Abstract: From ancient times of the Emperor Shun(ruled from about 2256 B.C.to 2205 B.C.)to the Western Zhou Dynasty(1046 B.C.-771 B.C.),Chinese classic poems had been used to express irony for over a thousand years.At the end of the Spring and Autumn period(approximately 771 B.C.-476 B.C.),the ritual decline and royal power collapse prompted Confucius to compose The Spring and Autumn Annals noted for its sublime words with profound meanings.It not only inherited the educational function of irony from poetry,but also created a rhetoric form characterized by “recording history through related events in indirect and condensed composition”.This style emphasized the choice of perspective,plot and details in narrating,and focused on the similarity and contrast of two or more events.After the poetry and ritual between countries had declined,the composition style of The Spring and Autumn Annals became a new embodiment of irony and marked the founding of rhetorics in ancient China.

Key words: the composition style of The Spring and Autumn Annals, irony, recording history through related events in indirect and condensed composition