New Book of Tang
The New Book of Tang (simplified Chinese: 新唐书; traditional Chinese: 新唐書; pinyin: Xīn Tángshū; Wade–Giles: Hsin T'angshu), generally translated as “New History of the Tang,” or “New Tang History,” is a work of official history covering the Tang Dynasty in ten volumes. The work compiled by Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi (宋祁) and other official scholars of the Song Dynasty, following the custom that each new dynasty should write the history of its predecessor. The emperor called for a revision of the Book of Tang in 1044 and the New History was presented to the throne in 1060. It was called Tangshu until the 18th century, when it was included in the official palace edition of the Twenty-Four Histories.
Ouyang Xiu edited the work to make clear the moral shortcomings which he felt led to the decline of the Tang. He bragged that it “covers more events than the previous work, but it does so in fewer words.” The New History contained 1.4 million characters compared to 1.9 million in the Old Tang History. The New History included the first treatise on military affairs to appear in the dynastic histories and 240 biographies. However in the reduction, the direct use of Tang court records was lost, some reduced passages were unclear, and many errors were introduced. [1]
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Contents [edit]
Ouyang Xiu frequently invokes the principle of reason in evaluating historical accounts, and purges all accounts containing elements of myth or superstition.[2]
Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi both disliked the Tang Dynasty's style of flowery prose. They changed the original wordings in the documents that they quoted in the book. However, some of the changes they made did more harm than good as they made some of the sentences difficult to understand.
Biographies [edit]
Four biographies of women appear in this new book that were not present in the first Book of Tang. The women kill or maim themselves in horrible ways, and represent examples of Tang Dynasty women that were intended to deter contemporary readers from extreme behavior. For example, Woman Lu gouges her own eye out to assure her ailing husband that there will be no second man after him. Biographies of 35 overly filial and fraternal men are also included in the work, though these men do not resort to the extremes of female mutilation found in the female biographies.[2]
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ Endymion Wilkinson. Chinese History: A New Manual. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard-Yenching Institue Monograph Series New Edition; Second, Revised printing March 2013: ISBN 9780674067158),737.
- ^ a b Davis, Richard L. (2001). "Chaste and Filial Women in Chinese Historical Writings of the Eleventh Century". Journal of the American Oriental Society 121 (2): 204–218. doi:10.2307/606561. JSTOR 606561.
External links [edit]
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Chinese Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
- Chronicles of the Chinese Dynasties, Twitchett, Official History under the T'ang, 191-236.
- Xu Elina-Qian, Historical Development of the Pre-Dynastic Khitan, University of Helsinki, 2005. 273 pages.
2.1 Introduction to the Sources on the Pre-dynastic Khitan (pp.19-23) > The Xin Tangshu, p.21-22
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