| Yiwenzhi | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 藝文志 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 艺文志 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | Monograph on arts and letters | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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The "Yiwenzhi", or "Treatise on Literature", is the bibliographical section of the Book of Han authored by the Chinese historian Ban Gu (32–92 AD), who completed the work begun by his father Ban Biao. The bibliographical catalog is the last of its ten treatises, and scroll 30 of the 100 scrolls comprising the Hanshu.
The basis for the catalog came from the "Qilüe" (七略) by Liu Xin (c. 46 BCE – 23 CE), which gives detailed bibliographical information about holdings in the Imperial Library,[1] which itself was an extension on Bielu (別錄) by Liu Xin's father Liu Xiang, on which the two had collaborated. The catalog provides important insights into the literature of the various Chinese intellectual currents of the pre-Qin period (Nine Schools of Thought), of which only some 20% are presently known.