History is a fertile soil, where our imagination and hope are buried, our happiness and sadness are growing, and it has become a treasure of historical drama creation. Since its birth, drama has been inextricably linked with history.

Usually, historians will feel unhappy about this, which seems to be "nature since ancient times." The popularity of new historical dramas has made historians even more angry. The earliest "Newly Edited Historical Plays" and "Joking about Qianlong" made the Chinese people feel refreshed, and historians were quite generous. "Prime Minister Liu" and "Kangxi's private visit" subsequently appeared, and a stone stirred up a thousand waves. Ji Yun (Xiaolan), as the protagonist of two historical dramas (romantic genius Ji Xiaolan and iron teeth and copper teeth Ji Xiaolan), rewrote the image of a famous scholar who was responsible for compiling Sikuquanshu in history, and aroused deep hatred from some historians.

It is followed by severe criticism and harsh demands on historical dramas, and even a tendency to get rid of them quickly. The accusations against historical dramas include: making things up at will, catering to low tastes, deviating from historical truth and blurring historical truth ... The requirements for historical dramas include: paying attention to both artistic truth and historical truth, realizing the unity of historical truth and artistic truth, so as to "reproduce history artistically" ... only "be loyal to history", "return to history" and admit "basic"

We should admit that there are some distortions in historical dramas, such as the story of Guan Gong beating Qin Qiong, Luo Cheng beating Xin, Zhang Fei killing Yue Fei, Song Kangxi dictionary and I sourdrang dowager. But when it comes to "deviating from the historical truth", "blurring the historical truth", "being loyal to history" and "returning to history", we have to ask: What is history? What is the truth of history? What is the truth of history? How do we know the truth of history, the truth of history? Does history itself contain artistry, that is, rhetoric and literariness (image, imagination and falsehood)? How to understand this rhetoric and artistry? In a word, is history true?

When talking about the relationship between history and historical drama, on the one hand, we recognize the relationship between them, on the other hand, we strictly distinguish between history and historical drama. We believe that history belongs to the category of social science and historical drama belongs to the field of artistic creation; It is believed that history embodies historical truth and historical drama embodies artistic truth; Therefore, history exists objectively, and historical drama is the product of artistic imagination. In fact, this distinction is unreliable. How did you know?

First of all, it seems that two different "histories" should be distinguished: one is the history as an objective person or thing, and the other is the history as a record of an objective person or thing; The former is objective and the latter is subjective. In English, the boundary between "the historical" (as the history of an objective person or event) and "the historical" (as the recorded history of an objective person or event) is very clear. The former refers to people or things of great significance in history, while the latter is the record or "reflection" of the former. For example, when talking about "ancient buildings", we must use "a historical building" instead of "a historical building"; When it comes to "historical drama", we must use "a historical drama" instead of "a historical drama"-the term "a historical drama" itself is contradictory.

As simple realists, we think that the relationship between the history of an objective person or thing and the history of an objective person or thing is the relationship between "being reflected" and "being reflected". This is good, but it is worth noting that from the epistemological point of view, we know the "reflected" through the "reflector", and only through the "reflector" can we know the "reflected", which is tantamount to conquering the "reflected" with the "reflector". Without the "reflected", we can't know, understand and grasp the "reflected". We only touch the historical records as objective people or things, but not as objective people or things. Even the "historic building" we see today has undergone several weathering and painting, which is quite different from the original and is no longer a pure ancient building. Although "the ancients were illuminated this month", today's moon is no longer the ancient moon. What about the moon, not to mention buildings?

We might as well call history as an objective person or event and history as a record of an objective person or event as historiography, so as to strictly distinguish the two. What is to be discussed here is: Is there an essential difference between historical compilation and historical drama? Is historical compilation only objective and not artistic?

Before answering this question, we must face a question: How many types does historical compilation include? As far as we know, historical compilation includes at least two types: one is empirical historical compilation, which pays attention to data, emphasizes argumentation, devotes itself to language clarity, meaning clarity and logical consistency, and takes itself as "science"; One is the historical compilation of narrative meaning, the so-called narrative historiography. Compared with the arrogance of "science", rhetoric and literariness are its origins, and it also frankly admits this and is proud of it. Historical compilation of empiricism is analytical rather than descriptive, and it cares about the environment rather than people, the continuity and causality of historical development, the transformation of "duration" and the change of huge social structure. Narrative historical compilation is descriptive, not analytical. It pays attention to people rather than the environment, and cares about people's emotions and destiny. The tradition of western historical compilation has always been narrative. However, since the end of 19, with the rise of positivism, the scientific tendency of history has become more and more serious. People are increasingly trying to turn historical compilation into a rigorous science, and even replace "event history" with "overall history" to explore the changes in the deep structure of history. Since then, historical works have begun to be full of charts and formulas. Even so, it is still difficult to cover up the traces of rhetoric and literature.

In this regard, Hayden? What hayden white said was very detailed and incisive. Hayden. In White's view, even empirical historical compilation can't hide its rhetoric and literariness, although it has been trying to get rid of its relationship with rhetoric and literariness for more than 1000 years. Apart from other things, it is a written discourse based on daily experience, and this alone is enough to determine its characteristics-rhetoric and literariness.

