Shijing (Book of Poetry) is the first anthology of ancient Chinese poetry, comprising 305 poems written over more than 500 years dating from the early Western Zhou Dynasty(the 1lth century BC) to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period (the 6th century BC). In addition, there are another six poems for which only the titles remain. In terms of content, Shijing is divided into three parts: X (feng, “Air of the States”), It (yà, “Court Hymns”) and Lj (song, “Eulogies”).”Air of the States” contains 160 folk songs collected from different states in the Zhou Dynasty; “Court Hymns”, 105 poems with music scores sung in the areas directly under the governance of the imperial court of the Zhou Dynasty; and “Eulogies”, 40 poems sung by the priests in the ancestral temples of the nobility and the imperial court.
Most of the verse lines in Shijing are composed of four Chinese characters each. For example,“关关雎鸠,在河之洲。窈窕淑女,君子好述。” Its English version is as follows, “The waterfowl would coo / Upon an islet in the brooks. / A lad would like to woo / A lass with pretty looks.” Shijing mainly reflects the social outlook and people’s way of life and thought at the time. Shijing has had an enormous influence on the development of Chinese literature since its coming out, and it is also a precious historical date of ancient times.
Qu Yuan (c. 340 BC- 278 BC) was a poet and statesman in the State of Chu during the Warring States Period. In the late Warring States Period, it was clear that the State of Qin, as the most powerful state, intended to conquer the other six states. In the early years of his political career, Qu Yuan, as a most trusted high-rank official, often discussed state affairs with King Huai of Chu, participated in law-making, and was in charge of diplomatic affairs. He proposed that the State of Chu be aligned with other states to resist the invasion of the State of Qin. His efforts led to the relative strengthening of the position of the State of Chu. However, over time the King began to trust the slanderous words of other advisers against Qu Yuan, and gradually lost faith in him, leading to his exile to the Hanbei area in 304 BC. Depressed, he could do nothing but write poetry to express worry and concern about his homeland and its people. In 278 BC, the capital of the State of Chu was captured by the Qin troops, and in rage and despair, Qu Yuan threw himself into a river and drowned. A legend goes that the local people rowed boats to search for him and throw zongzi (a triangle or cone-shaped snack made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves) into the river to feed fish so that they would not eat his body. Since then, people have made it a custom to eat zongzi and row dragon boats on the anniversary of Qu Yuan’s death (the Dragon Boat Festival or Duan Wu Festival, i.e. the 5th day of the 5th Chinese lunar month) in memory of him.
Qu Yuan’s masterpiece is his long poem Lisa (Sorrow After Departure) which is comprised of over 370 sentences and nearly 2,500 Chinese characters. In this long narrative poem, the author describes his life experience, his ambition, the political persecution he suffered, and his mood after that while at the same time expressing his patriotic sentiments, which have had and are still having a great influence on later generations.
The Tang Dynasty is the golden age of ancient Chinese poetry. One anthology, The Complete Book of Tang Poems, contains the work of over 2,200 poets, who left a treasure trove of nearly 50,000 poems for later generations, with Li Bai, Du Fu, and Bai Juyi among some of the best-known poets of the period.
Li Bai (701- 762), formally styled Taibai, gave himself the pen name Qinglian Jushi (jushi, a spiritual practitioner with virtue and talent who usually lived in seclusion without seeking official status in ancient times). He was learned and versatile when he was young and began to travel around China in his youth. In the first year of Tianbao (742), when Emperor Xuanzong of Tang came to the throne, Li Bai’s talent was recognized by the Emperor and he was appointed to a position in the Imperial Academy. However, after provoking the envy and hatred of some powerful nobles, he was forced to leave Chang’an(the capital at the time) after less than two years. He moved to Luoyang, where he became acquainted with Du Fu, another famous poet in the Tang Dynasty, and the two became good friends. He was later implicated in the An-Shi Rebellion, being put in prison and exiled to Yelang shortly afterward (near today’s Tongzi in Guizhou Province). On his way to Yelang, he received an official pardon, though by this time, he was nearly 60 years old. In his later years, he lived a wandering life in relative poverty in the area south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. He succumbed to disease and died in 762. He was buried in Dang tu County (in today’s Ma’anshan City in Anhui Province).
During his lifetime, Li Bai wrote a huge number of poetic works. His poems Thoughts on a Tranquil Night, Hard Are the Roads in Shu, Hard Is the Way of the World and Invitation to Wine are some of his most popular. Li Bai is esteemed as a”Poetic Genius” in China and is emblematic of the romantic school of Chinese poetry, pushing romantic poetry in China to its peak.
