As long as we go a little deeper into history, we will find that this is a very rough line drawn by human reason. It cannot be said that it does not reflect the general trend of human survival and development, but history has abandoned some extremely valuable things. Here, I want to talk about Carlton, an American. About what? Hayes, Parker? Thomas? The moon, John Wei? In the book World History co-authored by Welland, I don't want to emphasize learning history from it. I want to see what is a typical historical narrative way through this history textbook.
It begins with the story of stone: "Before people learned to write, they used weapons and tools made of stone for a long time. Therefore, if we want to know anything about human beings in that distant and chaotic past, we must study stones. ..... When a hungry wild bear shuffled towards a family's camp, perhaps the family's father quickly grabbed a stone and threw it at the beast with all his strength. Before the arrival of another bear, the man may have collected many stones of the right size and piled them in a place where he could take them away at once. When he went out to hunt wild animals and birds for food, he would undoubtedly throw stones at them, and soon he learned to throw them accurately. If he finds some hard-shelled sweet fruits, he will knock them open with stones. When digging edible root vegetables such as carrots and potatoes, he undoubtedly used sticks or sharp stones. ..... Because the weapons and tools they used were all made of stone, we called it the Stone Age. We must tell us the story of the distant past according to the stone. "
As for the name of the father who hunted and produced with stones, what kind of love life he had, what kind of pain or happiness he felt in that wild world, whether his marriage life was perfect, what kind of hope he had for his children, and so on, all our concerns disappeared in the polished stones in the history museum. It can be seen that the story told by stone only constitutes the main line of historical development, and it is often the main line that has been subjectively deleted. So, has this situation improved after human beings have written words? Historical Records begins like this: "The son of Shaodian, Huangdi, was named Gongsun and Xuanyuan. Born as a god, weak but able to speak, young but unbiased, long and sensitive, successful and smart. ..... At the time of Xuanyuan, Shennong's world declined, and the princes invaded the people, and Shennong was able to levy. Therefore, Xuanyuan is used to fighting, and the princes are eager to get away from it ... "From here, we still can't see the emotional course of the described person, only see a kind of" potential ",which is the situational power that drives people to do and how to do it. I'm not blaming history. What I want to say is that there is a huge gap between what history provides us and what we care about and want to know-it needs to be pointed out that this gap is as empty and vast as the universe. Facing it, even the most unimaginative person will feel an impact.
I admire the German historian Karl? Karl jaspers lamented the so-called "prehistoric" period: "When we first saw it, it fascinated us so much that we could only wait for something extraordinary. No matter how disappointed we are, we can't get rid of the prehistoric charm. " Then, the great historian who sorted out the basic flow of history couldn't help asking questions like us: "Where did we come from? What was it when we entered history? What things may have disappeared before history? What profound processes did people in those times go through to become human beings and have their own history? What are the forgotten profound things,' original revelations' and insights that have not been shown to us? How did the language and myth that existed before the dawn of history come into being? "
Of course, as a historian, karl jaspers's view is slightly different from ours. In fact, our criticism of history also includes our criticism of karl jaspers. A book "The Origin and Goal of History" may make us disappear in front of history, but it must be said that all historical works have taken a detour in front of the huge gap mentioned above. This is not a mistake, it is an omission that must be missed. History is not responsible for emotional description. So literature came into being.
At first, literature and history were intertwined. Both the history of the Greek-Persian war in ancient Greece and China's Zuo Zhuan and Historical Records shoulder the dual responsibilities of literature and history: history in the vertical direction and literature in the horizontal direction. This is certainly good. However, human beings always tend to be meticulous about the subjects they set up, so that literature and history will gradually separate in later years. This has two advantages. First, the tree of history is sharper, except for suspicious branches. Second, literature has gained an independent character and can gallop freely in the imaginary space. There are no specious historical legends in the modern and contemporary historical works we read today; And our literature is no longer bound by history, even if it is called "historical novel", it has gained greater freedom of imagination. More importantly, people have clearly distinguished the roles of history and literature, thus avoiding some confusion. Now we generally don't understand history from literature. Similarly, we don't taste the emotional significance of literature from historical works. This is an improvement. In this case, the previous criticism of history seems unreasonable, but it is necessary.
If we regard history as a "potential", then we can say that it focuses on the macro. This is a fast-flowing river. Literature is just one or several waves, tiny and slender ... However, it is literature that allows us to see people's emotions and hearts, their state in historical events and their throbbing ... In this sense, the unique function of literature is beyond the reach of any other discipline.
More importantly, history is often the history of winners-winners decide what needs to be remembered and what needs to be forgotten-so history is far more unreliable than literature. Of course, what I am talking about here is literature with truly independent character and human depth, not the kind of literature that was raped by power and lost its virginity, nor the kind of consumer literature that despised social justice and human conscience. There are so many so-called literature in our life that we are almost submerged, so that it is difficult for us to know what real literature is.