Metaphor is the core of rhetoric and literariness. Metaphor is an imaginary way of understanding and a cultural act of grasping this kind of thing under the hint of this kind of thing. Historical discourse reflects not logical relations, but metaphorical relations. Historical compilation contains artistic elements, so the metaphorical dimension of historical discourse can not be ignored. "A group of events into series, series into sequence, sequence into chronicle, chronicle into narrative works. In my opinion, these behaviors are more conducive to understanding visually than logically. In addition, I regard the relationship between the story of events and any form of argument that may be used to explain these events as a combination of logic-deduction and metaphor-rhetoric elements. In this way, on the one hand, it is the difference between historical discourse and scientific discourse, on the other hand, it is the similarity between historical works and literary works ... "(Hayden? White, Narrative and History of Poetry, China Academic,No. 17. See also Metahistory:/kloc-Historical Imagination of Europe in the 0/9th Century, Yilin Press, 2004).

Rhetoric and literariness will cause information distortion and even logical contradictions, but they will make the past "meaningful", otherwise history will become unreasonable. There are always people who think that history is a completely true record of past events. The so-called "history as iron" is true, but it is not. First of all, the record of past events is often accompanied by an indispensable explanation (including the cause, process and result of the event), mixed with the editor's own imagination, and the meaning also comes from this. This explanation or meaning is rhetorical and literary.

Another source of meaning is language, because only with the help of language symbols can the past be given meaning. Language uses imagination and concepts to fix the described object, and the number of imagination and concepts is endless, so there are many ways to fix the described object. Language itself does not provide a standard to tell people what is "correct" usage and what is "incorrect" usage. Traditional historians are well aware of this and can control it flexibly.

As for narrative historical compilation, its rhetoric and literariness are self-evident. The tradition of western narrative history compilation has a long history. History, the masterpiece of Herodotus, the father of historiography, is a fascinating epic, not a boring chronicle of war. It is said that Thucydides, who was still young at that time, was moved to tears when he recited his works in Olympia. In recent years, this tradition of historical compilation has revived, which is really a blessing for academic circles.

For example, Frederic Wakeman Jr, a professor specializing in the history of China at the University of California, Berkeley, strongly affirmed narrative history. His historical works are mainly narrative, but also contain a small amount of theoretical analysis. In his view, narrative can play an explanatory role with the help of its stories and details, while theoretical generalization cannot exhaust the concreteness of historical phenomena. People grasp the traces of history through vivid images rather than boring theories, which are at best only auxiliary. It is not difficult to find that there is almost no difference between narrative historical compilation and historical novel, because narrative historical compilation also needs to connect scattered events into a complete story with imagination. There, facts and fantasies, historical facts and fiction are closely combined. Frederic Wakeman's "Big Enterprises:/Kloc-Reconstruction of Imperial Order in the Manchu Dynasty of China in the 7th Century" is written according to this principle, which is fascinating to read. A large number of historical works by famous American sinologists and others, such as The Square: Intellectuals and the China Revolution (Shi Jingqian), The Death of the King: The Fate of the Little People Behind the Big People (Shi Jingqian) and The Call of the Soul: The Witchcraft Panic in China (Kong Feili).

We can say that in fact, this narrative historical compilation is also "ancient". Sima Qian's wonderful records of all kinds of characters and events in Historical Records originated from his fancy brushwork, which was pleasing to the eye and forgot its historical accuracy. For example, when Sima Qian described the "Hongmen Banquet", he wrote that Fan Kuai broke in, "My hair is sharp and my eyes are cracked" (Historical Records? Biography of Xiang Yu not only goes against historical facts, but also goes against our daily life experience. Sima Qian in Historical Records? When describing the siege of Gaixia in Biography of Xiang Yu, he said that there were only 28 riders left in Xiang Yu, and he sent out the feeling that "killing me by heaven is not a crime of war". Although thousands of Han riders were besieged, Xiang Yu never gave in. "He said,' I want to take a picture for the public.' ..... There was a Wang Naichi, who later beheaded a surname, and Han killed hundreds of people. ..... means he rides:' What?' All the riders knelt down and said, "As the king said." So Wang Xiang wants to cross the Wujiang River eastward. "But not long after, Xiang Yu said to the director of Wujiang Pavilion that" 8,000 children from Jiangdong crossed the river westward, and no one returned today ". In other words, Xiang Yu's last 28 rides have also been annihilated by the Han army. In this case, how did the words "non-war crime" and "I choose one for the public" come down and spread to Sima Qian 200 years later?

Even in the most rigorous social sciences, fiction is everywhere. Novel is an imaginary structure and a description of "as if", and its greatest feature is "possibility" (or simply "unnecessary"). Hayden. White mentioned Bentham's "novel concept" and Irving? Barfield's essay Poetic Wording and Legal Fiction tells us that fiction is allowed even in strict legal discourse: the so-called "legal fiction" refers to the assumption made for expediency in legal affairs without real basis, which is considered to have legal effect. For example, "legal person" is a kind of fiction, because there is no such "person".

Hayden. White's theory shows that both empiricism and narratology are inseparable from rhetoric and literariness, and both contain imagination and fiction. As far as historical compilation is concerned, whether it is rhetoric or literature, imagination or falsehood, it has positive significance. It can be said that without rhetoric and literariness, imagination and fiction, there would be no people and things in the past, let alone understanding. In this case, it is objective and groundless to think that "historical truth".

Historical compilation cannot conceal its artistry. The so-called "historical truth" should be lifted.