| Chapter 1: | The Life and Times of Zanning |
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according to time and place, and also according to cultural proclivities. They may even condition an author’s motives in ways that challenge assumptions about the reputed universality of human nature.2 In the case of traditional China, historiographical conventions tend to render the individual motives of the author opaque and hard to discern.3 The same may be said for the character of individual subjects treated in the biographies themselves.
Perhaps the greatest difference separating traditional historiography, including traditional Chinese historiography, from modern historiography is the way in which historiographical conventions treat the biographies of individuals.4 Biography was an important mode in traditional Chinese historiography.5 It dominates the style of the Dynastic Histories––for example, of the 496 chapters that make up the Song shi 宋史, or Song History, 328 are written in a style that may be loosely termed “biography.”6 47 chapters are taken up with the “Basic Annals” (benji 本紀) of the Song emperors, 27 chapters with the lives of members of “Hereditary Houses” (shijia 世家) who exemplified themselves in service to the emperors,7 and 254 chapters with the “Biographies” (liezhuan 列傳) of numerous types of exemplary figures.8 The point of these “biographies,” however, was not to stress individuality or portray individual differences and peculiarities, assumptions often characteristic of modern biography writing originating in the West.9
The conventions of traditional Chinese historiography tended to reduce individuality to a stereotypical set of assumptions that reveal more about social mores and values than individual virtue and character. It was a given that illustrious and noteworthy individuals would reflect the characteristic norms and mores of society in a uniform manner. Any deviation from the norm was judged as a lack of virtue, not an expression of individuality. Failure to comply would indicate unworthiness to the high honor that society conferred on those who conformed. It is no wonder that the lives of individuals were recorded so as to reflect their