What are the positive effects of Historical Records on China culture?

First, establish an outstanding general history school.

Historical Records is the first general history masterpiece in the history of Chinese historiography. It is precisely because historical records can be written into a book, which sets a precedent and an example, so people who follow this genre to compile and edit history have begun. The style of general historians has always influenced the research and writing of modern historiography.

Secondly, the independent position of historiography was established.

In ancient China, historiography was included in the category of Confucian classics and had no independent status. Therefore, Liu Xin's Seven Outlooks and Ban Gu's Records of Literature and Art both attached the books of the History Department to the Spring and Autumn Annals. Since Sima Qian compiled Historical Records, there have been more and more specialized historical works. Therefore, in the Jin Dynasty, Xun Xu adapted to the new requirements and divided the ancient books into four parts: Part A recorded the Six Arts Primary School, Part B recorded the martial arts of various schools, Part C recorded the historical records of emperors, and Part D recorded poetry and singing. As a result, historiography has gained an independent position in the academic field of China. Thinking about the source of drinking water should be attributed to Sima Qian and his Historical Records [16].

Third, the literary tradition of historical biography has been established.

Sima Qian's literary accomplishment is profound, and his artistic means are particularly ingenious. Often, some extremely complicated facts are handled in a very proper and orderly manner, and then they are far-sighted, knowledgeable, vivid in words, tempered in brushwork, full of emotion, handy and vivid in image, which makes people "exclaim and clap their hands, I don't know why." The beauty of Rong Zhai's Essays and Historical Records. Among them, Biography of Lian Po and Lin Xiangru is included in the primary school Chinese experimental textbook 18.

Literary influence

Historical Records has a wide and far-reaching influence on ancient novels, plays, biographies and essays.

First of all, on the whole, Historical Records, as China's first large-scale work mainly describing characters, provided an important foundation and various possibilities for the development of later literature.

Although there are real people in the history written in Historical Records, it is actually typed by "meeting each other", that is, highlighting some main characteristics of people, comparing different people and fabricating details.

In the early literature of all nationalities, there is such a phenomenon, which is a way for human beings to know themselves through artistic means. It's just that the original typed characters in China literature appear in historical works, and the situation is quite special.

Therefore, Historical Records established many important prototypes for China literature. In later novels and dramas, emperors, heroes, chivalrous men, officials and many other characters evolved from the characters in Historical Records.

In terms of martial arts novels, besides the types of characters, their genre and narrative style are also obviously influenced by Historical Records. China's traditional novels are mostly in the name of "biography" and developed in the form of biographies, with the beginning and end of biographies, always taking the life of the characters as the context and unfolding the plot in strict chronological order, often with the author's direct comments. All these important features mainly come from historical records.

Later novels are mostly based on historical records. Among them are Biography of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty by Feng Menglong, Empire of Daqin by Sun Haohui and Warring States by Han Chuanzi.

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.

Although the literariness of later history books is not as good as that of Historical Records, there are a large number of them, and if you extract excellent biographies, it is also very impressive.