Reading the Records of the Grand Historian

Author: Wang Ranran
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Records of the Grand Historian, which was once praised by Mr. Lu Xun as "the peerless song of historians, an unrhymed Laozi." The first part highly evaluates the historical value of Records of the Grand Historian, while the second part highly praises its literary value, providing a rather fair assessment of the work. Based on the San Zhu edition of Records of the Grand Historian published by Zhonghua Book Company, twenty chapters are selected for detailed annotations to assist students in original text reading. The "Introduction" section summarizes the main content of these twelve chapters, followed by four parts after each chapter: "Cultural Expansion," "Literary Links," "Collective Reviews," and "Reflections and Discussions." These sections compare and integrate multiple chapters of Records of the Grand Historian, synthesize them, and connect them with other works and statements to outline certain thematic topics, combining original text reading with systematic and research-based learning. Among them, "Table Preface" and The Balance of Wealth are arranged with only "Introduction" and "Collective Reviews" due to their special formats. Additionally, The Biographies of Scholars and The Biography of the Xiongnu hold significant cultural historical importance, so in this textbook, their "Literary Links" only include "Related Literary Allusions" and "Famous Literary Works Related to Later Generations," without "Literary Analysis." The "Literary Analysis" in this textbook does not engage in vague or general character analysis, plot analysis, or language analysis. Instead, it references previous literary critiques to genuinely point out the unique literary features of each chapter, avoiding a comprehensive approach and striving to use specific examples to inspire broader understanding, guiding students to think by analogy.