Chinese literature
History of Literature
Bronze Age literature
Sumerian
Egyptian
Assyro-Babylonian
Classical literatures
Chinese
Greek
Hebrew
Latin
Pahlavi
Pali
Sanskrit
Syriac
Tamil
Medieval literature
Anglo-Saxon
Arabic
Byzantine
Dutch
French
German
Indian
Irish
Italian
Japanese
Kannada
Nepal Bhasa
Norse
Persian
Telugu
Welsh
Early Modern literature
Renaissance literature
Baroque literature
Modern literature
18th century
19th century
20th century
21st century
Chinese literature extends back thousands
of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic
court archives to the mature fictional novel
that arose during the Ming Dynasty to enter-
tain the masses of literate Chinese. The
introduction of widespread woodblock print-
ing during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and
the invention of movable type printing by Bi
Sheng (990-1051) during the Song Dynasty
(960-1279) rapidly spread written knowledge
throughout China like never before. In more
modern
times,
the
author
Lu
Xun
(1881-1936) would be considered the founder
of modern baihua literature in China.
Classical texts
China has a wealth of classical literature, dat-
ing from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (256-770
BCE) and including the Classics, whose com-
pilation is attributed to Confucius. Among the
most important classics in Chinese literature
is the book of changes , a manual of divina-
tion based on eight trigrams attributed to the
mythical emperor Fu Xi. The I Ching is still
used by adherents of folk religion. The Clas-
sic of Poetry is made up of 305 poems divided
into 160 folk songs; 74 minor festal songs,
traditionally sung at court festivities; 31 ma-
jor festal songs, sung at more solemn court
ceremonies; and 40 hymns and eulogies,
sung at sacrifices to gods and ancestral spir-
its of the royal house. The Classic of History
is a collection of documents and speeches al-
leged to have been written by rulers and offi-
cials of the early Zhou period and before. It
contains the best examples of early Chinese
prose. The "Record of Rites" ), a restoration
of the original Cl