Abstract：As a chronicle, Zi Zhi Tong Jian also enjoys biographical value. Throughout the work, Sima Guang follows the principle of “the good-evil intermingling” to examine humanity, thus ensuring the consistency of human characters in his fragmentary narration. His story-telling narration, in combination with his descriptions of details, succeeds in bringing characters true to life. The characters’s discourse, in particular dialogs, not only contributes to the emplotment, but functions as the comparison of personalities and the display of changes in the characters’s mind. He pays much attention to unofficial history, treat novels in an open-minded manner and employs a great many materials from those sources. All these features demonstrate great values for Chinese contemporary political and military life writing.

Key words: Sima Guang; “the good-evil intermingling”; story-telling narration; dialog

Yang Zhengrun is Visiting Distinguished Professor inSchoolofHumanitiesatShanghai Jiaotong University,China. He is Director of the Center for Life-Writing at SJTU, editor-in-chief of Journal of Modern Life-Writing Studies, and Director of the State-Sponsored Major Project “Compilation and Research of Overseas Life-Writing on Modern Chinese People” (IN: 11&ZD138). His publications include Biography: A Historical Survey (1994) and Poetics of Modern Biography (2009) and numerous articles on biography study.