On The Value Of The Said Court Documents

Liu Xiang whose original name is Liu Gengsheng, also called Liu Zizheng, was born in the County Pei in Western Han Dynasty in ancient China. He is the fourth generation of grandsons of Liu Jiao, one of the young brothers of Liu Bang, Han Gaozu (The first emperor of Han Dynasty). He overgrew four generations: Zhao, Xuan, Yuan and Cheng in Western Han Dynasty. In the face of the political chaos and anarchy without a central royal rule, he kept expostulating. However, on the contrary, he suffered misfortunes because of the fatuity of the emperors. In Year Heping 3, the third year of the emperor Cheng (the 26th C. BC), Liuxiang was appointed to be the general secretary for proofing, recensing and collecting the royal library.It (Liu Xiang Jiaoshu) is an event in the academic history of Han Dynasty. It is one of the comparatively important recensing and collecting to those classical books since the pre-Qin dynasty. After selecting, Liu Xiang edited 67 articles in Xin Xu, Shuo Yuan, Lie Nv Chuan Song Tu. Shuo Yuan is more neat and integrated in the structure and arrangement, more accurate in classification, more definite in purpose than other two books and therefore can be regarded as his masterpiece. Shuo Yuan, obtaining extensively materials from the Zhou Dynasty, the Qin Dynasty, Jing and Zi to the miscellaneous books written by the people in the Han Dynasty. It is pointed out in the prologue of Shuo Yuan that the book is classified according to their categories and those articles are listed respectively by entries. It was made up from the classical literature of pre-dynasties, but was born in the demands of that time. Therefore, it is inevitably to be characteristic of preference Liu Xiang, which, to some extent, takes on the trace of Liu Xiang's personal writing no matter in the selecting of the articles, the alteration of historical materials, the embellishing of languages or the creativeness of the stylistic forms. Generally speaking, there are three aspects embodied in it: the thoughts and contents it consists of, the reservation of historical materials and the appearance of literal features. Compared with the same kind of books such as Xin xu, Lie Nv Zhuan and etc. , its form and content appears more mature.The essay endeavors to make a comprehensive evaluation on the book from the ways Liu Xiang edited materials, the criteria of accepting or rejecting those historical materials and the connotation within his choice, attempting to make some innovation and some breaking through.Parts of content of he book cannot be retrieved because of its long history of going round and various changes for dispersing and collecting. It is normal and inevitable. As a researcher, I have to give up some with regret and hope sincerely those problems remained up to now can be solved with the collecting of historical materials.