Chinese Literary Classics: Drama

Author: Wang Bin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: The Classics of Chinese Literature, a selected collection of Chinese literary works. It includes works ranging from the pre-Qin period to 1949, divided into four sections: fiction, poetry, prose, and drama. Each section is further divided into ancient and modern volumes. Fiction and prose each have upper and lower volumes. Modern works are included in the ancient section and are not further subdivided. Every thing has a process of occurrence and development, and literature is no exception. For example, Chinese fiction originated from street talk and tales, belonging to zhu yu (folk tales), and differs greatly in concept from modern fiction. Similarly, in ancient China, all texts outside of rhyming verse (excluding fiction) were collectively referred to as prose, which also differs greatly. How to grasp this? The usual approach is to respect both history and literature. In short, history and literature are equally important. This book also adopts this principle. Following traditional editorial conventions, this book organizes works by author, with individual pieces listed separately. In terms of arrangement, works are ordered by the author's birth year, with those who died early in their lives listed first. For authors whose birth and death years are unknown or uncertain, the arrangement is based on their lifespan or the time of composition. This book does not conduct textual criticism. For works with differing versions, the best version is chosen, and the original publication details are not annotated to save space. Many ancient fictions are pseudonymous, and this book retains them as is, but provides brief explanations in the preface. To facilitate reading, after each original text, supplementary interpretive notes are included.