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Chinese Literature
The "Book of Songs": China's Earliest Anthology of Poetry
China's long history of poetry begins with the Book of Songs. Exactly how and when these songs came to be collected and edited is still somewhat controversial; but we know that they were produced between the 11th and the 6th century B.C. in the lower reaches of the Yellow River and north of the Yangtse. All these early songs were set to music. After the 5th century B.C. the original musical scores were gradually lost and only the verses remained. They were divided into three categories:Feng, folk songs from the various vassal states;
Ya, songs sung at court and at official functions, subdivided into the Da Ya or Greater Ya and Xiao Ya or Lesser Ya;
Song, songs used in sacrifices in ancestral temples.
The three hundred odd songs in this collection are unique documents for the study of ancient Chinese history. Most of those in the Ya and Song were written by the slave-owning nobility, yet many of them are well worth studying.
The Four Classics of Chinese Literature
According to critics, Chinese literature counts with four major works in prose. Let's have a look at them, in order to have a closer contact with Asian culture."Romance of the Three Kingdoms", written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century, is a Chinese historical novel about the turbulent period often referred to as the Three Kingdoms (220-280). Stories from the Three Kingdoms period existed in the verbal form before any written compilations. In these popular stories the characters typically took on exaggerated and mythical characteristics, often becoming immortals or supernatural beings with magical powers. With their focus on the history of Han Chinese, the stories grew in popularity during the reign of the foreign Mongol emperors of the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1279-1368). During the succeeding Ming Dynasty an interest in plays and novels resulted in further expansions and retelling of the stories.
"Water Margin or Outlaws of the Marsh", sometimes also translated as "All Men Are Brothers", was attributed to Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong. The novel details the trials and tribulations of one hundred and eight outlaws during the early 12th century.
Water Margin is vaguely based upon the historical bandit Song Jiang and his thirty-six companions. The group was active in the Huai River region and eventually surrendered to government troops in 1119. Folk stories about Song Jiang circulated during the Southern Song. The first text to name Song Jiang's thirty-six companions was the 12th century Guixin Zashi.
"Journey to the West" is a classic of Chinese literature, and perhaps the most well-known classic amongst the younger generation. It was published anonymously in the 1590s, and no direct evidence of its authorship survives, but it is traditionally ascribed to the scholar Wu Cheng'en. The novel tells a fictionalized and mythologized version of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang's pilgrimage to India to fetch religious texts.
One of the supernatural helpers, the monkey king Sun Wukong, has become one of the most famous and beloved characters in Chinese literature. His recognition factor and popularity in Asia have been compared to those of Mickey Mouse in Western countries.
Part of the novel's enduring popularity comes from the fact that it works on multiple levels: it is an adventure story, a dispenser of spiritual insight, and an extended metaphor in which the group of pilgrims journeying toward India stands for the individual journeying toward enlightenment.
And finally, the last masterpiece of Chinese literature is "Dream of the Red Chamber", which was written by Cao Xueqin in the 18th century, during the Qing Dynasty. The title of the novel has been translated in a number of ways, with the word "mansion" or "room" (in singular or plural form) being substituted for "chamber," as in Dream of Red Mansions or Dream of Red Rooms.
While the book has a riveting and intricate plot featuring over 400 characters, it can also be read as a study of 18th-century Chinese manners, or as a Buddhist allegory.