What are the literary and historical values of Historical Records?

As China's first large-scale work mainly describing characters, Historical Records provides an important foundation and various possibilities for the development of later literature.

In terms of drama, Historical Records has naturally become a treasure house for later generations because of its strong drama, distinctive characters and sharp contradictions.

In biographical literature, due to the biographical style of Historical Records inherited by later generations, a large number of biographies of historical figures have been produced.

Historical value:

Historical Records is the first masterpiece of general history in the history of Chinese historiography, covering hundreds of generations, establishing the independent status of historiography and the literary tradition of historical biography.

Extended data:

The biographies of the Five Emperors begin with the historical records, which shows the initial founding of the country. Sima Qian shows that the five emperors of Huangdi, Zhuan Xu, Di Ku, Tang Yao and Yu Shun come down in one continuous line, describes the process of continuous evolution of history and continuous improvement of national construction, and shows Sima Qian's views on development, evolution and change.

Sima Qian defined Historical Records as a classic of morality and ethics based on the Spring and Autumn Annals, and its ideological system consists of two principles: one is to legislate for the later Wang Lifa, and the other is to establish rules for human relations-Historical Records is to legislate for kings from top to bottom.

Sima Qian summarized all kinds of interpersonal relationships in the whole society as follows: monarch, minister and son.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-historical records