| The completion of Guo Yu is a cumulative process,and the question of its nature has been debated for a long time.The most direct manifestation of the debate in bibliography is the classification of Guo Yu.Compared with the stability and unification of the classification of Guo Yu from Han Dynasty to Song Dynasty,the classification shift of Guo Yu from Confucian classics to history in the Ming dynasty,especially during the Wanli period,is more exceptional.The study of the classification shift of Guo Yu in this period can provide a more comprehensive discussion of the nature of Guo Yu.The study of this field relies on primary sources such as the Ming Dynasty official and private collection catalogs and the writings of book collectors.The analysis of collection catalogs is one of the important methods for studying ancient Chinese books.Through the analysis of catalogs,a history of ideas and reception can be sketched out.Therefore,in this study,focusing on collection catalogs during the Wanli period of Ming Dynasty,the Ming scholars’ understanding of the nature and classification of Guo Yu was investigated.The paper is divided into four parts.The first part outlines the classification of the Guo Yu from the Han to the Song and Yuan dynasties.It discusses the nature of the Guo Yu and the origin and development of its classification.In the second chapter,the classification and cataloging of the Guo Yu in the Ming dynasty are analyzed,with the Wanli period serving as a dividing point.The first section examines the bibliography background of the Guo Yu classification change by comparing the nature,recorded content,and classification methods of Ming dynasty’s book catalog to those of previous dynasties.The second and third sections present a table comparing the classification of Guo Yu before and after the Wanli period,revealing that it transitioned from the classics to the histories.It was generally agreed by contemporaries that Guo Yu was a historical book.The third chapter analyzes the shift in the Guo Yu from classics to histories,with the first section delving into the underlying ideological reasons.An analysis of the Guo Yu itself reveals that its disconnection from the Chun Qiu weakened its status as a classic text and enabled it to transition from the category of classics to other categories.Through an analysis of the literary and ideological field of the Ming dynasty,the influence of the view of classics and histories of Wang Yangming’s Philosophy of the Mind,the trend of using history to understand the world,the emphasis on history,and the Shi Tong theory of historiography,all contributed to the flourishing of historiography during the Wanli period.This flourishing of historiography was an external driving force for the transition of the Guo Yu from classics to histories.The second section delves into the specific reasons for the Guo Yu’s reclassification in the five book catalogs.Each catalog is examined separately,with the Bibliography of the Imperial Palace Library influenced by the compiler’s ideology of “practical knowledge of managing state affairs”,the Catalog of the Xingren Bureau’s Reproduction of Books influenced by the nature of library organization in the classification of Guo Yu,the Bibliography of Zhao Dingyu and the Bibliography of the Mai Wang reflecting familial inheritance and individualized differences in the ideology of “practical knowledge of managing state affairs” in their classification of Guo Yu,and the Bibliography of Hong Yulou representing the subjective judgment and innovative book classification of a collector.In the third section,the classification view of “establishing categories based on meaning” in traditional bibliography is used as a basis for analyzing the external factors that led to the frequent changes in the classification of the Guo Yu in the histories catalog.The fourth chapter focuses on the impact of the Guo Yu’reclassification on the bibliography of the Qing dynasty.The influence is reflected in two aspects: the historical theory of Qing dynasty and the view of miscellaneous historical literature. |
