》), Xinxue(《新序》) and Shishuoxinyu(《世说新语》) further proves the point that Waizhuan has played a positive role in the formation of the novel, which can be found in the perspective of the stories in narrative sections, the connotation of the novel (the choice of material, false or truth relation, and the portray of the characters), and the edit format.Thirdly, the author researches this book's contribution and feature in the perspective of the history of prose. There are mainly two questions concerned—the classification of style and the characteristic of language. Compared with the common interpretation, this book is different in the following aspects—each chapter can be narrating or reasoning from the beginning to the end. Overall, every one is a beautiful prose, whose style of diction and content are different from the contemporary political comment of Jingshi School and narrative and pictorial prose which pays more attention to diction. In fact, this book marked the beginning of argumentative prose of the Knowledge School in Han dynasty. This thesis is not to comprehensively or commonly analyze this book's language and rhetoric, but to find an appropriate location for it in the various prose schools in Han dynasty, and evaluate the characteristic of language in the development tendency of prosaic language since Zhanguo dynasty particularly Han dynasty.The third section is to consider the value of Hanshiwaizhuan from the perspective of classical research and history of ideas. There are two parts. One part is that Hanshiwaizhuan has the value for making clear the meaning of the classical. It also has the process of the thought that is the body of six odes (shi, shu, yi, li, yue chun-qiu). It interprets the meaning of the body as soon as it dies for poems. Under the new situation it connects the academic groups with the meaning of classics of the Confucians. Then this means can it popularize and make fit the cultural meaning of manner and music in The Book of Odes for that time. Hanshiwaizhuan's new concept of moral, union of manners, laws and new effected explaining manners are done with the upper wish. The other part is that Hanshiwaizhuan has its site during the history of the thinking and cultural development in dynasties of Qin and Han. Han Ying the author of the book had contributed two aspects for the development of the Confucians in the early time of Han Dynasty. One is to broaden the space of thinking for the field of metaphysics of the Confucians. The other is to make clean and popularize the moral rules of the Confucians. The first side shows another part besides the mainly academic thought that is form experience. The later mends the lack of mass and practical effort of Dong Zhongshu and the other men.