History of Chinese Literature (Volume 1, 2, and 3)

Author: Zhang Peiheng
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2001-05-01
Features: Since Huang Moxi wrote A History of Chinese Literature in the late Qing Dynasty, numerous similar works have emerged. Among the outstanding ones are Liu Dajie's A History of the Development of Chinese Literature, edited by You Guoen and others' A History of Chinese Literature, and A History of Chinese Literature compiled by Yu Guanying and others from the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. These books have long served as teaching materials for university liberal arts majors and have had a particularly broad influence. Each of these books has its own achievements and contributions, hence they are highly praised. However, due to the continuous emergence of new materials and the deepening of human understanding, the task of writing a new A History of Chinese Literature that reflects the current research level has now been put on the agenda. Therefore, we have undertaken what may be an arduous and perhaps thankless attempt, and we present this book to the readers. This is the result of collective effort. Zhang Peiheng and Luo Yuming served as the chief editors, discussing and deciding on the overall purpose and basic viewpoints of the book. After discussions among all the contributors, they wrote the drafts separately. However, the contributors' views on the development of Chinese literature were only roughly similar, and disagreements were inevitable when it came to specific issues. As for the lack of seamless transitions between different sections written by various authors, the uneven distribution of content in chapters, and the differences in writing styles, these were all anticipated. Such phenomena are certainly unsuitable for a complete work. Therefore, Luo Yuming rearranged and organized the entire book, unified the understanding, connected the threads, revised the text, and shaped it into its current form. For fear that some of the revised chapters might contain statements that contradict the insights of the original authors in their published or upcoming works, leading to misunderstandings of the original authors by readers, Luo Yuming's name has been added to these chapters.