Wenxin Diao Long Notes (Volume 1 & 2)

Author: Liu Xie Fan Wenlan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1958-09-01
Features: The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, written by Liu Xie of the Liang Dynasty, is one of the earliest and most complete masterpieces among the existing ancient Chinese literary treatises. Chinese classical literature, after a long period of development from the Zhou, Qin, and Han dynasties, had accumulated rich experience in creation and had explored theories extensively. By the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties periods, there was a new leap in creation, and theoretically, it entered a period of consciously summarizing experience. Starting from the Jian'an era, complete literary theory monographs began to appear one after another. By the time of the Qi and Liang dynasties, Liu Xie's The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons emerged, becoming the culmination of later works. This book consists of ten volumes and fifty chapters, which can be clearly divided into four parts: one, general theory; two, theories of literary genres; three, theories of creation; four, theories of appreciation, with the self-introductory Preface and Biographical Notes as the fiftieth chapter, summarizing the entire work. In this sense, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons is a work without successors. Today, as we critically inherit the legacy of Chinese classical literary theory, we naturally should study this work earnestly.