论仙道小说的史传体例

Historical Recording Style of Novels of Celestial Beings and Taoist Priests

《道藏》及《藏外道书》中有大量的仙传,这些仙传通常采用史家传记手法写作,由于其中多虚构成分,故今人一般以仙道或道教小说视之。仙传之所以会采用纪传体写作,是由于作者认为他们所记都是真人真事,只有依据史家实录原则来写作才能做到客观公正,具有可信性。今人一般将仙传分为单传、类传和总传三类,也有将其分为像传和文传两类的。

There are a great number of immortal biographies in Treasury of Tao and Zang Wai Taoism Book, written in a historical recording style. They are regarded as novels of celestial beings and Taoist priests because of the fictional elements. The reason why a his-torical recording style is adopted is that writers took the records as realities and such a style made their works objective and believable. Those novels are usually classified into individual, category and overall ones; they are also classified into image and written ones.