The tradition of describing historical facts as ‘artistic' way rather than ‘descriptive' way has slowly disappeared, and there are only analytical and descriptive way to describe history now. In addition, some argued that when a historian describes history, history should not contain its own opinions or opinions at all, and history should be colorless. Short, compressed, and dry description is easy to deliver historical information, but not enough to read the life and meaning of the times.
The goal of the study is to explore the possibility of historical writing that not only describe the historical facts and truths that the historian wants to deliver, but also achieve touching and persuasion through artistic composition and expression. From the perspective of a literary researcher, this study analyze the 《SHI KUI SHU (石匱書)》, extract several literary abilities of historians from his history.
First, ZhangDai admired SimaQian’s writing style so much, he wanted to write a history that succeed to 《SHI JI(史記)》. Five compositions of history-presented in a series of biographies(紀傳體) were actively utilized. Above all, it maintained the same composition as 《SHI JI(史記)》 by adding “Noble family biographies(世家)” that had been omitted from many history since 《SHI JI(史記)》. Second, This study paid attention to the artistry of the “Lunzan(論贊)” section recorded in the form of “石匱書曰” “總論” “附論”. Each “Lunzan” section reveals the historical perspective and evaluation criteria of ZhangDai for events and characters. Because he was a literary man with excellent literary skills, each sentence of “Lunzan(論贊)” touched a person, the reader was intimidated by his stern judgment, and felt persuaded by his one word. He used a firm tone that revealed his confident spirit as a historian. Third, 《SHI KUI SHU (石匱書)》 achieved a combination of history and literature by utilizing various metaphors and exotic expressions. It compares human bodies and diseases to political situations, and uses expressions such as the ecology of animals and insects. This made the reader more aware of events and characters more vividly and gave them a rich imagination. 《SHI KUI SHU (石匱書)》 is a meaningful history that reminds us of the possibility of artistic writing in history.