Abstract:

The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature stages a direct paradigm clash by reclassifying the Spring and Autumn Annals, a foundational Confucian classic, as “narrative literature,” thereby radically subverting the text’s longsettled canonical and historiographical nature—a nature that Chinese scholarly tradition has consistently reinforced. Juxtaposing this Cambridge treatment with mainstream Chinese literary histories reveals structural divergences on three fronts: the text’s basic taxonomy (canonicalhistorical record versus narrative artifice), the hermeneutic lens (the classic read alone or through the Three Commentaries), and the authorial role envisioned (court chronicler versus moral sage). Rather than dismissing these discrepancies as mere interpretive missteps or progressive refinement, this study reframes them as symptoms of a deeper epistemological collision, pitting “literarycultural history” against “purist literary historiography,” and “constructivist interpretation” against “positivist textual criticism.” The crosscultural reconstruction undertaken by The Cambridge History undoubtedly revitalizes the Annals, yet it simultaneously risks reducing intricate problems of classical exegesis to an excessively narrativized and aestheticized register. To negotiate these epistemic tensions, this article introduces “Reflective Comparativism” as a theoretical intervention. By channeling the productive frictions and cognitive limits that surface in crosscultural interpretation, this framework transcends the present case to offer methodological reflections with broader implications for rewriting Chinese literary history and for rethinking classical Chinese studies globally.

Key words: The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Spring and Autumn Annals, Cross-Cultural Interpretation, Narrative Literature, Canonical Reconstruction