History of Chinese Literature
History of Chinese Literature
This is the website for the History of Chinese Literature in 1 vol. For the other projects on Chinese Literature, please refer to the other websites:
- History of Chinese Literature in 3 vols.
- History of Chinese Literature in 12 vols.
- History of Chinese Literature in 100 vols.
Introduction
It was often claimed that the cultural space very much in the region what is called China today (and what we will call "China" too in this book as a reference point) did not have a genuine History of Chinese Literature until it was introduced to them by Japanese and later Western authors. However, there were extensive Histories of Chinese Literature in China itself, including collections of literature considered "top" or "representative", prefaces to these collections describing literary history, manuals on how to write literature including classifications of literature. Also there was a rich history on literature reviews, e.g. the xiaopinwen. The development of genres was described in #. There was a constant reevaluation of literary genres, very early with Feng Menglong and Li Liweng, but also by Wang Guowei, Lu Xun and others. Very influential was Lu Xun's A Short History of Chinese literature, which valued novels highly, and later C.T.Hsia's #.
A Metaphor for Chinese Literature
Many metaphors for Chinese Literature were used by colleagues, like a river etc. It flows for a long time, it has an established bed but is able to move its bed over a long time. It also carries always new water, which goes through the old channels. However, this metaphor does not fit for the masterpieces of literature, which stay. Also the culmulativity of literature is not captchured. In my view, the best metaphor is a tree, since there not everything is totally exchanged like the water in the river, but there are branches, which stay and become larger and build the foundation for new branches. Literature is cumulative, it is not possible to produce literature without learning a language, therefore naturally learning the culture and literary traditions. Even if the author somehow happens to be ignorant of earlier literature or wants to be totally innovative, the readers still know the literary tradition and will read the work against their background knowledge.
Between subjectivity and objectivity
Histories of literature need to be selective. The reader expects to get introduced to representative works. The author wants to give the history a personal touch and therefore may concentrate on the literature he likes himself and may ignore other genres or works.