Chunqiu, The "guliang Interpretation Of Comparative Study

Among the Confucian classics, 《The Spring and Autumn Annals 》 holds a special place. It does not contain any inherent deeper meaning, but rather is a record of historical events. However, scholars throughout the ages have postulated their theories on its meaning through interpretation of it three main annotations . This has been the foundation of 《The Spring and Autumn Annals 》 studies for years. In contrast with Zuo's interpretation of 《The Spring and Autumn Annals》 which focuses on interpretation of the events themselves, Gong Yang and Gu Liang's annotations focus more on the interpretation of the significance of the events. Both ways have their respective attributes and have been thoroughly studied by scholars. The latter two annotations ace studied frequently owing to the similarity of the way they were taught and passed on, their close times of creation, their similarity of structure and even of their explanations themselves. But at the same time, they are usually studied individually and not comparatively; they are also studied for their philosophical meanings and not their annotative techniques. Therefore this paper has chosen to carefully compare, contrast, and analyze the specific annotative characteristics of Gong Yang and Gu Liang's 《Spring and Autumn Annals》 .This paper is divided into six parts: the first part is the introduction. It briefly introduces the authors and circulation of Gong Yang and Gu Liang's Annotations. Furthermore it discusses the study of all three annotations throughout the dynasties. This is to provide a historical perspective for the comparison later on in the paper.The second part is a comparative analysis of their methods of annotating words, mainly in terms of definitions and phonetics. The conclusion is that both annotations are quite adept at defining words while lacking in their explanation of their phonetics.The third part is a comparative analysis of their methods of interpreting whole sentences. Both annotations focus on using their explanations to compliment and expound on the meaning of the original text.Through the careful comparison and analysis of these two points, we find that Gong Yang defines words in a very technical annotative style, and interprets the literal meaning of the sentences. Gu Liang on the other hand emphasizes clarity, simplicity, and terseness in his annotations.The fourth part is a comparative analysis of their respective writing styles. They both put special attention on rhetorical and semantic techniques.The fifth part introduces the overall characteristics and differences in their annotative styles, mainly comparing certain regularities and patterns that appear in their works.Part six is the conclusion. The end lists all reference material.