The Historical Records and the Zizhi Tongjian can also be compared with each other, and the ancient literature view is obviously different from the first two books here.
First of all, the ancient literature view, this book is a literary anthology, selecting the literary masterpieces of the past generations to be brought together to provide a model for the literati who wanted to write good articles in ancient times, similar to the role of essay selection. People who have read the ancient literature and view of the ancient text know that almost all the texts in the current middle school textbooks in our country are based on the ancient text, so when you want to go to the ancient text, you will find that most of the articles should have been learned and can already be memorized.
When selecting articles, the basic criterion is "thick in the past and thin in the present", and the articles of the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties account for a large part, and the articles in the historical records selected in the articles of the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties occupy a large part. In a sense, the ancient literature view focuses on the selection of prose, and at the same time does not abandon the text, although there is no Yuxin's Waijiangnanfu and Cao Zhi's Luoshen endowment, but there are well-known Wang Bo's Tengwang Ge Order and Li Hua's Hanging Ancient Battlefield Text.
After the compilation of the ancient literary view, it was sought after by modern people, and only two examples are given here. Ji Xianlin is very appreciative of the ancient literature and believes that it is very helpful for writing. The famous translator Yin Xuan (if the name is unfamiliar, you can search for it yourself, although the information found is also pitiful, it is best to read the brief introduction of Yin Xuan written by Judge He Fan) When translating the "Debate records of the American Constitutional Convention", in order to find the language of translation, let his students read ancient texts in the interval between his translations, it can be seen that a book has a lot of uses, as long as it is still looked at how to use.
Let's talk about a few historical records. The history of history is a book that everyone is familiar with and unfamiliar with, and it is said that it is familiar because there are many people who know this book, and it is said that it is strange because the number of people who have read through the history is very small according to the proportion of the population.
The book of historical records is not Sima Qian's original intention, the original name of the book is called "Taishi Gong", some people say that it is called "Taishi Gongshu", the former is closer to the naming method of books in the Two Han Dynasties and the Pre-Qin Period.
The history is a work co-authored by Sima Qian and his father Sima Tan, and it is a work that his father made sure to complete when he was dying. In the Taishi Gong Self-Prologue, Sima Qian states that he wrote the book to inherit Confucius's ideas of Spring and Autumn and to deny ancient and modern figures.
There are five examples of the history itself: the Benji, the Table, the Book, the Shijia, and the Chronicle. These several styles were not created by Sima Qian himself, but were inherited and combined in the pre-Qin classics. This chronicle describes the rulers of the world, so Xiang Yu and Lü Hou can make an exception; the shijia is a prince or a figure with a great role in key history, so Although Chen Sheng is a commoner, he has been affirmed by Sima Qian, and Sima Qian, in order to commend the superiority of Confucianism over other doctrines, directly promoted Confucius to the rank of shijia, while the other old Zhuang Shenhan are in the biography; the lichuan is not for the prince Wang Sun Shu stele, but records those who have gained great fame in history and passed on to future generations with personality charm. But they are incompatible with mainstream society, such as rangers, such as assassins, such as shangjia. Therefore, the history of history is a panoramic depiction of political, economic, social systems, and cultural thoughts, and if it is only the story of the success and defeat of the king, it will make the history a lot more eclipsed.
It is said that Originally Sima Tan wrote the history of history from Yao, but Sima Qian changed it to the Yellow Emperor, what is the difference between the Yellow Emperor and Yao? The determination of the yellow emperor's status relied on force, so Sima Qian recognized the importance of force early on, but he was extremely rejective of simple violence, so he would write the story of Wu Taibo's abdication at the beginning of the family.
Finally, let's talk about Zizhi Tongjian. Although Sima Guang and Sima Qian were both great historians, and Zizhi Tongjian and Shi Ji were even called the Double Wall of Historiography, from my personal point of view, I think that Zizhi Tongjian is not as great as Shi Ji, and Zizhi Tongjian can be seen from the name that it was written for the monarchy to rule the country, and in his book it is bound to obey the main line of governing the country, drowning out those characters and events that are incompatible with the society at that time.
But Zizhi Tongjian also has its greatness, he provides a template for us to quickly understand the main axis of Chinese history, and because although this book is from the hands of many people, the final draft was Sima Guang himself, and also avoids the contradictions in the thinking of many people before and after the revision. When reading the Zizhi Tongjian, with Wang Fuzhi's "Reading the Tongjian Theory", the understanding will be more profound.