HIGHLIGHTS OF CHINESE LITERATURE

PART A-D
INTRODUCTION TO CHINESE LIT
Chinese literature extends thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic
court archives to the mature vernacular fiction novels that arose during the Ming Dynasty to
entertain the masses of literate Chinese. The introduction of widespread woodblock
printing during the Tang Dynasty (618907) and the invention of movable type printing by Bi
Sheng (9901051) during the Song Dynasty (9601279) rapidly spread written knowledge
throughout China. In more modern times, the author Lu Xun (18811936) is considered the
founder of baihua literature in China.
PRE CLASSICAL PERIOD
Formation of the earliest layer of Chinese literature was influenced by oral traditions of different
social and professional provenance: cult and lay musical practices (Shijing),[1]divination (Yi jing),
astronomy, exorcism. An attempt at tracing the genealogy of Chinese literature to religious spells
and incantations (the six zhu , as presented in the "Da zhu" chapter of the Rites of Zhou) was
made by Liu Shipei.
There is a wealth of early Chinese literature dating from the Hundred Schools of Thought that
occurred during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 BC). The most important of these include
the Classics of Confucianism, of Daoism, of Mohism, of Legalism, as well as works of military
science and Chinese history. Note that, except for the books of poems and songs, most of this
literature is philosophical and didactic; there is little in the way of fiction. However, these texts
maintained their significance through both their ideas and their prose style.
The Confucian works in particular have been of key importance to Chinese culture and history,
as a set of works known as the Four Books and Five Classics were, in the 12th century AD,
chosen as the basis for the Imperial examination for any government post. These nine books
therefore became the center of the educational system. They have been grouped into two
categories: the Five Classics, allegedly commented and edited by Confucius, and the Four
Books. The Five Classics

Four Books[edit]
The Four Books (Chinese: ; pinyin: Ssh) are Chinese classic texts illustrating the core
value and belief systems in Confucianism. They were selected by Zhu Xi in the Song dynasty to
serve as general introduction to Confucian thought, and they were, in
the Ming and Qing dynasties, made the core of the official curriculum for the civil service
examinations.[2] They are:

Title
(English
)

Great
Learnin
g

Title
(Chinese
)

Brief Description

Originally one chapter in the Book of Rites. It consists of a short main

text attributed to Confucius and nine commentary chapters by Zeng Zi,
one of Confucius's disciples. Its importance is illustrated by Zeng Zi's
foreword that this is the gateway of learning.
It is significant because it expresses many themes of Chinese
philosophy and political thinking, and has therefore been extremely
influential both in classical and modern Chinese thought. Government,
self cultivation and investigation of things are linked.

Doctrine
of the

Mean

Another chapter in Book of Rites, attributed to Confucius'

grandson Zisi. The purpose of this small, 33-chapter book is to
demonstrate the usefulness of a golden way to gain perfect virtue. It
focuses on the Way () that is prescribed by a heavenly mandate not
only to the ruler but to everyone. To follow these heavenly instructions
by learning and teaching will automatically result in a Confucian virtue.
Because Heaven has laid down what is the way to perfect virtue, it is
not that difficult to follow the steps of the holy rulers of old if one only
knows what is the right way.

Analects

A compilation of speeches by Confucius and his disciples, as well as

the discussions they held. Since Confucius's time, the Analects has
heavily influenced the philosophy and moral values of China and later
other East Asian countries as well. The Imperial examinations, started
in the Jin dynasty and eventually abolished with the founding of
the Republic of China, emphasized Confucian studies and expected
candidates to quote and apply the words of Confucius in their essays.

Mencius

A collection of conversations of the scholar Mencius with kings of his

time. In contrast to the sayings ofConfucius, which are short and selfcontained, the Mencius consists of long dialogues with extensive prose.

Five Classics[edit]
The Five Classics (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: W Jng) are
five pre-Qin Chinese books that form part of the traditional Confucian canon. Several of the texts
were already prominent by the Warring States period. Mencius, the leading Confucian scholar of

the time, regarded the Spring and Autumn Annals as being equally important as the semilegendary chronicles of earlier periods. During the Western Han dynasty, which adopted
Confucianism as its official ideology, these texts became part of the state-sponsored curriculum.
It was during this period that the texts first began to be considered together as a set collection,
and to be called collectively the "Five Classics".[3]
The Five Classics are:

Title
(English)

Title
(Chinese
)

Classic of
Poetry

Book of
Document
s

Brief Description

A collection of 305 poems divided into 160 folk songs, 105 festal
songs sung at court ceremonies, and 40 hymns and eulogies sung at
sacrifices to gods and ancestral spirits of the royal house.

A collection of documents and speeches alleged to have been written

by rulers and officials of the early Zhou period and before. It is
possibly the oldest Chinese narrative, and may date from the 6th
century BC. It includes examples of early Chinese prose.

Describes ancient rites, social forms and court ceremonies. The

version studied today is a re-worked version compiled by scholars in
the third century BC rather than the original text, which is said to
have been edited by Confucius himself.

I Ching
(Book of
Changes)

The book contains a divination system comparable to

Western geomancy or the West African If system.
In Western cultures and modern East Asia, it is still widely used for
this purpose.

