自魯迅提出「傳奇文」的概念，這個術語已被普遍接受並廣泛使用。惟不少學者對此說法仍相當保留。翻閱林林總總的古代文章總集，雖偶有收錄「傳奇文」作品，但在古代文體系譜裡，「傳奇文」卻從來沒有獨立身份。縱然論者不斷嘗試釐清傳記與「傳奇文」兩者的文體特徵，論點卻總是無法圓滿，究其原因乃受制於小說的討論框架。「傳奇文」的被建構，重要性不止於重構中國古典小說史，更帶出了古代文體分裂的複雜議題。本文將嘗試突破小說的討論框架，把「傳奇文」重新置於中國傳統的文體系譜中，結合唐宋以來文學觀念的發展狀況，試圖釐清魯迅「傳奇文」概念與古代「傳奇」觀念之異同，並重新考察傳統文人如何看待「傳奇文」和「假傳」這兩種具有親緣關係的文類，從而闡明魯迅建構「傳奇文」概念的意義。

Since Lu Xun proposed the concept of “chuanqi wen,” this literary term has been widely accepted and used. Yet some scholars question the use of this term. Although works of “chuanqi wen” were being selected by some compilers, in various literary anthologies of the pre-modern China, the term was never been considered an independent genre in the “pedigree” of traditional genres. Notwithstanding scholars keep attempting to clarify the features of biography and “chuanqi wen,” none of them is successful as their researches always tied to the study of fiction. The clarification of “chuanqi wen” not only is of importance to the reconstruction of the history of classical Chinese fiction, but also raises complicated questions of genre differentiation before and after the Classical Prose Movement of the Tang and Song Dynasties. This article attempts to break through the realm of fiction, and to study “chuanqi wen” in the “pedigree” of traditional genres. To better understand Lu Xun’s concept on “chuanqi wen,” this article differentiates the concept of “chuanqi wen” from “chuanqi,” and also investigates how literati of the pre-modern China differentiated pseudo-biography from “chuanqi wen” in term of combining the development of literary thoughts since the Tang-Song periods.