A Research On Miscellaneous Biography In Tang Dynasty

As one part of the history type in the four categories of ancient title catalogue, miscellaneous biography is divided from the official biography, among which the official biography are the most important catalytic promoter to this new writing form both in the stylistic rules and paradigms. Liu Xiang wrote the first miscellaneous biography. From the on, more and more authors wrote this kind of biography especially between Wei and Jin periods. As a result, Ruan Xiao-xu took miscellaneous biography as one part of history category in his bibliography book named seven-catalogue.As a transitional stage in the history of miscellaneous biography, miscellaneous biography in Tang Dynasty not only has ignorable documental and history values, but also exerts some characters of itself.In the preface we look back on the present research situation of this field. Because miscellaneous biography was prosperous between Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty in which period its status was established too, the scholars paid more attentions to this period either in their research or the compiling work of the disappeared articles. The research on miscellaneous biography in Tang Dynasty is wanted urgently.The miscellaneous biography in Tang Dynasty is looked through this dissertation in six parts.In the first chapter, we talk about the concept of miscellaneous biography deeply and make a distinction among miscellaneous biography, Romance and literary biography. As a special writing form, miscellaneous biography is different from official biography and literary biography. Miscellaneous biography differsfrom literary biography in the biography form and expression way. Romance is not a new literary form but a special miscellaneous biography with excellent recounts in fact. At the same time, it is also a aesthetics style which can be applied to the marvels and anecdote fictions or other literary pieces. At the same time, the origin of miscellaneous biography is discussed; its history is looked backed too. At last we draw the conclusion that the type and pattern of this literary writings has formed before Tang Dynasty.Chapter two counts up the number of miscellaneous biography in Tang Dynasty from three aspects: one from varies category books of Tang and Song Dynasties, the number is 109 volumes. The other from literary works and Romances of this period, this number is 79 pieces. Some miscellaneous biographies in Tang Dynasty can be found in the Dun Huang Documents and Daoism Zang, Buddhism Zang which was not recorded in varies ancient categories. So the total figure of miscellaneous biography in Tang Dynasty is about two hundreds.Chapter three to five research miscellaneous biography in Tang Dynasty one by one according to several parts: individual biography, family biography, regional biography, Taoism biography, Buddhism biography, etc. Based on these work, we talk about the characters of every kind of biographies and its evolvement trace. In a word the number of individual biography and family biography is less than that of Wei-Jin Period. The concept of family biography is different from earlier period. Some books named family biography become individual biography in fact. Buddhism biography and Taoism biography are cherished in Tang Dynasty because the religions are believed by more and more people. In the developing history of miscellaneous biography, Tang Dynasty is a very important changing times.