China Literature

China Literature => to convey active thoughts

Hundreds schools of thought rose during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. At that time, the dominion of a slave society bean to wane and the newly arising landed classes struggled for their own benefit. Political views varied and representatives of each sect respectively advocated the points of their position. In this time when the poetic form could not fulfill its mission to convey active thoughts, literatures arose to prominence and the result became known as “A hundred schools of thought”.

Despite their philosophical value, these literatures were also of a high literary quality and had a profound influence on later literary output. These books were used as the basis of education during the long history of ancient China.

From the point of content, the rational thoughts expressed largely dwelt upon society and life, both in manner and form. So far as language was concerned, they mostly paid attention to the pursuit of the aesthetic sense with figurative speech and allegory. Many of verses have become mottos and proverbs still in use today.

China literature => in the communist era (to voice criticisms of party policy)

Fiction during the first years after the 1949 Communist revolution depicted the great social transformations taking place. Party leaders advocated socialist realism, which was marked by strict adherence to party doctrine and by a narrow emphasis on the credible depiction of external reality; it inhibited writers’ creativity and led to stagnation.

The Hundred Flowers Campaign encouraged writers and other intellectuals to voice criticisms of party policy. Those who did so were soon punished during the 1957 antirightist campaign. Many works struggled with general social issues, such as official corruption and overcrowding; feminist issues were treated in novels by women writers such as Wang Anyi.

China literature => being marginalized in China

Literature in China cannot survive in today’s context due to the advent of globalization. One of the changes it has caused to China is the change to their education system. The emergence of sociology, economics and law effectively pushed literature to the sideline as these subjects can better tackle difficult issues of our society, especially when it has been going through such dramatic changes.

Writers used to delve into “big issues” and come up with in-depth reporting. But readers now prefer to read for entertainment. Nowadays, a metropolitan paper may have 100 pages or more, and stories like the Chongqing “nail-house” played out in the press like a drama series. Serious literature cannot compete in this area.

China literature => Current events

The arrest of Jiang Qing and the other members of the Gang of Four in 1976, and especially the reforms initiated at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh National Party Congress Central Committee in December 1978, led more and more older writers and some younger writers to take up their pens again. Much of the literature in what would be called the "new era" discussed the serious abuses of power that had taken place at both the national and the local levels during the Cultural Revolution. The writers decried the waste of time and talent during that decade and bemoaned abuses that had held China back. Simultaneously, they expressed eagerness to make a contribution to building Chinese society. This literature, often called "the literature of the wounded," contained some disquieting views of the party and the political system. Intensely patriotic, these authors wrote cynically of the political leadership that gave rise to the extreme chaos and disorder of the Cultural Revolution. Some of them extended the blame to the entire generation of leaders and to the political system itself. The political authorities were faced with a serious problem: how could they encourage writers to criticize and discredit the abuses of the Cultural Revolution without allowing that criticism to go beyond what they considered tolerable limits?

During this period, a large number of novels and short stories were published. Literary magazines from before the Cultural Revolution were revived, and new ones were added to satisfy the seemingly insatiable appetite of the reading public. There was a special interest in foreign works. Linguists were commissioned to translate recently published foreign literature, often without carefully considering its interest for the Chinese reader. Literary magazines specializing in translations of foreign short stories became very popular, especially among the young.

China literature => Examples of Chinese Writers

Here are examples of famous Chinese literature writers who contributedto the olden days literature. The Eight Great Literary Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasty; Han Yu, Liu ZongYuan, Ou Yang Xiu, Su Zhe, Su Shi, Su Xun, Wang An Shi, Zeng Gong.

There are many more people to this list, but they were the most famous where people still read or study their works.

Chinese literature did not die down after the fall of the last dynasty in China. Here is a list of modern writers who also contributes significantly to the collection of Chinese literature. They are Wang Tao, Yan Fu, Liu E, Liang Qi Chao, Wang Guo Wei, Hu Shih, Ma Jian, Tie Ning, Gao Xingjian, Yang Mu. Among them, Gao Xingjian was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2000.