| Abstract |
In the eleventh year of Duke Yin in the Spring and Autumn Annals, the entry “The Duke of Lu, together with the Marquis of Qi and the Earl of Zheng, entered Xu” is traditionally interpreted by classical scholarship through textual glosses and the method of shuci bishi (correlating phrases and events). Such readings censure Duke Yin for pursuing profit and aiding wrongdoing, while rejecting the Zuo Commentary’s “The Gentleman said” in praise of Duke Zhuang of Zheng as “knowing ritual,” on the grounds that he usurped royal authority and cloaked aggression with false rhetoric. By contrast, anthologies of classical prose (guwen pingxuan), though likewise exposing Duke Zhuang’s arbitrariness and feigned benevolence, adopt an opposite approach: in “selection,” they expand the transmitted text, creating narrative continuity and structural completeness; in “commentary,” they establish a pattern of initial praise followed by censure,exposing the inconsistency between words and deeds, thereby rationalizing the Gentleman’s judgment and bridging the gap between narrative and moral evaluation. Moreover, these anthologies not only emphasize the universal moral principles embodied in “The Gentleman said,” but also integrate them with the distinctiveness of individual cases, compensating for what traditional exegesis overlooks. In this way, the Zuo Commentary both maintains the force of exegetical reasoning and displays the literary value of evaluative criticism. Even if not explicitly intended as a challenge to classical scholarship, in practice this mode of selection and commentary had already secured interpretive authority over the Spring and Autumn Annals. |
