SOURCE: Durrant, Stephen W. “Self as the Intersection of Traditions: The Autobiographical Writings of Ssu-ma Ch'ien.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 106, no. 1 (January-March 1986): 33-40.

[In the following essay, Durrant discusses the importance of tradition in early Chinese self-reflexive texts and explains how Qian avoided presumptuousness and irreverence.]

Since Georg Misch's monumental study of Western autobiographical writing began appearing in 1907, autobiography has been increasingly drawn into the circle of literary study.¹ Unfortunately, little of this recent research has considered non-Western autobiographical writing, and one scholar has even argued that autobiography has an exclusively Western origin.² Such a claim is curiously ethnocentric, for China, the non-Western culture of concern here, has abundant writings that fall within the domain of autobiography, at least as Misch has drawn the boundaries of that domain.³ The study of the Chinese material, still in its infancy,⁴ may both enhance our understanding of the Chinese world and also clarify the uniqueness and peculiarity of the Western tradition itself. It is the purpose of this paper to present several ideas concerning the autobiographical writings of one of China's most important early writers, the great historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien (145-90? b.c.).

For the classical period of Chinese civilization, which shall be defined here somewhat arbitrarily as the Eastern Chou dynasty (771-221 b.c.), the gleanings for a study of Chinese autobiography are meager. A number of Chou philosophers, particularly Confucius, make statements about themselves, but usually these are brief and reveal little of the author's self-conception. Confucius' famous description of his journey through life is one of the more poignant of these:

The Master said, “At fifteen I was intent upon learning. At thirty I was firmly established. At forty I was not deluded. At fifty I knew the commands of Heaven. At sixty I heard with docile ear. At seventy I followed the dictates of my own heart and did not overstep the proper boundaries.⁵

It is during the Han dynasty (206 b.c.-220 a.d.) that a rich trove of self-reflective texts appears, highlighted by the autobiographical writings of Ssu-ma Ch'ien, studied here,⁶ and the work of other such Han luminaries as the skeptical philosopher Wang Ch'ung (27-97? a.d.).⁷ Ssu-ma Ch'ien, in contrast to Wang, never wrote an autobiography per se, but in several of his writings he says much about himself. The two sources which provide the most direct autobiographical material are the “Postface” to Shih chi (“T'ai shih kung tzu hsü”) and the “Letter in Response to Jen Shao-ch'ing” (“Pao Jen Shao-ch'ing shu”).⁸ These sources can be supplemented by certain passages scattered throughout the body of Shih chi, as well as by several lines of his one extant fu, entitled “Lament for Unemployed Gentlemen” (“Pei shih pu yü”).⁹

Before proceeding to an examination of these writings, two caveats are in order. First, we are not concerned here with a re-examination of the biographical details of Ssu-ma's life. Most previous study of Ssu-ma's autobiographical writings by both Chinese and Western scholars is concerned in large measure with the reconstruction of such details. This research, though important in its own right, tells us little about the autobiographer's self-conception, or what Olney calls the “internal order of its maker.”¹⁰ The pursuit of this “internal order” does not involve us in that dubious but fascinating scholarly endeavor known as “psychohistory.” We are not interested in applying Freudian, Jungian or other psychological theories to expose a personality and its “true” motives. Our concern is upon how the author reads himself and not how we, through the lenses of modern psychological interpretation, might read him.¹¹ Second, the writings that we shall study are not primarily autobiographical. As noted above, most of what Ssu-ma Ch'ien says about himself is embedded in a postface to Shih chi and in a letter to a friend. Weintraub labels this type of fragmented self-revelation “additive autobiography” and warns that one who extracts such material to reconstruct self-conception must be keenly aware of context.¹² In the case of Ssu-ma's postface, the context is obvious—Ssu-ma Ch'ien is explaining the genesis and function of his comprehensive history. However, the precise context of Ssu-ma's letter to Jen Shao-ch'ing is less clear. Jen was under sentence of death, having been involved either in the abortive rebellion of Crown Prince Li in 91 b.c. or in some other crime. Apparently it was to justify his inability to intervene with the emperor on Jen's behalf that Ssu-ma wrote a letter detailing his own tragic involvement in the Li Ling affair and his subsequent punishment.¹³

