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Critical Essay by William H. Nienhauser, Jr.
SOURCE: Nienhauser, Jr., William H. “Tales of the Chancellor(s): The Grand Scribe's Unfinished Business.” Chinese Literature 25 (December 2003): 99-117.
In the following essay, Nienhauser examines some structural problems in chapter 96 of the Shih chi.
The Problems
Be kind to your reader.1 This was one of the basic rules on writing we learned in school. Since the primary reader for this offering is my former coeditor, Robert Earl Hegel, I should have been kinder had I chosen a more purely literary topic. I can envision Bob's reaction when he sees this piece: “the Shih chi again?” Bob (and perhaps other readers of this issue) can take some encouragement in the fact that this ninety-sixth chapter of the Shih chi, “Chang Ch'eng-hsiang [Ts'ang] lieh-chuan” (The Memoir on Chancellor Chang [Ts'ang]), is filled with anecdotes that are as literary as any found in the various collections of such material in the centuries following...
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This section contains 9,213 words (approx. 31 pages at 300 words per page) |
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