Investigation Into "Dong Nan San Xian"'s Sanzhuan

Sanzhuan, which means non-historical biography, is an important part in classical Chinese biographical literature. Although most of this kind of biography such as Muzhi, Xingzhuang and Beiming seems reach only a literarily low level, they still have their own literary characteristic and content, with their influence and value unreplacable. Of course, it will be a meaningful work to make a research on them.The paper takes "Dong Nan San Xian", that is, three outstanding men in southeast China, for analyzing. These three persons' great contribution in the field of Lixue has shadowed their literature performance, esp. biography writing. However, "Dong Nan San Xian" had not only wrote a lot of Sanzhuan, but also made them a unique kind of biographical writing, which should be ascribed to their profound knowledge background, open-mindedness and their mastery of Lixue. As a result, such a research is sure to be a very rewarding job.The paper is based on the arrangement, analysis and comparison of historical data, in order to find the features of Zhangshi, Zhuxi and Lvzuqian's biographical writing, and to reveal the similarity and difference between their biographical work and the uniqueness that divides them from other Chinese writers. It also aims to summarize how "Dong Nan San Xian" had inherited and developed the old Chinese biographical writing tradition, and their influence on the succeeding biographical writors.The paper is consist of six parts. In introduction, I would give the background of "Dong Nan San Xian'"s biographical writing by summing up the present condition of research on Sanzhuan. I would also illustrate the significance of my thesis in this part. In the first chapter, I would analyze the heroic theme and the simple and unadorned style of Zhangshi's biography. In the second chapter, the change of writing mode and the strengthening on thinking brought by Zhuxi 's biography has been put forward. The third chapter emphasizes on the features of Lvzuqian's writing, which is of fluent style and flexible form. In the fourth chapter, I try to find the contributing factors for "Dong Nan San Xian'"s success in such a literature style from the...