A useful point of departure for our interpretation of Ssu-ma's autobiographical writing is provided by the cultural historian Karl Weintraub:

The genuine autobiographical effort is guided by a desire to discern and to assign meaning to a life. The effort is usually dominated by the writer's “point of view,” in the most literal sense of the coordinate point in space and time at which the autobiographer stands to view his life. The essential issue is that such a point in time is located on the lifeline of the writer somewhere beyond a moment of crisis or beyond an experience, or a cumulative set of experiences which can play the same function as a crisis.¹⁴

The crisis, which threw a shadow over his life and profoundly shaped his autobiographical point of view, is Ssu-ma's tragic involvement in the Li Ling affair. The details of this involvement are outlined in the letter to Jen Shao-ch'ing. Li Ling, a military leader and a casual acquaintance of Ssu-ma, had led a force of “less than 5,000 men” deep into Hsiung-nu territory where the small Chinese army was badly outnumbered. Although they fought with courage, Li Ling's troops were defeated, and their leader was captured alive. When Ssu-ma Ch'ien spoke to the Han Emperor Wu on Li Ling's behalf, his words were interpreted as criticism of the imperial favorite, General Li Kuang-li, the leader of the larger expedition against the northern barbarians. What followed this is not entirely clear. Apparently the outspoken Ssu-ma Ch'ien was sentenced to death for “defaming a superior” (wu shang). This sentence could have been commuted upon a large cash payment, but no one offered help. For some reason, Ssu-ma's punishment was then changed to castration, which Ssu-ma himself describes as “the punishment of rottenness” and the greatest shame one can experience.¹⁵ Much of his letter to Jen Shao-ch'ing justifies submitting to such a punishment and not “making one's own decision,” a euphemism for suicide.

This crisis is, in Weintraub's terms, the coordinate point at which Ssu-ma Ch'ien stands to examine his life. Indeed, it links, in a most profound fashion, Ssu-ma's interpretation of the past with his hope for the future. His past, as he described it, centers upon the Confucian virtue of filial piety; his future opens up to the expectation that he will “glorify his name in later generations.”¹⁶ These two obsessions, one a perception of the past, one a hope for the future, are neatly juxtaposed in the words which his father, Ssu-ma T'an, speaks from his deathbed to his son: “Now, filial piety begins in serving parents, next, it exists in serving the ruler; and it ends in raising one's reputation in later generations in order to glorify one's parents. This is the greatest of filiality.”¹⁷

Ssu-ma's concern with filial piety should not surprise us, particularly in the early Han when the virtue had become the hallmark of the Confucian gentleman. In his father's famous essay, “The Essentials of the Six Schools,” which Ssu-ma Ch'ien dutifully incorporates into his postface, filial piety occupies an important spot. Ssu-ma T'an's essay lists the strengths and weakness of each of the five schools, the sixth, Taoism, being eclectic and incorporating the strengths of all the others. The greatest strength of Confucianism, says Ssu-ma T'an in two separate passages, is its rigid support of the political and familial hierarchies: “In its arrangement of the ritual between ruler and lord, father and son, and in its ordering of the distinctions between husband and wife, old and young, none of the hundred schools could change it.”¹⁸ A regard for the “ritual between father and son” was certainly conveyed to Ssu-ma Ch'ien not only by his father, but also by his teacher Tung Chung-shu, a Han philosopher in part responsible for the early Han stress upon filial piety.¹⁹

