An Ambivalent Historian: Ouyang Xiu and His New Histories

Abstract

This article examines the historiographical practice of Ouyang Xiu (1007-72) in the context of his scholarly and official career and of the development of traditional Chinese historiography. By focusing on where, when, and how Ouyang’s two “new histories” of the Tang and Five Dynasties were produced, I suggest that Ouyang displayed an ambivalent relationship to the Northern Song official historiographical operation both in terms of modus operandi and of the format of the final text. Acting deliberately inside and outside the Historiography Office, he wrote not only new histories but actually new “old” histories, in the sense that Sima Qian’s classical model was creatively restored. Historiographical novelty calls for contextualization, and in this case, Ouyang’s newness is embodied in the creative tension between his contemporary predicament and the applicability of various classical paradigms.
Cet article etudie la pratique historiographique de Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072) dans le contexte de sa carriere d’erudit et de fonctionnaire et dans celui du developpement de l’historiographie chinoise traditionnelle. Me demandant ou, quand et comment les deux “nouvelles histoires” dues a Ouyang, celle des Tang et celle des Cinq Dynasties, ont ete redigees, j’en conclus que l’historien a entretenu une relation ambivalente avec le mode de production historiographique officiel, tant du point de vue du modus operandi que de celui de la forme finale du texte. Agissant deliberement a l’interieur et a l’exterieur du Bureau d’historiographie, il composa non seulement des “nouvelles histoires”, mais egalement des nouvelles “anciennes histoires” au sens ou le modele classique de Sima Qian s’y trouvait retabli de facon originale. L’innovation en histoire implique la contextualisation, et dans le cas present la nouveaute de Ouyang reside dans la tension creatrice opposant ses difficultes du moment et l’applicabilite de divers paradigmes classiques.