Sima Qian embodied his historical narration in literary style and his profound view of historical philosophy in vivid artistic images. In his description of history in literary style, Sima showed his concern mainly with men, emphasizing men’s role in social movements. In the narration of biographies in The Records of the Historian, he consciously introduced the relationship between “a thorough understanding of changes in the past and present” and “predicting the fall in the boom by exploring the origin and examining the subtlety”. In expressing his idea of changes, Sima absorbed Confucian idea of form and content. He regarded The Six Classics as the supreme models to follow based on two considerations: The Six Classics provided the ideological principles for his writing of The Records of the Historian, and then the classics set up the supreme models for literary narration. Moreover, the classics served as the principles for Sima to write biographies for the many characters and standards to judge merits and demerits. Sima Qian’s new arrangement of history greatly changed the old structure of history in the preQin days. The change lay in his practice of showing the spiritual features of the characters and noticing their values in history in vivid language and literary style by selecting typical events and typical details so as to preserve the truthfulness of historical narration.

Sima Qian; The Records of the Historian; Characteristic of Literature; historical philosophy