Growing out of this concern for honoring his progenitors, Ssu-ma Ch'ien claimed that his official position as Grand Astrologer was a family heritage. The postface begins with a genealogy meant to show that the Ssu-ma ancestors from the most ancient times had been concerned with “the offices of Heaven” and the management of records. There is little proof outside of Ssu-ma's postface that this tradition had any basis in fact—the Ssu-ma ancestors of record were more often involved in military affairs than astrology or record-keeping. Nevertheless, this family tradition, however doubtful it might be, not only begins the postface, it also is reiterated by the dying Ssu-ma T'an with a stern injunction that his son continue the tradition. In particular, he must complete the historical record begun by his father: “Now Han has arisen and all within the seas is unified. Enlightened rulers, virtuous lords, loyal ministers and knights who would die for duty—I have been Grand Astrologer and have not discussed and made a record of them! I deeply fear that the historical records will be cast away. I hope that you will remember this.”²⁰ The compilation of Shih chi, under stern paternal injunction, becomes an act of filial devotion rendered to his deceased father in accordance with a final wish. “And so,” Ssu-ma Ch'ien asks after having met with the disaster and shame of castration, “with what face can I again ascend the gravemound of my parent?”²¹ Only with a completed copy of Shih chi in hand can he approach that gravemound, for the completed historical record will bring fame to both his father and himself. As Ssu-ma Ch'ien says in his fu: “To die nameless was the ancient's shame.”²² Suicide, generally the noble course, could not be contemplated in these circumstances; it would have been a crime against the filial devotion that had shaped his consciousness, for it would have consigned both father and son to the eternal night of the forgotten. In this conception then, the demands of filial piety are not completely discharged during the lifetime of the child. Only through an effort which adds one's reputation to the stream of tradition can a son fully honor his father. Seen from this perspective, Ssu-ma's sentence to castration forced a choice between suicide and filial devotion That choice, though filled with pain and trauma, was made without regret: “When I have truly completed this work, I shall deposit it in the Famous Mountain. If it may be handed down to men who will appreciate it, and penetrate to the villages and great cities, then though I should suffer a thousand mutilations, what regret should I have?”²³

Closely related to the importance of filial piety, and the most pervasive feature of Ssu-ma's autobiographical notes, is the degree to which the individual repeatedly disappears into the patterns of tradition. It is almost as if Ssu-ma Ch'ien could not locate himself, could not even interpret his most intense experiences, outside a network of historical relationships and precedents. This feature of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's autobiography contrasts radically with the dominant self-conception of modern Western autobiographical writing. In the latter, the author frequently detaches himself from the tradition, asserting his uniqueness. The self, to such writers, transcends the temporal bounds of tradition.

The merger of personality and tradition, so obvious in Ssu-ma's writings, is first seen in the genealogy that begins the preface. The earliest segment of the genealogy, quoted from the Chou text Kuo yü, links the Ssu-ma clan to the mythical Ch'ung and Li, who were given charge of the affairs of heaven and earth by Emperor Chuan Hsü (2514-2436 b.c.)²⁴ Traditional Chinese commentators question the possibility that Ssu-ma descended from both Ch'ung and Li, since the two appear in early accounts as the progenitors of quite separate clans.²⁵ However, other Shih chi references to this ancient story indicate that Ssu-ma himself is unsure whether Ch'ung and Li are two persons or one.²⁶ The Ch'ung-Li story, as it appears in Kuo yü, is probably a rationalized version of a myth concerning the separation of heaven and earth, so the confusion as to whether they are one, the primordial state, or two, the secondary state, is understandable. This question aside, Ssu-ma Ch'ien traces his roots into such murky, mythic headwaters not primarily to establish a link with legendary heroes but to show the traditional antecedents of his father's position as Grand Astrologer and the related concern for historical writing.²⁷ Just as Ch'ung had cared for the affairs of heaven, so the Grand Astrologer was to interpret celestial phenomena and guard the accuracy of the calendar; and as Li had cared for the affairs of earth, so the Grand Astrologer in his ancillary role a recorder was to maintain a history of the activities of man. Ssu-ma Ch'ien goes on to assert, true to this heritage, that “the Ssu-ma family for generations regulated the historical records of Chou.” His profession is justified by genealogy. Weintraub, in discussing early Greek and Roman self-conception, notes that in these societies, “The quality of a man depends upon the quality of his descent.”²⁸ In such a society, genealogy is identity. But Ssu-ma's genealogy is not so much an attempt to establish his own moral superiority, in the Greek or Roman fashion, as to demonstrate the legitimacy of his career as astrologer and historian. The prodigious task of historical research was not undertaken by Ssu-ma as a matter of personal interest or talent, although he apparently had large amounts of both; it was enjoined by his father and legitimitized by a family tradition.

