Literature of China
Chinese literature extends thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the mature fictional novels that arose during the Ming Dynasty to entertain the masses of literate Chinese. The introduction of widespread woodblock printing during the Tang Dynasty (618–907) and the invention of movable type printing by Bi Sheng (990–1051) during the Song Dynasty (960–1279) rapidly spread written knowledge throughout China. In more modern times, the author Lu Xun (1881–1936) is considered the founder of baihua literature in China.
Classical texts
There is a wealth of early Chinese literature dating from the Hundred Schools of Thought that occurred during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 BCE). 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 CE, 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 compiled by Confucius, and the Four Books, which were compiled in the 12th century CE. The Five Classics include:
- The I Ching, or Book of Changes , a divination manual attributed to the mythical emperor Fu Xi and based on eight trigrams. The I Ching is still used by adherents of folk religion.
- The Classic of Poetry, a collection of folk songs, festival and ceremonial songs, and religious hymns and eulogies.
- The Record of Rites (a recreation of the original Classic of Rites, which was lost in the Imperial book purge), which describes ancient rites and court ceremonies.
- The Classic of History, a collection of documents and speeches allegedly written by rulers and officials of the early Zhou period and before. It contains the best examples of early Chinese prose.
- The Spring and Autumn Annals, a historical record of Confucius' native state, Lu, from 722 to 479 BCE.
The Four Books include: the Analects of Confucius, a book of pithy sayings attributed to Confucius and recorded by his disciples; Mencius, a collection of political dialogues; the Doctrine of the Mean, a book that teaches the path to Confucian virtue; and the Great Learning, a book about education, self-cultivation and the Dao.
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 BCE), 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 BCE) 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 CE) and the Huolongjing (Fire Dragon Manual, 14th century CE).
Historical texts, dictionaries and encyclopedias
Sima Qian laid the ground for professional
Chinese historiography more than 2,000 years ago.
The Chinese kept consistent and accurate court records after the year 841 BCE, 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 BCE, and attributed to the blind 5th century BCE historian Zuo Qiuming. The Classic of History is thought to have been compiled as far back as the 6th century BCE, and was certainly compiled by 300 BCE, the latest date for the writing of the Guodian Chu Slips unearthed in a Hubei tomb in 1993. The Classic of History included early information on geography in the chapter of the Yu Gong.[1] The Bamboo Annals found in 281 AD in the tomb of the King of Wei, who was interred in 296 BCE, 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 BCE, with partial amounts of the text found amongst the 2nd century BCE tomb site at Mawangdui. The oldest extant dictionary in China is the Erya, dated to the 3rd century BCE, anonymously written but with later commentary by the historian Guo Pu (276–324). Other early dictionaries include the Fangyan by Yang Xiong (53 BCE – 18 AD) and the Shuowen Jiezi by Xu Shen (58–147 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 (史記/史记), written by the Han Dynasty court historian Sima Qian (145 BCE-90 BCE). 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 of Emperor 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 (資治通鑒/资治通鉴), 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 (1368–1644); China's last dynasty, the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), 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.[2] 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 copper-metal Chinese movable type printing. Other great encyclopedic writers include the polymath scientist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) and his Dream Pool Essays, the agronomist and inventor Wang Zhen (fl. 1290–1333) and his Nongshu, and the minor scholar-official Song Yingxing (1587–1666) and his Tiangong Kaiwu.
Classical poetry
Su Shi (1037–1101), a famous Song Dynasty poet and statesman.
Among the earliest and most influential poetic anthologies was the Chuci (楚辭，楚辞) (Songs of Chu), made up primarily of poems ascribed to the semi-legendary Qu Yuan (屈原) (c. 340-278 BCE) and his follower Song Yu (宋玉) (4th century BCE). The songs in this collection are lyrical and romantic and represent a different tradition from the earlier Shijing. During the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-CE 220), this form evolved into the fu (賦，赋) , a poem usually in rhymed verse except for introductory and concluding passages that are in prose, often in the form of questions and answers. The era of disunity that followed the Han period saw the rise of romantic nature poetry, which was heavily influenced by Taoism. The Han Chinese astronomer, mathematician, and inventor Zhang Heng (78–139 CE) was also largely responsible for the early development of Shi (詩，诗) poetry.
Classical poetry reached its zenith during the Tang Dynasty (CE 618–907), and thus this type of poetry is known as Tang poetry. The early Tang period was best known for its lushi 律诗 (regulated verse), an eight-line poem with five or seven words in each line; Zi (verse following strict rules of prosody); and jueju （绝句）(truncated verse), a four-line poem with five or seven words in each line. The two best-known poets of the period were Li Bai (701–762) and Du Fu (712–770). Li Bai was known for the romanticism of his poetry; Du Fu was seen as a Confucian moralist with a strict sense of duty toward society. Later Tang poets developed greater realism and social criticism and refined the art of narration. Among the best-known of the later Tang poets was Bai Juyi (772–846), whose poems were a critical commentary on the society of his time. Li Yun (789–831) was an eclectic poet, writing mainly "Palace poetry". The Quantangshi, or complete Tang Poems (全唐詩) was not fully compiled until 1705 CE, during the Qing Dynasty.
Subsequent writers of classical poetry lived under the shadow of their Tang predecessors, and although there were many poets in subsequent dynasties, none reached the level of this period.[by whom?] As the classical style of poetry became more stultified, a more flexible poetic medium, the ci (詞，词), arrived on the scene. The ci, a poetic form based on the tunes of popular songs, some of which were of Central Asian origin, was developed to its fullest by the poets of the Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE). The Song era poet Su Shi (1037–1101 CE) mastered the ci, shi, and fu forms of poetry, as well as prose, calligraphy, and painting.
As the ci gradually became more literary and artificial, Sanqu, a more free form based on dramatic arias, developed. The use of sanqu songs in drama marked an important step in the development of vernacular literature.
Classical prose
Early prose
Early Chinese prose was deeply influenced by the great philosophical writings of the Hundred Schools of Thought (770-221 BCE). The works of Mo Zi (墨子), Mencius (孟子) and Zhuang Zi (莊子) contain well-reasoned, carefully developed discourses that reveal much stronger organization and style than their predecessors. Mo Zi's polemic prose was built on solid and effective methodological reasoning. Mencius contributed elegant diction and, like Zhuang Zi, relied on comparisons, anecdotes, and allegories. By the 3rd century BCE, these writers had developed a simple, concise and economical prose style that served as a model of literary form for over 2,000 years. They were written in Classical Chinese, an isolating language spoken during the Spring and Autumn Period.
Later prose
During the Tang period, the ornate, artificial style of prose developed in previous periods was replace by a simple, direct, and forceful prose based on examples from the Hundred Schools (see above) and from the Han period, the period in which the great historical works of Sima Tan and Sima Qian were published. This neoclassical style dominated prose writing for the next 800 years. It was exemplified in the work of Han Yu 韓愈 (768–824), a master essayist and strong advocate of a return to Confucian orthodoxy; Han Yu was later listed as one of the "Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song."The Song Dynasty saw the rise in popularity of "travel record literature" (youji wenxue). Travel literature combined both diary and narrative prose formats, it was practiced by such seasoned travelers as Fan Chengda (1126–1193) and Xu Xiake (1587–1641) and can be seen in the example of Su Shi's Record of Stone Bell Mountain.
After the 14th century, vernacular fiction became popular, at least outside of court circles. Vernacular fiction covered a broader range of subject matter and was longer and more loosely structured than literary fiction. One of the masterpieces of Chinese vernacular fiction is the 18th-century domestic novel Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_literature
Walang komento:
Mag-post ng isang Komento