Study Sima Qian Literature View From "Historical Records"

The antiquity literature is the source of the whole Chinese literature development, which contains two literature development periods, that is Pre-Qin and Qin-Han. In the first period, it can be said generally that the literary development characteristic expressed by Pre-Qin literature is a rudimentary, chaotic and non-independent literary state. Though literature appears and gets development in this period, it wasn't pure. For prose field, history and psychology are not divided.In this humanities and literature mixed, literature development period, Chinese literati's understanding and comprehending literature, namely literary concept in ancient China, shows broad, undisciplined and great inclusive.(For generations, this inclusive literary concept greatly influences Si Maqian's Historical Records creation.) By Han dynasty, literature develops gradually, that is the second literature development period-Qin-Han period, when literature develops further. However, because of Pre-Qin literary concept's influence and ages limitation, literary concept in this period is still rather ambiguous. It is noteworthy that during the whole Chinese literary concept developing process, He proposes that Chinese literary concept's development is divided roughly into three stages, of which the gradual progression period is from Pre-Qin to Wei jin northern and southern dynasties. If we make a subdivision, it is again divided into three stages:Zhou Qin, Han dynasty and Wei jin northern and southern dynasties.), Han literature not only summarizes and develops Pre-Qin literary concept, but also is a important period in the concept of literature becoming right for the later of Northern and Southern Dynasties period, So literary concept of this period isn't so broad as that of Pre-Qin and pure as that of Wei jin northern and southern dynasties, thus this period is a transition period and its literary concept lies between ambiguous state and pure state. Just as Hu Shi's evolutionary literary viewpoint, because Si Maqian is a writer of Western Han period, his literary concept has this period characteristic and limitation, so does his literary work historical records. Historical Records has a feature which contains historical and literariness that is is the best proof.Historical Records contains historical and literariness which displays mainly:First, it records more than three thousand years'history, from Yellow Emperor times in Chinese ancient times legend to the first year of Emperor Han Wu Yuan Shou (122 BC)。Sima Qian by the spirit of "Study occasion of Heaven,from past to present changes, into one of the words " to write history, makes Historical Records to be the first national general history biography, which is its historical characteristic universally accepted by academic circles; Second, Sima Qian's creation of "Historical Records" to people as the center of the biography body, makes historical narration transform from event-centered to figure-centered, which opens a broad path for describing personages, but also creates a new literary genre in the literary field. This transformation decides that the main part of Historical Records describes personages; Whereas literature is human science and describes personages as well, thus Historical Records has intersection and identities with literature in content and object. Furthermore, Si Maqian paid attention to literary art in particularly when building characters'image, which also endows Historical Records literariness.Standing on contemporary era basic point, combining Chinese and western literary theory, guided by modern literary concept, this paper shows the development of literary concept from Pre-Qin to Western Han dynasty from study, the change of Literature itself in order to making research on the literariness of Historical Records and summarizing knowledge and valuable opinions advanced by predecessors in its literature research achievement aspect, then explains Si Maqian's specific literary concept with the influence of Pre-Qin literary concept through the Literary Features of Qu Yuan and Jia Sheng Biography and Sima Xiangru Biography...