The assimilation of personal identity into tradition is seen most clearly not in Ssu-ma Ch'ien's emulation of his father, but in his tendency to identify with the most revered of all ancient Chinese, Confucius. Much has been made of Ssu-ma T'an's Taoist leanings and the supposed impact of these beliefs upon his son, but there can be little doubt that the ancient figure who most dominates Ssu-ma Ch'ien's self-conception was Confucius and not the mysterious founder of Taoism.²⁹ It is for good reason that Li Chang-chih, whose study of Ssu-ma Ch'ien remains unexcelled in both detail and imagination, describes Ssu-ma Ch'ien as “next to Mencius the most loyal follower of Confucius.”³⁰

Confucius' name first appears in Ssu-ma Ch'ien's postface in connection with the extensive travels which Ssu-ma began at the age of twenty. By that time, Ssu-ma assures us, he had memorized the ancient writings; his subsequent travels can be seen as an attempt to integrate the Chinese tradition spacially just as his earlier studies had temporally.³¹ The highlight of Ssu-ma's journey was a visit to the ancient state of Lu for the purpose of “observing the customs of Confucius which had been handed down.”³² In his account of the life of Confucius, Ssu-ma describes the emotion of his visit: “I read the books of Confucius and wanted to see what type of man he was. So I went to Lu and inspected the temple, chariots, clothing and ritual vessels of Confucius … I could only remain and was unable to depart.”³³

The respect implied in this account is obvious, but we have described Ssu-ma Ch'ien's relationship to Confucius not merely as “respect” but as “identity.” This identity is first seen in a mysterious statement, which Ssu-ma Ch'ien ascribes to his father: “From the death of the Duke of Chou there were 500 years until Confucius. Since the death of Confucius down to the present, there have been 500 years. To be one able to succeed to the enlightened generations, correct the traditions of Changes, continue Spring and Autumn Annals and take as basis the times of the Odes, Documents, Ritual and Music, my thoughts were upon this, my thoughts were upon this!”³⁴ We might fault Ssu-ma T'an's arithmetic, actually less than 400 years had passed from the death of Confucius, but the theory that a sage appears every 500 years comes from no less an authority than Mencius. Apparently it was T'an's ambition to succeed to the tradition of the Duke of Chou and Confucius, but his death prevented this, and so Ssu-ma Ch'ien says, after quoting his father, “How could I step back from this task?”³⁵

Elsewhere, Ssu-ma T'an notes that “It has now been over 400 years since the capture of the unicorn.”³⁶ The reference here is to the last entry of Spring and Autumn Annals, which reports the capture of a unicorn. The Kung Yang Commentary connects the auspicious appearance of a unicorn with the completion by Confucius of Spring and Autumn Annals, a theory which was elaborated considerably by Ssu-ma's teacher Tung Chung-shu. Kung Yang Commentary notes further that the unicorn appears in the time of a true king. Indisputably none of the feudal lords of Confucius' time would fit into this category, and so the implication, very much in harmony with the Han apotheosis of Confucius, is that the Master himself was the true, albeit uncrowned, king. Both in his account of the reign of the contemporary Han emperor and in the postface itself, Ssu-ma Ch'ien reports the capture of another unicorn in his own time. This report is amenable to several different interpretations. Most obviously it implies that the reigning Emperor Wu is a true king, an interpretation that would be certain to please the egotistical Han ruler. But Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shih chi could hardly be described as a paean to Emperor Wu, and the appearance of the unicorn could also be taken as a signal that a new Spring and Autumn Annals had come forth as well as that a worthy successor to the legacy of the Duke of Chou and Confucius was upon the earth.

