Yiwenzhi

The Hanshu yiwenzhi (Chinese汉书·艺文志/汉书·艺文志, English Treatise on Literature, Bibliographical section of the history of the Western Han Dynasty or Earlier, in short: Literature Catalog of Hanshu ' ) is the bibliographic section of the history of the Western Han or Earlier dynasty of the famous Chinese historian Ban Gu (班固) ( 32-92 ), who finished the story begun by his father of the Han Dynasty ( -206 to 8 ). The catalog is in the 30th section ( juan ).

The basis for the catalog, assisted by Liu Xin (刘歆/刘歆, Liu Hsin, -46 to 23 ), who had made ​​a description of the Imperial Library.

The catalog provides important information about the literature of the various Chinese intellectual currents of the pre- Qin period (see Nine currents ), of which only scattered and often exist fragmentary surviving source texts.

Example Zhuangzi

The information on the philosophical work of Zhuangzi (庄子) are denominated in the catalog as follows: "五十 二 篇 名 周,宋人.. " This tells us that the author of this catalog a version of 52 chapters ( pian ) was known, instead of of today's popular 33 chapters ( pian ), as amended by Guo Xiang (郭象). As a first name of the author Zhou (周) is given, and finally, we learn that he comes from the State Song (宋).

On the authorship of the Zhuangzi can not be discussed further here.