The Mythology of Liu Bang in Shiji and Western Han Elites

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.220504.378How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Sima Qian; Shiji; Mythology of Liu Bang

Abstract

Previous scholarship has largely regarded Qian’s writings to be part of a literary tradition that was popularized for its divination of the ruler’s birth, as Qian did in his accounts of many rulers like the founder of the Shang, Zhou, and Qin political lineages. However, these works paid little attention to the particular abundance of mythological elements in Liu Bang’s biography, and viewed it as extensional accounts that served to demonstrate the influence of Liu Bang’s birth story. This essay argues that it was not only the birth of Liu Bang, but the entire characterization of Liu Bang, that was mythologized by Qian. This essay will further contribute to the academic dialogue by analyzing the context and politico-cultural implications of Qian’s Biography of the Gaozu Emperor primarily from the perspective of Han elite culture, a group that has not been given adequate study in regards to the topic of this essay.

Copyright

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yansu Lu
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/06/01
TI  - The Mythology of Liu Bang in Shiji and Western Han Elites
BT  - Proceedings of the 2022 8th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research (ICHSSR 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 2091
EP  - 2095
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.220504.378
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.220504.378
ID  - Lu2022
ER  -