What, according to the great historian, is the content of this legacy? In his autobiographical writings, Ssu-ma Ch'ien says little in praise of Confucius' sterling moral character or of his devotion to learning and teaching. In Ssu-ma's eyes, the glory of the Master was his prodigious effort to gather and revive the Chinese tradition. Ssu-ma T'an had emphasized this dimension of the Master's mission: “After Yu and Li the way of the kings disappeared, and ritual and music declined. Confucius refurbished the old and raised up what had been cast aside. He discussed Odes and Documents, and he wrote Spring and Autumn Annals, and scholars down to the present take these as models.”³⁷ Ssu-ma Ch'ien had studied at the feet of the great Han erudite Tung Chung-shu, the leading contemporary specialist of Spring and Autumn Annals and so it is not surprising that he found this classic to be Confucius' greatest contribution. True to the Kung Yang tradition in which his teacher stood, Ssu-ma accepted the praise and blame theory of Spring and Autumn Annals exégesis, a theory whereby the ostensibly straightforward annal was read as an extraordinarily subtle critique of the major events and characters between 722 and 484 b.c. Although Ssu-ma's Shih chi, viewed as a whole, departs radically from the terse literary style of Spring and Autumn Annals, it is written with the same purpose that Ssu-ma ascribes to Confucius' historical masterpiece:

Above Spring and Autumn Annals illuminates the doctrines of the three kings; below it discriminates regulations of human affairs. It distinguishes the suspicious and doubtful, illuminates right and wrong and settles the uncertain. It calls good “good,” bad “bad,” the worthy “worthy” and the unworthy “lowly.” It preserves lost states, continues severed genealogies, supplements the neglected and raises up what had been cast aside.³⁸

Drawing such a correspondence between the revered Spring and Autumn Annals and one's own historical writings would appear to be presumptuous at a time when the state cult of Confucius was developing. Ssu-ma Ch'ien anticipates objections to this correspondence in a highly contrived dialogue with a government official by the name of Hu Sui. The first danger is the implication that there is an analogy between the time during which Spring and Autumn Annals appeared, a time notorious for its political chaos, and the age of the reigning emperor. The volatile Emperor Wu would hardly tolerate such a perjorative judgment. Ssu-ma Ch'ien replies to this objection by noting that Spring and Autumn Annals “does not confine itself solely to criticism and ridicule.”³⁹ Thus, he continues, his own work will give credit where credit is due, and Emperor Wu will receive the praise he deserves, for “ministers and officials energetically praise his holy virtue, but still they are unable completely to proclaim their feelings.”⁴⁰

To a second danger, that it is irreverent to draw a parallel between himself and Confucius, Ssu-ma Ch'ien responds most cleverly: “What I do can be called ‘to transmit’ ancient matters and ‘to put in order’ its hereditary traditions; it is not something that can be called ‘to create.’ But you, sir, would compare it to Spring and Autumn Annals; that is mistaken.”⁴¹ In other words, Ssu-ma Ch'ien defines himself as a transmitter, not a creator, and it is this that distinguishes him from Confucius. But surely Ssu-ma realizes that in this denial of a parallel with the Master an affirmation is concealed. In a famous analect, Confucius too denied that he was a creator: shu erh pu tso, “I transmit and do not create.”⁴²

The word shu, which I have translated as “transmit,” could be taken as the very hub from which the spokes of Ssu-ma's personality spread. In Shuo-wen chieh-tzu, shu (*d'iwst) is defined paronomastically as hsün (*dziwsn) “to follow.”⁴³ Indeed, Mo tzu quotes the famous analect of Confucius as hsün erh pu tso “I follow and do not create,”⁴⁴ and elsewhere in the classical corpus shu itself frequently carries such a meaning.⁴⁵ Thus, while “transmit” is an acceptable translation of this character, one must bear in mind the strong connotation of “follow.” One who describes his work as shu, especially when he places it in contradistinction to tso “to create,” or literally “to give rise to,” is subordinating individuality to tradition. Like Confucius, Ssu-ma wishes to follow the stream of tradition; no matter what innovation we may see in his historical writing, he chooses to label himself a conservative.

