Mimicking the Sage: Identity and Autobiographical Narrative in The Biography of YANG Xiong in Hanshu

The biography of YANG Xiong in Hanshu was compiled by Ban Gu by transcribing YANG Xiong's Self-Preface(自序), which is basically the original text of the Self-Preface before the sentence "雄之自序云尔".The text Self-Preface is essentially an autobiography rather than a preface to a book, and YANG Xiong's aim is to avoid the annihilation of his reputation in future generations. Since YANG Xiong was aware at the time of writing that the essay would later be collected by the imperial court, the text shows a clear tendency toward self-fashioning and self-protection.YANG Xiong imitates the experience of Confucius to arrange the narrative structure of the Self-Preface, which prominently reflects his psychology of sainthood.In terms of narrative techniques, he inherits the narrative techniques of historical biographies and uses the third person narrative, trying to make the text both authentic and objective. The use of negative narrative opens up the space for interpretation of the text and makes the reader unconsciously participate in the process of creating the text while reading.