Du Fu, formally styled Zimei, with the alias Shaoling Yelao, lived between 712 and 770. As a boy, he studied hard and, at the age of 20, began to travel around the Wuyue region (now Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province, and Anhui Province) and other places. He got acquainted with Li Bai in Luoyang, and they became good friends. At the age of 35, Du Fu went to Chang’an (now Xian, Shaanxi Province) and entered the imperial examination. He lived there in poverty for ten years but could not manage to pass the exam. After the An-Shi Rebellion, he wandered far and wide until he settled down in the western suburb of Chengdu, Sichuan Province in 759. In his later life, he also lived a wandering life in what is now Sichuan, Hubei, and Hunan, and finally died in a boat in 770. Du Fu witnessed the decline of the Tang Dynasty from its glory days. Covering a wide range of subjects, most of his works are focused on contemporary society, especially on describing the sufferings of the people and exposing the corruption of the rulers. The most famous works of this kind are the three poems about officers and three poems about parting The Press gang at Stone Moat Village, A Recruiting Sergeant at Xin an and Officer at the Western Pass, Lament of the Newly-Wed, Lament of a Homeless and Lamentof an Old Man. Altogether, he wrote more than 1,400 poems, which have had a profound influence on Chinese classical poetry. In the history of Chinese literature, Du Fu is seen as a great poet in the realist movement and is often referred to as the “Poetic Sage”.
Ci as a new genre of poetry, was, at first, intended as lyrics to accompany the music. Unlike earlier metrical poetry, which has the same number of characters in each line, ci poetry has different numbers of characters in each line. It was originally popular with ordinary people and later began to grow in popularity with the more educated literati. In the Song Dynasty, ci poetry flourished and became another jewel in the crown of Chinese classical literature. SuShi, Xin Qiji and Liu Yong are among the most renowned in the Song Dynasty.
SuShi (1037–1101), formally styled Zizhan, gave himself the pen name DongpoJushi, and became generally known as Su Dongpo. He was born into an intellectual family,and in the Jiayou period of Emperor Renzong of the Song Dynasty, he was awarded the title of jinshi (the highest rank one could achieve in the imperial examination), and obtained a position of libu shangshu (roughly Minister of Rites in charge of rites, culture, education and foreign affairs). Although he did not belong to any political group, he was involved in bitter political struggles throughout his life and was demoted several times. As a versatile Writer and one of the Eight Great Men of Letters of the Tang and Song Dynasties, he accomplished a great deal in poetry, ci poetry, and prose. His ci poems The Mid-Autumn Festival, set to the tune of Prelude to Water and Memories of the Past at the Red Cliff set to the tune of Charm of a Maiden Singer are well known to the Chinese people.
Xin Qiji (1140—1207), formally styled You’an, gave himself the pen name Jiaxuan. At the age of 21, he led over 2,000 people in an insurrection and joined the army of peasants led by Geng Jing in an uprising against the troops of the State of Jin. Later, he served in the Southern Song Dynasty government and was posted in Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi. As a local official, he showed extraordinary talent in military and political affairs but was never rewarded with the trust or position of influence which his talent deserved. When he was finally removed from office, he moved idly between Shangrao and Qianshan in Jiangxi Province. Xin Oiji is a great ci poet of the Southern Song Dynasty. His poems are powerful and ebullient, solemn and stirring, free from constraint, and in a variety of styles. The Lantern Festival Night set to the tune of Green Jade Table, Inscription on a Cliff of Mt. Boshan set to the tune of Little Ugly, and Memories of the Past at Beigu Pavilion in Jingkou set to the tune of Joy of Eternal Union are some of his best works. He also compiled a ci poetry anthology Collection of Jiaruan’s Ci Poems.
The commonly-used epithet of the Four Great Classical Novels refers to the four novels written in the Ming and Qing dynasties: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Outlaws of the Marsh, Journey to the West, and Dream of the Red Chamber.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the first famous chaptered historical novel in Chinese literature. This long novel, composed of 120 chapters, is written by Luo Guanzhong, who lived in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. It depicts the political and military struggles during the hundred years or so from the late Eastern Han Dynasty to the early Western Jin Dynasty, reveals the turbulent society, and successfully portrays some well-known historical figures such as CaoCao, Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, Sun Quan, Zhou Yu and so on.
Outlaws of the Marsh, another famous long Chinese novel, is generally believed to have been written by Shi Nai An in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. The novel mainly describes the historical process in which the uprising peasant headed by Song Jiang was forced to settle down in Mount Liang as their stronghold. There they gradually grew, rose up, and finally accepted amnesty and pledged loyalty to the ruler. It exposes the decadence of the feudal ruling class, offers the reader a glimpse of the political situation and societal conflicts at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, and has successfully created well-known characters such as Li Kui, Wu Song, Lin Chong and Lu Zhishen.
Dream of the Red Chamber is a classical novel with 120 chapters. The first 80 chapters were written by Cao Xueqin in the Qing Dynasty, and the last 40 chapters, a continuation of the previous chapters, are commonly attributed to Gao E. The novel describes the rise and fall of the four big families- Jia, Shi, Wang, and Xue, concentrating on the love and marriage stories of Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu, and Xue Baochai. It successfully portrays images of classic characters such as Jia Baoyu and the Twelve Beauties of Jinling (now Nanjing), and offers a revealing depiction of the crisis in society at the end of the feudal system.
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