The absorption of his own identity into that of Confucius goes further. Confucius, according to Ssu-ma Ch'ien, wrote Spring and Autumn Annals after a time of great distress: “Confucius was in difficulty between Ch'en and Ts'ai, and so he wrote Spring and Autumn Annals.”⁴⁶ Ssu-ma Ch'ien makes much of this episode in Confucius' life, even though there is little evidence elsewhere that it had anything at all to do with his writing Spring and Autumn Annals. Nevertheless, Ssu-ma saw Confucius' difficulties as analogous to his own suffering, and, according to Ssu-ma's general theory of literary production, it is personal distress that activates genius. The same examples of this theory are given in both the “Postface” and the “Letter:” King Wen was imprisoned and yet expanded the Book of Changes; Confucius was in distress and wrote Spring and Autumn Annals; Ch'ü Yüan, exiled, composed “Li Sao,” Tso Ch'iu-ming lost his sight but still wrote Tso chuan; Sun tzu, his legs amputated at the knees, completed a masterpiece on military strategy; Lü Pu-wei was banished, but he edited Lü shih ch'un-ch'iu; and Han Fei-tzu, though imprisoned, completed his philosophical writing. Ssu-ma would add his own name to this impressive list: “These are all men who had ideas which were hindered, and they could not communicate their doctrines; therefore, they transmitted (shu) past matters and thought of things to come.”⁴⁷

It is difficult to overemphasize the hold of tradition upon Ssu-ma Ch'ien's self-conception. He depicts even his most tragic moments largely within a matrix of precedent and allusion. Nowhere else does the radical distance between the typical, modern Western self-conception and that of the ancient Chinese historian stand out with bleaker clarity than in Ssu-ma's treatment of the emotional trauma of living as a eunuch. We can imagine how Rousseau, the father of modern Western autobiography, might have written of this somber condition had it been his fate. The Frenchman, who begins his Confessions with that famous proclamation of individuality, “I am like no one in the whole world,” would tell us something, perhaps a little elusive and almost certainly more than a little embarrassing, about how castration affected a later relationship or at least shaped some personal moment in his life.⁴⁸ But Ssu-ma Ch'ien characteristically bewails his fate as “a remnant of blade and saw” by citing historical precedent. He shows, through a long list of examples, that men of the past have always been disgusted by eunuchs, and so his condition, authoritatively defined by history, is indeed disgusting. The same kind of historical explanation is given for his inability to commit suicide. Many great men of ancient times, Hsi-po, Li Ssu and Kuang Fu, among others, were placed in chains or thrown into prison, and yet none of them could settle the matter for himself by committing suicide: “In the dust and filth of bondage it has ever been the same. How could one expect not to be shamed?”⁴⁹

In a recent book on autobiography, Janet Gunn argues against the essentialist theory of Western autobiography. The essentialist believes that there is a quiet center of individuality which exists outside of the historical moment and remains unstirred by whatever waves rock the surface of mundane experience. It becomes the task of autobiographical writing and criticism to lay bare that transcendent self. In the essentialist tradition, to use Gunn's words, the “autos” dominates the “bios.”⁵⁰ Gunn goes on to present the philosophical basis for a different theory of autobiography whereby self-conception takes form only as it exists within a specific historical and social matrix. Fresh from a reading of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's autobiographical notes, one is mildly bemused by Gunn's argument. Certainly such a case need not be made for Ssu-ma Ch'ien and presumably for most Chinese autobiographical writing, where “bios” so clearly dominates “autos.” The selfhood of Ssu-ma Ch'ien constantly eludes us as it slips into the patterns and precedents of the past. There is little sense of individuality here, little assertion of uniqueness. Rather, the self is a point at which various strands from the past intersect: in Ssu-ma's case, a family tradition of caring for historical records, a filial obligation, a conservative Confucian and a series of historical precedents wherein his own experience finds an echo of meaning. We are reminded of Joseph Needham's assertion that “while European philosophy tended to find reality in substance, Chinese philosophy tended to find it in relation.”⁵¹ Ssu-ma defines his existence not in substance, some inner core of private and personal meaning, but in a series of relationships to a tradition.

