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Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Contributor List
Timeline of Chinese Dynasties

SECTION ONE: INTRODUCTION
1. Key Concepts of "Literature" (Stephen Owen)
2. Periodization and Major Inflection Points (Stephen Owen)

SECTION TWO: BASICS OF LITERACY
I. Technology and Media
Editor's Introduction (Xiaofei Tian)
3. The Chinese Writing System (Imre Galambos)
4. Literary Media: Writing and Orality (Christopher M. B. Nugent)
5. Manuscript Culture (Christopher M. B. Nugent)
6. The Relationship of Calligraphy and Painting to Literature (Ronald Egan)

II. Institutions of Literary Culture
Editor's Introduction (Xiaofei Tian)
7. Education and the Examination System (Rebecca Doran)
8. Text and Commentary: The Early Tradition (Michael Puett)
9. Text and Commentary in the Medieval Period (Yu-yu Cheng)
10. Literary Learning: Encyclopedias and Epitomes (Xiaofei Tian)
11. Libraries, Book Catalogues, Lost Writings (Glen Dudbridge)

SECTION THREE: LITERARY PRODUCTION
I. Traditional Genre Spectrum
Editor's Introduction (Wai-yee Li)
12. Classics (David Schaberg)
13. Histories (Stephen Durrant)
14. Masters (Wiebke Denecke)
15. Collections (Xiaofei Tian)

II. Modern Perspectives on Genre
Editor's Introduction (Wai-yee Li)
16. "Chinese Poetry" (Paul Rouzer)
17. Elite versus Popular Literature (Wilt Idema)
18. Narrative Genres (Sarah Allen)

III. Collecting, Editing, Transmitting
Editor's Introduction (Xiaofei Tian)
19. Pre-Tang Anthologies and Anthologization (David R. Knechtges)
20. Anthologies in the Tang (Paul W. Kroll)
21. The Song Reception of Earlier Literature (Stephen Owen)
22. Textual Transmission of Earlier Literature during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties (Wai-yee Li)

IV. Literature and Metaliterature
Editor's Introduction (Wiebke Denecke)
23. Defenses of Literature/Literary Thought/Poetics (Paul Rouzer)
24. Concepts of Authorship (Wai-yee Li)
25. Tradition Formation: Beginnings to Eastern Han (Stephen Durrant)
26. Classicisms in Chinese Literary Culture: Six Dynasties through Tang (Anna Shields)

SECTION FOUR: MOMENTS, SITES, FIGURES
Editor's Introduction (Wai-yee Li)
27. Moments (Paula Varsano)
28. Sites I (Jack Chen)
29. Sites II (Wendy Swartz)
30. Figures (Wai-yee Li)

SECTION FIVE: EARLY AND MEDIEVAL CHINA AND THE WORLD
Editor's Introduction (Wiebke Denecke)
31. Colonization, Sinicization, and the Multigraphic Northwest (Tamara T. Chin)
32. Translation (Daniel Boucher)
33. Shared Literary Heritage in the Sinographic Sphere (Wiebke Denecke, with contributions by Nam Nguyen)
34. Sino-Korean Literature (Sim Kyung-ho and Peter Kornicki)
35. Early Sino-Japanese Literature (Wiebke Denecke)
36. Sino-Vietnamese Literature (Peter Kornicki)

About the Author

Wiebke Denecke is Associate Professor of Chinese, Japanese, and Comparative Literature at Boston University. She has been a scholar and author of early Chinese thought and literature (and on Chinese-style literature of Japan) for many years. This is her second book on Classical Chinese Literature for Oxford University Press.

Wai-yee Li is professor of Chinese literature at Harvard University. She has written numerous texts on late imperial Chinese literature and early Chinese historical writings.

Xiaofei Tian is Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University. She has published several works on Middle Period Chinese literature, as well as in late imperial and modern literature and culture.

Reviews

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title (2018)
"This excellent, innovative volume complements more traditional reference works, e.g., The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, ed. by William H. Nienhauser (2v, CH, Jul'86; CH, Apr'99, 36-4329). The book's back matter consists of bibliographic references and a 30-page index; Chinese characters are conveniently interspersed within the chapters themselves, obviating the need for a glossary. ... Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division
undergraduates and above; general readers." --P. F. Williams, CHOICE