![]() ![]() I will argue that in writing his ancient history the anonymous author selectively manipulated older mythic material and created new myths of the origin of human or historical time, human government, the political process, and patriarchal authority. My methodology for reading the texts combines postmodern theories of Derridean deconstruction, comparative mythological analysis, theories of intertextuality, and gender criticism. Despite that pioneering research, the text remains resistant to attempts to define its authorial strategies and cultural significance. This positive approach is an advance on the cautious comments made by Bernhard Karlgren in his “Glosses on the Book of Documents” in 1948, in which he classified the Shangshu as “a collection of exceedingly difficult and, largely, very obscure texts” which may never be definitively edited or interpreted 5.ģThe reader will find here a new methodology for deconstructing these two texts, which builds on earlier critical studies. Boltz, who defined the writing process in the two canons as “reverse euhemerism, more sinico” 4. Maspero’s methodology was developed by Derk Bodde, and more recently by William G. Somewhat earlier, Henri Maspero proposed a new interpretative approach which endeavored to “recover the mythological basis… beneath the pseudo-historical account”. ![]() A major breakthrough in the hermeneutic analysis of the two texts occurred with the publication of the pioneering work of historical and mythological analysis edited by Gu Jiegang 顧頡剛 and others, Gushi bian 古史辨 (Critiques of Ancient History), published between 1926 to 1941 3. In fact, it has taken some considerable time for Chinese and twentieth-century Western sinologists to define the problématique of the two texts that have passed as the ancient history of China for so long. ![]() Moreover, although modern research has produced valuable data in historical linguistics and textual criticism, it is the question of hermeneutics, or the science of interpretation that represents the problématique of these two texts. Karlgren, “Glosses on the Book of Documents”, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern (.)ĢIn any cultural tradition, credal works such as the Shangshu are resistant to critical analysis and scholarly investigation.
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