However, before confidently proclaiming the Western autobiographical tradition “individual-centered” and thereby standing in direct opposition to a Chinese “relation-centered” or “tradition-centered” self-conception, we should remember that Weintraub's study of Western autobiography takes as its thesis that “modern man's … belief that, whatever else he is, he is a unique personality is a part of the modern form of historical consciousness.”⁵² Specifically, it appeared fullblown only with such autobiographers as Rousseau and Goethe. In the more ancient Western autobiography “The whole undertaking tends to be dominated by the need to show the degree to which the personal life is true to the admired or typical model.”⁵³ This tendency to seek a pattern for one's life in the past would seem to close the gap between the Western and Chinese traditions, at least as the latter is seen in Ssu-ma Ch'ien. And yet an important distinction remains. True to the dominant religion of Western Europe. Christ often provided the model that autobiographers sought to emulate, but usually the emphasis was not so much upon the specific deeds of Christ's life as upon a sort of atemporal, mythic pattern of the proper Christian life. Weintraub surveys no Western autobiographers so intent as Ssu-ma Ch'ien upon finding very specific historical parallels and antecedents for his own behavior. In fact, Ssu-ma Ch'ien's writings raise history itself almost to the level of religion. It is the past which defines one; and in this conception, the historian becomes the savior. He “preserves states that are lost” and brings to our consciousness the memory of those who have slipped forever into the past. That is the only immortality they can expect and the only mirror we require.

Notes

1. Georg Misch, Geschichte der Autobiographie, 2 vols. (Leipzig and Berlin, 1907); Das Altertum (Bern, 1949-50); Das Mittelalter: Die Frühzeit (Frankfurt, 1955); Das Mittelalter (Frankfurt, 1962); Das Hochmittelalter, Part 1, ed. L. Delfoss (Frankfurt, 1967); Von der Renaissance bis zu den autobiographischen Hauptwerke des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, ed. B. Neumann (Frankfurt, 1969). All citations are to the English edition, A History of Autobiography in Antiquity, tr. E. W. Dickes (London, 1950). Recent research on autobiography has come largely from one of two groups: first, cultural historians who are concerned with the relationship between self-conception and historical consciousness in general; and second, literary critics who are interested in what this peculiar genre, where protagonist, narrator and author merge, might tell us about larger questions in criticism and hermeneutics. A recent example of the first category is Karl Weintraub, The Value of the Individual (Chicago, 1978). Prominent examples of the second category are Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, ed. J. Olney (Princeton, 1980), and Janet Gunn, Autobiography: Towards a Poetics of Experience (Philadelphia, 1982).

2. Roy Pascal, Design and Truth in Autobiography (Cambridge, 1960), 80.

3. As Misch notes, autobiography can assume almost any literary form: “Historical record of achievements, imaginary forensic addresses or rhetorical declamations, systematic or epigrammatic description of character, lyrical poetry, prayer, soliloquy, confessions, letters, literary portraiture, family chronicle and court memoirs, narrative whether purely factual or with a purpose, explanatory or fictional, novel and biography in their various styles, epic and even drama—all these forms have been made use of by autobiographers.” The notion of “autobiography” only requires a “joy in self-communication and in enlisting the sympathetic understanding of others; or the need for self-assertion.” Op. cit., 4.

4. Two studies of note are Wolfgang Bauer, “Icherleben und Autobiographie in Alteren China,” Heidelberger Jahrbücher 8 (1964), 12-40; and Rodney L. Taylor, “The Centered Self: Religious Autobiography in the Neo-Confucian Tradition,” History of Religions 17.3-4 (1978), 266-81.

5. Lun yü, 2.4.

6. All references to Ssu-ma Ch'ien's writings utilize the punctuated histories of Shih chi and Han shu (rpt., Taipei, 1974).

7. See Wang's Lun heng, ch. 84. Alfred Forke's translation of this fascinating chapter is found in Lun-heng: Wang Ch'ung's Essays (rpt., New York, 1962), I, 64-82.

