劉知幾의 敍事論 ─『史通』의 周邊

The Narrative Theory of Liu Zhiji ─ A Study in and arround the 『Shitong』

For the appearance of 'historical narrative discourse' after the Tang that legitimized it s peculiar authority as science by constructing a scientific and substantial methodology in a technical sense, the transition of the subject of action of narrating from hereditary 'historians (shiguan[史官])' to 'literati ' (shidafu[士大夫] or wenren [文人]) can be regarded as one the most important factors. In particular, the Confucian realism with which all the members of 'literati ' were obsessed had caused at least two great changes in terms of the traditional Chinese conception of narrative discourse. First, in the light of narrative methodology, the conception of "real recording and direct writing (shilu zhishu[實錄直書])" emphasized objectivity, and the result was the complete extinction of religious sanctity that had permeated shiguan[史官]'s works. Now religious sanctity was substituted by Confucian feudalistic ethics, especially the orthodoxy of the dynasty which gradually become influential since the period when Sima Qian[司馬遷] lived acquired the supreme authority. The idea of so-called 'official history (zhengshi[正史])' was conceived under these situations. Second, as the Confucian idea of writing wenzhang which was extended through East Han and Six Dynasties (Liuchao[六朝]) strengthened its public quality as an important method for transmitting the Way (Tao[道]), the 'literati,' its adherents interwove the action of narrating shadowed by 'wenzhang.' We can observe the clue of this change from Liu Xie[劉], who was exemplified by the Shitong[史通] written by Liu Zhiji[劉知幾] in the Tang dynasty. As a representative of the historians in this period, Liu Zhiji put a great emphasis on objectivity based on the actual facts which properly signified the meaning of narrative introduced by Sima Qian, by which he substantialized the concept of 'historical narrative discourse' that excluded all forms of fiction or the subjective and self-conscious interpretation of a narrator himself. Needless to say, his differentiation was also parallel to his endeavor to set the boundary of the action of narrating within the category of 'wenzhang ' to which he assigned the noblest authority. On the other hand, this limited substantiation means that some narrative forms lost their proper positions, if their quality was inconsistent with the quality required by 'wenzhang ' such as objectivity or the orthodoxy of dynasty. For example, the 'zhiguai[志怪]' and 'chuanqi[傳奇]'─the former was searching for some clues to the possibility of a new form of narrative, and the latter made great progress in a technical aspect by a few writers in the Tang dynasty─could not be qualified as an officially authorized form of narrative. Liu Zhiji instead intended to adopt many narrative forms and fit them into the realm of 'historical narrative discourse' by establishing a subcategory of 'miscellaneous narrative(zashu [雜述])' rather than that of 'zhengshi,' and one of the most important factors that could verify it s value was the social effect commonly called 'cultivation (jiaohua[敎化]).' Our observation on Liu Zhiji' s thoughts of narratives shows that never did he intend to be a leading theorist of literary fiction, but it exposes that he did play his proper role as a member of the Confucian 'literati' group. But his differentiation of some miscellaneous narratives that can be embraced in the category of 'wenzhang ' from the other unuseful fictions, in a sense, inspired the real theorist s of literary fiction who began to come to the front in late Ming and early Qing dynasties. And the most important motivation that prompted them to build some new theories of literary fiction was their quite different idea of writing from that of the old 'literati' group including Liu Zhiji.