History of Chinese Literature
History of Chinese Literature
中国文学史
From Oracle Bones to Artificial Intelligence — Three Millennia of Sinophone Literary Creation
Martin Woesler
Hunan Normal University
European University Press, 2026
Table of Contents
PART I: FOUNDATIONS AND ORIGINS
- Chapter 1: Prologue — What Is "Chinese Literature"?
- Chapter 2: Before Writing — Oral Traditions, Myth, and Ritual Origins
- Chapter 3: The Book of Songs and the Birth of the Poetic Tradition
- Chapter 4: The Elegies of Chu and the Southern Lyric Tradition
- Chapter 5: The Hundred Schools — Philosophy as Literature
- Chapter 6: Historical Writing as Literary Art — From Zuozhuan to Shiji
PART II: THE CLASSICAL IMPERIAL TRADITION
- Chapter 7: Han Dynasty Literature — Empire, Expansion, and the Encyclopedic Impulse
- Chapter 8: The Age of Disunion — Literary Self-Consciousness and Aesthetic Autonomy
PART III: THE GOLDEN AGES — TANG AND SONG
- Chapter 9: Early and High Tang Poetry — From Palace Style to the Grandeur of Empire
- Chapter 10: Du Fu, the Late Tang, and Poetry in an Age of Catastrophe
- Chapter 11: Tang Prose, Fiction, and the Chuanqi Revolution
- Chapter 12: Song Dynasty Literature I — Ci Poetry, Neo-Confucianism, and the Inner Turn
- Chapter 13: Song Dynasty Literature II — Southern Song, Patriotic Poetry, and the Novel in Embryo
PART IV: THE AGE OF DRAMA AND FICTION
- Chapter 14: Yuan Drama — The Golden Age of Chinese Theater
- Chapter 15: The Birth of the Chinese Novel — From Storyteller's Art to Printed Epic
- Chapter 16: Late Ming Literature — Individualism, Sentiment, and the Jin Ping Mei Revolution
PART V: EARLY MODERN TRANSFORMATIONS
- Chapter 17: Qing Dynasty Literature I — Conquest, Nostalgia, and the Scholarly Novel
- Chapter 18: Qing Dynasty Literature II — Popular Culture, Regional Theater, and Women's Writing
- Chapter 19: Late Qing and the Shock of Modernity
PART VI: THE MODERN REVOLUTION
- Chapter 20: The May Fourth Movement and the Literary Revolution
- Chapter 21: Revolution, War, and Literature in the Service of the Nation
PART VII: LITERATURE UNDER SOCIALISM AND ITS AFTERMATH
- Chapter 22: Literature of the People's Republic I — Socialist Realism and Its Discontents
- Chapter 23: The Cultural Revolution and Its Literary Legacy
- Chapter 24: The "New Era" — Scar Literature, Root-Seeking, and the Avant-Garde
PART VIII: CONTEMPORARY AND GLOBAL SINOPHONE LITERATURE
- Chapter 25: Post-1989 Literature in the PRC — Market, Memory, and the Long Novel
- Chapter 26: Taiwan Literature — From Nativist Debate to a Polyphonic Tradition
- Chapter 27: Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asian Sinophone Literature
- Chapter 28: Chinese Diaspora Literature and World Literature
PART IX: CROSS-CUTTING THEMES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
- Chapter 29: The Chinese Poetic Tradition — Continuities and Transformations
- Chapter 30: Chinese Literary Criticism and Aesthetics
- Chapter 31: Literature, Politics, and Censorship — The Eternal Entanglement
- Chapter 32: Translation, Cultural Exchange, and the Shaping of Chinese Literature
- Chapter 33: Printing, Publishing, and the Material Culture of Literature
- Chapter 34: Digital Literature and AI-Generated Writing
- Chapter 35: Conclusion — Chinese Literature in World Perspective
About This Project
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Status: In Progress(2026)