8. See Shih chi, 130.3285-3322 for “Postface” and Han shu, 62.2725-36 for “Letter.”

9. Ssu-ma Ch'ien's fu is translated in James Robert Hightower, “The Fu of T'ao Ch'ien,” HJAS [Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies] 17 (1954), 197-200. There is some question as to the legitimacy of the attribution of this piece to Ssu-ma Ch'ien. T'ao Ch'ien (365-427) accepted Ssu-ma's authorship as do a number of modern scholars. See Chao Hsing-chih, “Ssu-ma Ch'ien fu tso te p'ingchia”, Ssu-ma Ch'ien (1960; rpt., Hong Kong, 1975), 170-86.

10. James Olney, Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography (Princeton, 1972), 10.

11. This point is emphasized by Weintraub in his “Autobiography and Consciousness,” Critical Inquiry (June, 1975), 834.

12. The Value of the Individual, 49, 55.

13. For a summary of the two different theories on Jen's crime and the motives behind Ssu-ma's letter, see Burton Watson, Ssu-ma Ch'ien, Grand Historian of China (New York, 1958), 194-98.

14. ”Autobiography and Consciousness,” 824.

15. Han shu, 62.2727.

16. Shih chi, 130.3295.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid., 130.3290.

19. For a short summary of Tung Chung-shu's elevation of virtue of filial piety, see Kung-ch'üan Hsiao, A History of Chinese Political Thought, tr. F. W. Mote (Princeton, 1979), 488.

20. Shih chi, 130.3295.

21. Han shu, 62.2736.

22. Hightower, 199.

23. Han shu, 62.2735.

24. Shih chi, 130.3285. Quoted from Kuo yü, “Ch'u yü hsia” (Shanghai, 1978), 562-63.

25. See the “So-yin” commentary of Ssu-ma Chen, Shih chi, 130.3285.

26. In the “Hereditary Household of Ch'u,” Ssu-ma Ch'ien traces the Ch'u genealogy through Ch'ung-li: “Kao-yang was the grandson of the Yellow Emperor and the son of Ch'ang-i. Kao-yang sired Ch'eng, Ch'eng sired Chuan-chang and Chuan-chang sired Ch'ung-li.” Shih chi, 40.1689. For a collection of the various quotations regarding this mythological figure (or figures), see Bernhard Karlgren, “Legends and Cults in Ancient China,” BMFEA [Bulletin. Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities] 18 (1946), 234-37.

27. In translating t'ai-shih as “Grand Astrologer” rather than “Grand Historian,” I am following both Chavannes and Bielenstein. Chavannes gives a very effective description of the relationship between the astrological and record-keeping functions of this office in his Les mémoires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien, Vol. 1 (rpt., Paris, 1967), xi.

28. “Autobiography and Consciousness,” 835.

29. On this subject, see Watson, 168-74.

30. Ssu-ma Ch'ien chih jen-ko yü feng-ko (rpt.; Taipei, 1976), 50.

31. I am suggesting here that Ssu-ma Ch'ien's travels were a sort of secularized itineraria. The magical journey which encompasses the cosmos played an important role both in Chinese literature and in the behavior of emperors. Ssu-ma Ch'ien's listing of the famous spots that he visited seems to be a scholar's secularized version of the magical journey. On this subject, see David Hawkes, “The Quest of the Goddess,” in Studies in Chinese Literary Genres, ed. C. Birch (Berkeley, 1974), 42-68.

32. Shih chi, 130.3293.

33. Ibid., 47.1947.

34. Ibid., 130.3296.

35. Ibid.

36. Shih chi, 130.3295.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid., 130.3297.

39. Ibid., 130.3299.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid., 130.3299-3300.

42. Lun yü, 7:1.

43. Shuo-wen chieh-tzu ku-lin, ed. Ting Fu-pao (rpt., Taipei, 1970), 742.

44. Mo tzu, ch. 39.

45. See Bernhard Karlgren, Grammata Serica Recensa (Göteborg, 1964), p. 136, gl. 497e.

46. Shih chi, 130.3300.

47. Ibid.; cf. Han shu, 62.2735.

48. The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, tr. J. M. Cohen (Middlesex, 1953), 17.

49. Han shu, 62.2727, 2733.

50. Autobiography: Towards a Poetry of Experience, 8-9, 22.

51. Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. II (Cambridge, 1956), 478.

52. The Value of the Individual, xi.

53. Ibid., 12.