“Song Lyric,” ci, remains one of the most loved forms of Chinese poetry. From the early eleventh century through the first quarter of the twelfth century, song lyric evolved from an impromptu contribution in a performance practice to a full literary genre, in which the text might be read more often than performed. Young women singers, either indentured or private entrepreneurs, were at the heart of song practice throughout the period; the authors of the lyrics were notionally mostly male. A strange gender dynamic arose, in which men often wrote in the voice of a woman and her imagined feelings, then appropriated that sensibility for themselves.
As an essential part of becoming literature, a history was constructed for the new genre. At the same time the genre claimed a new set of aesthetic values to radically distinguish it from older “Classical Poetry,” shi. In a world that was either pragmatic or moralizing (or both), song lyric was a discourse of sensibility, which literally gave a beautiful voice to everything that seemed increasingly to be disappearing in the new Song dynasty world of righteousness and public advancement.

This six volume work is the first complete translation of the poetry of Du Fu, the greatest poet in the Chinese tradition. The entirety of Du Fu’s works provides a more nuanced portrait of the author than the standard selections. It gives testimony to the great rebellion of 755, but also poems on building a chicken coop and repairing bamboo plumbing. In the whole we discover how the sublime and quotidian are united in a larger vision of life.

China has one of the longest continuous literary traditions in the world. From the beginnings of the Chinese written language to the lively world of internet literature, these two volumes tell the story of Chinese writing, both as an instrument of the state and as a medium for culture outside the state. The chapters, organized chronologically, treat not only poetry, drama, and fiction, but also historical writing and other prose forms. Written by internationally recognized experts in the field, the History frequently challenges current scholarship, from taking recent archeological discoveries into consideration to understanding Chinese modernity not as a sudden rupture with the past but as part of a longer process. The History offers both an integrated narrative, situating literature in its larger cultural context, and an overview of the key developments of the past millennia accessible to non-specialist readers as well as scholars and students of Chinese.
Contents
Volume I: Introduction;
1. Early Chinese literature: beginnings through Western Han Martin Kern;
2. From the Eastern Han through the Western Jin (AD 25–317) David Knechtges;
3. From the Eastern Jin through the Early Tang (317–649) Xiaofei Tian;
4. The Cultural Tang (650–1020) Stephen Owen;
5. The Northern Song (1020–1126) Ronald Egan;
6. North and South: the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Michael Fuller and Shuen-fu Lin;
7. Literature from the Late Jin to the Early Ming: ca. 1230–ca. 1375 Stephen H. West; Bibliography; Glossary;
Index; Volume II: Introduction;
1. Literature of the Early Ming to Mid-Ming (1375–1572) Kang-i Sun Chang;
2. The literary culture of the Late Ming (1573–1644) Tina Lu;
3. Early Qing to 1723 Wai-yee Li;
4. The Literati Era and its demise (1723–1840) Shang Wei;
5. Prosimetric and verse narrative Wilt L. Idema;
6. Chinese literature from 1841 to 1937 David Der-wei Wang, Jing Tsu and Michel Hockx;
7. Chinese literature from 1937 to the present Michelle Yeh, Jing Tsu and Michel Hockx; Bibliography; Glossary; Index.

中译本序
序言
导言
第一章 早期文本
第二章 《诗大序》
第三章 曹丕《典论 论文》
第四章 陆机《文赋》
第五章 刘勰《文心雕龙》
第六章 司空图《二十四诗品》
第七章 诗话
第八章 严羽《沧浪诗话》
第九章 通俗诗学：南宋和元
第十章 王夫之《夕堂永日绪论》与《诗经》
第十一章 叶燮《原诗》
附录
译后记