Preface is a style, that is, a preface written in front of an article or a collection of poems.
At that time, the scholar-officials in the south of the Yangtze River gathered in Lanting, Huiji Mountain, and wrote poems for each other and compiled poems (or collections of poems). Before this episode, there needs to be an introduction, explaining the context, reason, time, place, people, what to do and so on of this collection (or poem). At that time, this preface was written by Wang Xizhi and began to write. Later generations called this article "Preface to Lanting" or "Preface to Lanting".
Wang Xizhi was honored as a book saint by later generations. His achievements in calligraphy are unparalleled. The Preface to Lanting written by him is elegant and natural, which is highly praised by later generations. However, in fact, Wang Xizhi is not only good at calligraphy, but also excellent in writing. Only later generations paid attention to his calligraphy attainments and ignored his literary talent. Later, Wang Yangming of the Ming Dynasty was the first person in the world, and his calligraphy attainments were also quite high. Later generations praised Wang Yangming as a saint, but ignored his calligraphy. Therefore, when commenting on the two men, later generations thought that "Wang Xizhi built books with books and Wang Yangming built books with people".