The purpose of Fan Ye’s writing of disquisitions and eulogies (lun zan)
Résumé
Fan Ye’s Hou Han shu offers an unprecedented development of what we may call the “historiographical paratext”, which includes xu 序, lun 論 and zan 贊. In his “Letter from prison to my nephews” 獄中與諸甥侄書, which would later be considered as an autobiography, Fan Ye, in a strong assertion of his own work, explains that he is particularly proud of his disquisitions and eulogies (lun zan 論贊). They appear at the end of the chapters (or sometimes, as regards the lun, in the middle of the chapter) and allow the historian to make his personal voice heard and to develop a moral and political reflection. By elaborating at a high level this part of historiographical writing, Fan Ye deeply contributes to making it emerge as a mature literary genre, whose origins are to be found in the “judgements of the gentleman” (junzi yue 君子曰) of the Zuozhuan 左傳. Two questions may be raised: that of the reasons why disquisitions and eulogies were so important to Fan Ye’s eyes, and that of the reasons why he considered them as his most successful piece of writing. Relying on the analysis of a few specific examples (especially the “Rulin liezhuan” 儒林列傳 and the “Kuli liezhuan” 酷吏列傳), I will try to characterize the style and purpose of his lun zan.