What are the classifications of ancient biographical literature?

From the mid-Western Han Dynasty recorded in historical books to the feudal society that overthrew the Qing Dynasty for more than 2,000 years, China produced a large number of biographies and biographical literature. They have all kinds of faces, good and bad, and different names. If we roughly distinguish these biographies, we can clearly see that there are four main categories: one is biographies in the "official history" of past dynasties, which are simply called "historical biographies" from today's point of view. These works are extremely feudal and have many untrustworthy things. But in the whole feudal society of more than two thousand years, its status is the highest. It is the main way for future generations to understand the history of the previous generation, and it is also the most basic historical material that people can see.

The second is "scattered biography", which refers to biographical single works written by scholars in past dynasties. There are many kinds of such works, many of which are practical articles used in various occasions at that time, such as inscriptions, epitaphs, epitaphs, commemorative articles, poems, prefaces of some works and prefaces written for other works. As for the single-line biography named after "biography", it came into being relatively late and did not occupy an important position for a long time.

The third type is "genre biography", which refers to a single book based on genre, or a collection of character stories compiled by genre in a book.

Fourth, it refers to the long and independent ancient single biography. There are few such works in ancient China, and only The biography of Master Sanzang can be found today. This is the earliest and most detailed record of the life story of Xuanzang, a Buddhist saint in the Tang Dynasty. The book has 80,000 words and is divided into ten volumes. The first five volumes describe Xuanzang's early life and his journey to India to learn from the scriptures and give lectures. The last five volumes describe Xuanzang's translation after returning to China. The book was written in 688, and Wu Zetian hung in the arch for four years. It is a novella biography that has always been praised by scholars. Liang Qichao once said in "After the Biography of zhina Imperial Palace Xuanzang" that this work should be the "value first" among all biographies of celebrities in ancient and modern times; The annotated edition of Zhonghua Book Company also said that this work was "a masterpiece in China's ancient biographical literature".

China's ancient "biographies" can be roughly divided into the above four categories. If it is "biographical literature", people generally only pay attention to the first and second categories. We don't deny that there are many vivid stories in Biography of Gao Shi and Biography of Tang Caizi, and there are some wonderful descriptions in The biography of Master Sanzang, but on the whole, they are far from the first two categories of fine arts.