Canonization of Chinese Literature in the East and West
The evolution of chinia's litterary has had many didfrent factors leading up to it's formation. Theses include Politics and Ideology
Literary Canon
A literary canon denotes a canon of books and other forms of literature that are influential in shaping it’s target culture. In the final analysis, literary canons are closely related to the aesthetic value which is supposed to pass the test of time.
Note to reader: Becuase of the many reasons for canonization this paper will be divided into to processes of canonazation then chrologically rather than primarily chronoloically to better see the modes of canonization.
Factors for cannaozation of Chinese Literature
Politics and Ideology
Since the beginning of written chinese literature the currrernt politics, history and ideologies of either the people of rulers mandadted the currrent literary canon. In early chinese history a prime exapmle is that of Qin Shi HuangDi who used the legal school to ligitimize his rule. We see this trend of new dynasties usingg literarute to ligitimize there stanidngg and create litterary canons. the han Dynasty followin the Qin dynasty used confucian works to ligitimize their rule and the 4 bbooks and 5 classics instatnly were canon. In modern chinese history we see major examples of vecotorized canonization where communist writingg from russia when translated were
Translations
in respect to modern chinese literary history beinging from the late qing to now the most imporant force of canonazation would be translations of chinese texts into western languagges and western iterature into chinese. The
Re-readability
Trevor Ross “A work that endures… offers qualities of insight, expression, or beauty that demand repeated readings while resisting complete encapsulation”
Credibility