NARRATIVE AUTHORITY IN ANCIENT CHINESE LITERATURE

Crone T (2023)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2023

Journal

Early China Society for the Study of Early China

DOI: 10.1017/eac.2022.25

Abstract

The scribe has been granted a special role in the creation of ancient Chi¬nese narrative prose. Many texts seem to imply the presence of his person or written records, and scholars have often treated this feature as an indication of authorship. In this paper, I argue that another way of relating the scribe to ancient Chinese narrative prose is to see in him not an author but a witness of the events told. I will use several examples to demonstrate that the figure of the scribe stands out by its function of authenticating the narratives in which scribes takes part. Moreover, occasionally scribes appear to have been added to pre-existing "scribe-less" narratives. I will conclude my discussion by detailing how these findings shed light on the composition of individual pieces of literature and the nature of ancient Chinese narrative writing in general.

Authors with CRIS profile

Thomas Crone Chair for Sinology with a focus on the Intellectual and Cultural History of China (Alexander von Humboldt-Professor)

How to cite

APA:

Crone, T. (2023). NARRATIVE AUTHORITY IN ANCIENT CHINESE LITERATURE. Early China. https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/eac.2022.25

MLA:

Crone, Thomas. "NARRATIVE AUTHORITY IN ANCIENT CHINESE LITERATURE." Early China (2023).

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