In Persian literary history, it is commonplace to find numerous citations from various medieval and early modern biographical works. These works may be from a number of different--but related--genres, including tazkereh, tabaqat, seyar, malfuzat, and divan introductions (muqaddemeh). However, the approach of most scholars to these texts is relatively similar: that is, they treat them as repositories of biographical data that can be mined for factual information. While there is a broad recognition that some of the information that is provided in these accounts is certainly fallacious, there is still a stubborn tendency in Persian literary studies to read medieval poetic biography traditions as if they represent a factual core adulterated by some inaccuracies, exaggerations, and stylized elements that can be sifted through to reveal their real, factual foundations. In my view, however, this approach to medieval Persian biographical literature is not only largely unproductive, but, more importantly, I think it fundamentally misunderstands the nature of these texts and thus leads to serious misuses of this body of literature in the scholarship on the medieval period. This problematic approach to biographical traditions is especially evident in the scholarship on the medieval Persian poet Fakhr al-Din ‘Eraqi, whose biographical tradition I will use as a case study for the present essay. I will suggest an alternative way of reading these texts through a exploration of ‘Eraqi’s biographical tradition as it is represented in a number of the most important Persian biographical works, including the anonymous 14-15th introduction/muqaddemeh to his divan, Dowlatshah Samarqandi’s "Tazkerat al-Shu’ara," Jami’s "Nafahat al-Uns," Gazargahi’s "Majalis al-‘Ushshaq," Qazvini’s "Tazkereh-ye Meykhaneh," and Arzu’s "Tazkereh Majma’ al-Nafa’is." Utilizing analogous studies of poetic biographical traditions (vita, vida, razo) in other literary traditions (e.g. the studies of Poe, Burgwinkle, Nagy, Zumthor) and recent critical assessments of Islamicate/Persianate historiographic/hagiographic literature (e.g. studies of Chabbi, Waldman, Noth, Khalidi, Meisami, Cornell, Hermansen, Mojaddedi, Steinfels, Stewart), I will argue that ‘Eraqi’s biographical tradition should primarily be read as an interpretive and discursive construct that (1) fashions deeply symbolic and stylized biographical sitz im lebens for some of ‘Eraqi’s most famous poems, and (2) constructs a Sufi exemplar in its portrayal of ‘Eraqi. This reconceptualization of the nature of these biographical genres could have a profound effect on the evaluation of previous Persian literary history and the writing of any future histories of Persian literature.