On the Modern Transformation of Autobiography

In ancient China, “biography” and “record” were the two entirely different independent linguistic styles and there was no autobiography in its modern sense. The birth of autobiographies was closely related to the Enlightenment. After 1898, with the Eastward movement of the Western learning, the modern individuals had undergone the collapse of the traditional cultural structure. In order to reconstruct an effective modern system of such structure and hence stabilize their identity, the new intellectuals found the innovative power in autobiographies. Accordingly, they studied the Chinese history of autobiographies in an attempt to rebuild the ideal personality of “new people” and thus they completed the modern transformation of autobiographies.