| Research Abstract |
When we compare the "Si-ji" with the "Zhan-gou-ce", we can easyly notice that,when Sima-qian wrote the history of the Warring States, he received a lot of historical materials from the forerunner documents of the "Zhan-gou-ce". But we must well wonder whether the basic qualities of those documents actuarly were historical ones.
Although the famous chapter of the "Zhan-gou-ce" were colsely related with the certain historicai incidents, but those chapters were presumed to be a rather late emergence in course of the formation of the "Zhan-gou-ce". The early stage of the tales in that book, I presume, were more simple in stracture and the persons, places and dates were in many cases not mentiond in those tales. So we can deduce that the fundamental quality of the "Zhan-guo-ce" was not historical one, but was closely connected with a sort of the oral performance. In this performance, performers not only displyed their skill in a little quibbling logic, but also appealed to the emotion of the auddiences in their beautiful eloquence. The latter element in those performances afterward flourished in the "fu" literature in Han period.
|
