Reading Sima Qian from Han to Song: The Father of History in Pre-Modern China

Author: 
Esther S. Klein

Publication Date: 
November 2018

Publisher:
Brill

Abstract:

In Father of Chinese History, Esther Klein explores the life and work of the great Han dynasty historian Sima Qian as seen by readers from the Han to the Song dynasties. Today Sima Qian is viewed as both a tragic hero and a literary genius. Premodern responses to him were more equivocal: the complex personal emotions he expressed prompted readers to worry about whether his work as a historian was morally or politically acceptable. Klein demonstrates how controversies over the value and meaning of Sima Qian’s work are intimately bound up with larger questions: How should history be written? What role does individual experience and self-expression play within that process? By what standards can the historian’s choices be judged?

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Structure of the Book
Historians, Lineages, and Confucian Scholars: Good Problems in Translation

Part 1: Contextualization

1 A Record of Doubts and Difficulties
Overview
Sources and Attribution
Who is the Honorable Senior Historian?
Autobiography and Authenticity
Chu Shaosun: A Third Author?
Extreme Textual Damage and Loss
A Conclusion Leading Onward
2 Sima Qian’s Place in the Textual World
Aspects of Self-Description
Early Views of the Shiji
The New Historical Tradition
Sima Qian in the Realm of Literary Prose





Part 2: Autobiographical Readings

3 Subtle Writing and Piercing Satire
Sources for Sima Qian’s Biography
Early Autobiographical Readings
Six Dynasties Developments
Autobiographical Readings in the Tang
4 Creating and Critiquing a Sima Qian Romance
A Reversal of Verdicts
Su Shi’s Gentlemen and the Shiji
Blaming Emperor Wu
Backlash: Three Southern Song Critiques

Part 3: Reading Truth in the Shiji

5 A “True Record”
On the Term “True Record”
Issues of Historical Truth in the Shiji: Early Views
Wang Chong and “Real Events” in the Shiji
Against “Defamatory Text” Readings
Dangers of “Straight Writing” in the Tang
Song Dynasty Developments
6 Finding Truths in the Shiji’s Form
The Overall Form of the Shiji
Intention and Invention in the Shiji’s Five Sections

Conclusion