History of Ancient Chinese Literature (I) (Pre-Qin to Northern and Southern Dynasties)

Author: Ye Junyuan
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-05-01
Features: The history of ancient Chinese literature is a crucial foundational course for Chinese major students. It covers the development of Chinese literature from ancient times up to the May Fourth Movement in 1919. Ancient Chinese literature is an integral part of Chinese civilization, with a long history that dates back roughly to the origins of Chinese civilization. Over the subsequent millennia, literary development, though sometimes reaching peaks and other times declining, has never ceased, much like the continuous flow of the Yangtze River. Throughout its long history, it has produced generations of outstanding writers and countless excellent works, as well as a diverse array of genres, themes, styles, and schools, giving rise to various literary phenomena, trends, and theories, making its content incredibly rich. This is an invaluable cultural heritage. Compared to the literatures of other ethnic groups in the world, ancient Chinese literature, under the influence of unique geographical environments, languages, historical processes, and cultural traditions, has formed distinct national characteristics. In the forest of world ethnic literatures, ancient Chinese literature holds an important position with its extraordinary achievements and uniquely vivid features. The purpose of studying this course is to enable students to engage more broadly with ancient Chinese literary works, understand the characteristics of ancient literature, grasp its evolutionary process and development patterns, and appreciate the humanistic spirit embedded in it. This is highly meaningful for enhancing national confidence, cultivating noble moral sentiments, strengthening humanistic cultivation, and improving aesthetic abilities.
The history of ancient Chinese literature is an historical discipline. As is known, any historical discipline is composed of basic historical materials and fundamental perspectives. For the history of ancient Chinese literature, the so-called basic historical materials primarily refer to ancient literary works. Additionally, they should also include fundamental knowledge such as writers' biographies, social backgrounds, the formats and transmissions of important ancient texts, and so on. The so-called fundamental perspectives refer to the evaluation of the achievements of writers and works, the analysis of important literary phenomena, the revelation of literary development patterns, and so on. Given the nature and characteristics of this course, students are required to pay close attention to the following: First, read as many ancient literary works as possible. Beyond the assigned readings, the broader the reading range, the better. For representative works, not only should they be read but also thoroughly studied, even memorized. Not only should they be understood but also their ideological significance and artistic features should be grasped, and evaluations should be made in the context of historical background. In summary, extensive reading is the foundation for mastering this course. Only by perceiving ancient Chinese literature through the works can one truly gain insights, and only then can the course be studied effectively, vividly, and with interest.
Second, important fundamental knowledge in literary history should be memorized, which is equally a foundation for mastering this course. While there may be some shortcuts for memorizing basic knowledge, it largely relies on thorough reading and recollection. As for the fundamental perspectives of literary history, they should be grasped on the basis of understanding, with particular attention to comprehending the arguments in the textbook in the context of the inheritance and transformation of ancient literature, using specific works and examples as evidence.
The entire course is divided into three stages based on content: Pre-Qin to the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Tang and Song Dynasties, and the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties. This book covers the period from Pre-Qin to the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Inheritance is one of the fundamental characteristics of literature. Precisely because of this characteristic, literary works from earlier periods in literary history generally exert a particularly profound and far-reaching influence on later generations. If the entire history of ancient Chinese literature is compared to a large tree, then the literature from Pre-Qin to the Northern and Southern Dynasties would be in the roots and the stems close to the roots, from which the literature of later periods continues to grow, with every branch and leaf connected to it. Based on this alone, we can see the importance of this stage of literature.
The history of Pre-Qin to the Northern and Southern Dynasties spans a vast period. Even excluding the Stone Age, starting from the time of written language, it extends over more than two thousand years, longer than the combined duration of the later two stages of literary history—the Tang and Song Dynasties and the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties. Such a long developmental process, based on changes in literary concepts and creative factors, can be quite clearly divided into three periods: Pre-Qin, the Qin and Han Dynasties, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
Pre-Qin literature marks the beginning of ancient Chinese literature. The ideological foundation, aesthetic characteristics, national forms, and styles of Chinese literature all originated in this period. The literary forms of this era, apart from primitive ballads and myths, were primarily poetry and prose. The representative works of poetry are the Book of Songs and Qu Yuan's Chuci. Prose is divided into historical prose and philosophical prose. The representative works of historical prose are the Zuo Zhuan, Guo Yu, and Zhan Guo Ce; the representative works of philosophical prose are the Analects, Mencius, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi, among others. Each of these, with its unique charm and style, collectively constitutes the splendid and brilliant landscape of Pre-Qin literature.
Qin and Han literature evolved from Pre-Qin literature but exhibited new characteristics. The vibrant diversity of Pre-Qin literature vanished, adapting to the policy of "the sole supremacy of Confucianism" and the needs of the unified empire's rule, the literature of the Han Dynasty, as a whole, became grand and imposing, yet often rigid. The new literary form of the Han Dynasty—ci and fu—became the epitome of the era's literary style. Beyond ci and fu, poetry and prose remained the two major literary forms. In poetry, the folk songs of the Han Dynasty's Yuefu, with their fresh, vibrant forms, rhythms, and expressive techniques, had a tremendous impact on the poetic scene, driving its development. The most direct influence on the creation of literary poetry came from the five-line form in the Yuefu folk songs. After long periods of imitation and learning, literary five-line poetry finally matured in the late Han Dynasty, giving rise to the Nineteen Ancient Poems, which are considered a classic of Chinese lyrical poetry. In historical prose, Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian stands as an immortal monument. While Ban Gu's History of the Han Dynasty is somewhat inferior, it still achieved considerable success. Many renowned political essays and academic prose works also emerged.
The Northern and Southern Dynasties literature can be considered a significant turning point in Chinese literature. The transformation first manifested in literary concepts, as Chinese literature entered an era of self-awareness. Second, the language shifted from archaic to more accessible forms. Third, literary creation became more personalized, giving rise to a of writers with distinct individual styles, such as the "Three Caos," the "Seven Scholars," Ruan Ji, Ji Kang, Zuo Si, Tao Yuanming, Xie Lingyun, Bao Zhao, Xie Tiao, and Yu Xin. Additionally, the period saw an increase in literary forms. In poetry, the five-line classical verse became the most important poetic form for literati, while the seven-line classical verse also began to develop, and a new poetic form that emphasized tonal patterns emerged. In prose, parallel prose and parallel fu appeared, and fiction was also born. Each literary form produced many masterpieces, making the literature of this period more diverse than ever before.
Understanding and studying the literature from Pre-Qin to the Northern and Southern Dynasties is of great significance for recognizing the formation and initial development of China's fine literary traditions, as well as the emergence and evolution of its national literary forms and styles.