A patterned past : form and thought in early Chinese historiography

Author / Creator

Schaberg, David, 1964-

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Summary

"In this comprehensive study of the rhetoric, narrative patterns, aesthetics, and intellectual content of the Zuozhuan and Guoyu, David Schaberg reads these two collections of historical anecdotes ...

"In this comprehensive study of the rhetoric, narrative patterns, aesthetics, and intellectual content of the Zuozhuan and Guoyu, David Schaberg reads these two collections of historical anecdotes as traces of a historiographical practice that flourished around the fourth century B.C.E. among groups that we now label "Confucian." Since the Han dynasty, the Zuozhuan has been considered a classic, an accurate account of the period it covers, and an expansion and explanation of the terse entries in the Spring and Autumn Annals. Because of the Guoyu's similarities to the Zuozhuan, it has shared in this prestige. Schaberg, in contrast, contends that the coherent view of early China found in these texts is an effect of their origins and the habits of reading they impose. The political and ethical attitudes dominating these texts suggest that they originated in circles associated with the courts of the day but outside the direct control of rulers. The narratives are so constructed as to demonstrate the truth and indeed the naturalness of these attitudes. Their dominant perspective is that of officials rather than rulers, and the anecdotes represent the efforts of a group of officials and ministers to argue for a moralizing interpretation of the events of Zhou history and for their own value as skilled interpreters of events and advisors to the rulers of the day."--BOOK JACKET.

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