占卜与《左传》封闭历史叙事模式:中国古代历史书写的诞生

Divination and Closed Narration of History in the Zuo Commentary:On the Birth of Chinese Historical Writing

占卜在《左传》封闭历史叙事模式中占有很重要的地位。一个封闭历史叙事包括两部分:一部分为通常包含多个事件的历史故事的展开,另一部分则是置于该故事之前或之后的一个“时间错乱”的结构——即一个其中包含了预叙的倒叙结构。这种叙事模式将原本彼此隔离的记录连缀成连贯的叙事,让我们以此辨识、分析和理解人类的过去。正是在这一意义上,我们说《左传》是中国历史书写的源头。如果我们将《春秋》短记比作从甲骨卜辞中抽出的验辞,那么我们在《左传》封闭历史叙事模式中看到的是将这些短记放回原有结构中的努力,只不过该模式的焦点已不再是占卜事件本身,而是它所记录的历史故事的展开和发展。

Divination serves as an important narrative device in a typical Zuo Commentary narrative I dub as closed narration of history.It includes a narration of the development of a story that usually consists of several events and an“anachronic”structure,that is,an analepsis or flashback with a prediction in it,put right before or after the narration.The insertion of an analepsis with a prediction in it serves as an effective narrative device linking the otherwise separated records and descriptions to form a coherent narrative enabling the identification,analysis,and understanding of the human past.It is in this kind of effort that we see the birth of Chinese historical writing.If we compare the short inputs in the Chunqiu Annals to the records seen in the verification section of the oracle bone inscriptions,and consider them as very brief notes on those events taken out of their original context,then in the Zuo Commentary we observe the efforts to put those very brief notes back to their context,which is much like the structure of a complete piece of oracle bone inscription in terms of its format.The narrative structure dubbed as closed narration of history discussed here reflects such efforts,yet it focuses on the unfolding of the historical event instead of the event of divination.