Spring
and
Autumn
Annals

A historical record of the State of Lu, Confucius's native state, 722

481 BC.

Book of
Rites

The Classic of Music () is sometimes considered as the sixth classic but was lost in
the Burning of the Books.
Up to the Western Han, authors would typically list the Classics in the order Poems-DocumentsRituals-Changes-Spring&Autumn. However from the Eastern Han the default order instead
became Changes-Documents-Poems-Rituals-Spring&Autumn.

Other important philosophical works include the Mohist Mozi, which taught "inclusive love"
as both an ethical and social principle, and Hanfeizi, one of the central Legalist texts.
Important Daoist classics include the Dao De Jing, the Zhuangzi, and the Classic of the Perfect
Emptiness. Later authors combined Daoism with Confucianism and Legalism, such as Liu
An (2nd century BC), whose Huainanzi (The Philosophers of Huai-nan) also added to the fields
of geography and topography.
Among the classics of military science, The Art of War by Sun Tzu (6th century BC) was perhaps
the first to outline guidelines for effective international diplomacy. It was also the first in a
tradition of Chinese military treatises, such as the Wujing Zongyao (Collection of the Most
Important Military Techniques, 1044 AD) and the Huolongjing (Fire Dragon Manual, 14th
century AD).

Main article: Chinese historiography

The Chinese kept consistent and accurate court records after the year 841 BC, with the beginning
of the Gonghe Regency of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The earliest known narrative history of
China was the Zuo Zhuan, which was compiled no later than 389 BC, and attributed to the blind
5th century BC historian Zuo Qiuming. The Book of Documents is thought to have been
compiled as far back as the 6th century BC, and was certainly compiled by the 4th century BC,
the latest date for the writing of the Guodian Chu Slips unearthed in a Hubei tomb in 1993.
The Book of Documents included early information on geography in the Yu Gong chapter.
[3]
The Bamboo Annals found in 281 AD in the tomb of the King of Wei, who was interred in 296
BC, provide another example; however, unlike the Zuo Zhuan, the authenticity of the early date
of the Bamboo Annals is in doubt. Another early text was the political strategy book of the Zhan
Guo Ce, compiled between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC, withpartial amounts of the text found
amongst the 2nd century BC tomb site at Mawangdui. The oldest extant dictionary in China is
the Erya, dated to the 3rd century BC, anonymously written but with later commentary by the
historian Guo Pu (276324). Other early dictionaries include theFangyan by Yang Xiong (53

BC 18 AD) and the Shuowen Jiezi by Xu Shen (58147 AD). One of the largest was
the Kangxi Dictionary compiled by 1716 under the auspices of the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1661
1722); it provides definitions for over 47,000 characters.
Although court records and other independent records existed beforehand, the definitive work in
early Chinese historical writing was the Shiji, orRecords of the Grand Historian written by Han
Dynasty court historian Sima Qian (145 BC-90 BC). This groundbreaking text laid the
foundation for Chinese historiography and the many official Chinese historical texts compiled
for each dynasty thereafter. Sima Qian is often compared to the Greek Herodotus in scope and
method, because he covered Chinese history from the mythical Xia Dynasty until the
contemporary reign ofEmperor Wu of Han while retaining an objective and non-biased
standpoint. This was often difficult for the official dynastic historians, who used historical works
to justify the reign of the current dynasty. He influenced the written works of many Chinese
historians, including the works of Ban Gu and Ban Zhao in the 1st and 2nd centuries, and
even Sima Guang's 11th-century compilation of the Zizhi Tongjian, presented to Emperor
Shenzong of Song in 1084 AD. The overall scope of the historiographical tradition in China is
termed the Twenty-Four Histories, created for each successive Chinese dynasty up until the Ming
Dynasty (13681644); China's last dynasty, the Qing Dynasty (16441911), is not included.
Large encyclopedias were also produced in China through the ages. The Yiwen
Leiju encyclopedia was completed by Ouyang Xun in 624 during the Tang Dynasty, with aid
from scholars Linghu Defen and Chen Shuda. During the Song Dynasty, the compilation of
the Four Great Books of Song (10th century 11th century), begun by Li Fang and completed
by Cefu Yuangui, represented a massive undertaking of written material covering a wide range of
different subjects. This included the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era (978), the Imperial
Readings of the Taiping Era (983), the Finest Blossoms in the Garden of Literature (986), and
the Prime Tortoise of the Record Bureau (1013). Although these Song Dynasty Chinese
encyclopedias featured millions of written Chinese characters each, their aggregate size paled in
comparison to the later Yongle Encyclopedia (1408) of the Ming Dynasty, which contained a
total of 50 million Chinese characters.[4] Even this size was trumped by later Qing Dynasty
encyclopedias, such as the printed Gujin Tushu Jicheng (1726), which featured over 100 million
written Chinese characters in over 800,000 pages, printed in 60 different copies using coppermetal Chinese movable type printing. Other great encyclopedic writers include the polymath
scientist Shen Kuo (10311095) and his Dream Pool Essays, the agronomist and inventorWang
Zhen (fl. 12901333) and his Nongshu, and the minor scholar-official Song Yingxing (1587
1666) and his Tiangong Kaiwu.