A Critical Reading of the Multi-layered Reception of the Past: Historiographical Standards of Wang Ruoxu’s Approach to the Shiji.
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Speaker: Ms LIU Yangruxin 劉陽汝鑫 (SOAS): 589746@soas.ac.uk
As my PhD project investigates readings of the Shiji 史記 by Song scholars, this paper branches out to focus on Wang Ruoxu 王若虛 (1174-1243) and his critical statements on both the Shiji and Song scholars’ readings of it. Close comparison between the Shiji and its sources (e.g. Shangshu 尚書, Zuozhuan 左傳, etc.) provides evidence for an investigation into the underlying standards of Wang Ruoxu’s criticism towards the Shiji and its presumed author Sima Qian 司馬遷 (145 or 135-90 BC).
Whereas Chinese and Western scholarship on Wang Ruoxu tends to focus on his stylistic and proto-grammatical comments on the language (mainly function words, or xuzi 虛字) and narrative style encountered in the Shiji , Hok-lam Chan, in his study The Historiography of the Chin Dynasty: Three Studies on Jin shi 金史, Yuan Haowen's 元好問 (1190-1257) Zhengzhou ji 中州集 and Liu Qi’s 劉祁 (1203-1259) Guiqian zhi 歸潛志, has laid out a research path for further investigations not only on general historiography but also on the reception history of the Shiji . In continuation of Chan’s attempt to shed fresh light on Jin historiography, this paper aims at a case study of Wang Ruoxu’s comments on (perceived) factual inaccuracies, inconsistencies and anachronisms in the Shiji , its sources, and relevant Song scholarship.