In the same way as in other countries of the world, the literature of Ancient China was part of practical activity, and not an aesthetic phenomenon. Initially, these were fortune-telling tablets, later they began to use bamboo planks and silk for writing. Written people were respected, and home-made books of that time were considered almost sacred, because the wisdom of the past years was recorded in them. But first things first.
From the depths of antiquity
The history of literature in ancient China dates back to the time when fortunetelling inscriptions scratched on tortoise shell or mutton bones came into use. People who want to know what will happen in the future put their questions on the shell. Then they put it on the fire, and the fortuneteller interpreted the future through the cracks that appeared from the heat.
Later, bronze became the material for writing. On large ritual vessels on behalf of the king affixed gifts and other inscriptions.
In the I millennium BC. e. they began to use bamboo slats for writing. On each such tablet there were about 40 words (hieroglyphs). Plates fastened with a rope, forming a kind of ligament. These first books were rather bulky and uncomfortable. Compared with current concepts, one “book” occupied several carts.
After 700 years, silk began to be used for writing. However, this material was very expensive and already at the beginning of our era, the Chinese invented paper. As a result, it became possible to widely spread the written word.
Written attitude and educational minimum
The way the Chinese relate to writing is recorded in the term "wen", which denoted the concept of "literature". Even in the literature of ancient China, this symbol denoted a person with a tattoo. In the days of Confucius, the hieroglyph “wen” denoted a written word, a legacy of ancient wisdom recorded in books. Historians argue that among the Confucians, “wen” was the best word that “communicated people with the idea of absolute truth.” This integration of Confucian teachings and ancient verbal art lasted until the 3rd century AD.
The Chinese historian and bibliographer Ban Gu, describing the history of the Han Dynasty, a special place is the answer to art and literature. In his work, he listed 596 works that existed at that time, which he divided into six sections:
- Canonical books.
- Philosophically works.
- Poems - gai and poems.
- Treatises on military music.
- Medical treatises.
- Astrological work.
Each of these groups had its own subsections and minor notes by the authors. The work of Ban Gu makes it possible to understand which literature was more popular in ancient China. Under the bibliographer, Confucianism was already proclaimed the official ideology of China, so it is natural that the first place in the list of ancient literature was Confucian canons, fortunate natural philosophical texts, songs of ancient kingdoms and recordings of the statements of Confucius. These essays were a compulsory minimum of human education.
"Book of Songs"
The development of further fiction was greatly influenced by the Book of Songs. This poetic collection consisted of four sections: Small Odes, Anthems, Great Odes, and The Rights of the Kingdoms. The “Book of Songs” is the very first copy of fiction in ancient China, in short, this is the first example of lyric poetry and hymns.
Even today, in these songs you can feel the spirit of primitive life. From the lines that have passed through the centuries, you can learn about secret and open meetings of girls with their beloved ones ("Zhong! To Our Village", "Waters Zhen and Wei"). They still have recollections of ancient orgical festivals, marriage ceremonies and the brutal burial of the living together with the dead ("Yellow Birdies Flutter"). The songs present the everyday life of farmers, anxiety during the approach of the sovereign, the fearlessness of hunters and the sadness of the lonely woman who sent her husband on a campaign.
The works collected in this codex were written during the Zhou era. At that time, China consisted of small fragmented kingdoms, which were nominally subordinate to the ruler of Zhou. The relations between rulers and subjects were patriarchal in nature, so in the songs you can also notice the dissatisfaction of the farmers with their rulers.
Songs, also related to ancient Chinese literature, are four-syllable verses with a constant rhyme.
"Book of history"
Together with the “Book of Songs”, a notable copy of the literature and archeology of Ancient China was the “Book of History” and subsequent historical treatises, among which were the works of Ban Gu, Zotsu Ming and Sima Qian.
The work of Sim Qian is even today considered an official historical monument, which for centuries has amazed its readers with the unique style and richness of the poetic language. This was not atypical for an ancient writer who delved not only into the laws of mankind, but also into individual destinies of people. Under his close attention were people who left a tangible mark in the history of the country.
In short, the literature of ancient China, in particular historical prose, was the first example of an objectively calm description of events. In Confucian treatises, a different type of narration was used: a dialogical form of presentation. The parable examples in which Confucius talks with his students were a special form of argumentation of philosophical position. Often such parables have their roots deep in folklore.
Ban Gu in his works strictly distinguished between canonical and non-canonical works. For the conversations of the followers of Confucius, he assigned a special place in his book and developed the teaching on the issue of humane rule, as the main condition for maintaining peace in the state. In second place in the work of Ban Gu were the writings of the Taoists and their discussions on the problems of being. After them, the writings of natural philosophers who developed the doctrine of the forces of yin and yang were examined. They were told about the legists, who interpreted the need to build state power on a system of rewards and punishments.
Listing philosophical schools, Ban Gu did not forget to mention the nominalists-logicians, the thinker Mo-tzu, who preached the principle of "universal love" and equality. The historian's authors also included the authors of agrarian treatises and the Xiaoshojia school, the writers of Xiaosho. Xiaosho literally means “trifling utterances”, later on it began to denote the plot narrative prose.
Poems and songs
After listing the philosophical trends, the historiographer proceeded to describe poetry. Here he attributed the work of two leading genres at that time: poems (fu) and songs (geshes). Everything is clear with the songs - they were sung and written in verse. Poems fu were special in their own way: even if they were written in prose, but it was rhymed. Poems Fu took an intermediate position between prose and poetry. They were written in a three-part form and consisted of stand (introduction), fu (description) and syun (completion). Often, the poet’s dialogue with some ruler was used as an introduction. In this dialogue, the main idea of the work was expressed, which was already developed in the second part. In conclusion, the author drew conclusions or expressed his view on the described problem.
Few original works have survived to our time, but it can be assumed that these were songs of individual regions and ritual chants. Songs in ancient China were collected in order to find out the mood of the people. Emperor Xiao-y-di even established a special chamber of music. Thanks to her, it became possible to learn the customs and mores of certain places that were mentioned in folk music.
Applied works
Further Ban Gu describes works of an applied nature. These include books on military art, astronomy, medicine and fortune telling. In conclusion, the Chinese literature listed by Ban Gu was an integral part of writing. Literature is considered in close connection with its functional purpose and a strict place in the hierarchy of ancient society.
Ban Gu writes that the Confucians came from officials who were in charge of management affairs and cared for the education and improvement of the ruler and his subjects. The Taoists provided a tremendous service to the archeology of ancient China. The literature, the records they kept on the ups and downs of the state, enable today's scientists to determine the reasons that provoked this or that event. Even songs and poems that in the minds of the ancient Chinese were not associated with business functions played a role in connecting society with rituals. Going to neighboring kingdoms on an embassy mission, songs were used to express their intentions.
In a nutshell, literature in ancient China did not yet exist as an aesthetic art category. Literary texts have not yet been separately designated and not opposed to other types of literary literature, but pursued applied goals. But in light of this, one should not forget that all texts of antiquity were written in expressive, polished to the last hieroglyph language, subject to rhythmization and stylistic decoration, which made each work one step further from exclusively applied application.
Plotless prose
Gradually, genres began to develop in the country, which became the basis of Chinese literature in the Middle Ages. At that time, elegant plotless prose was popular. In the period of life and work of Ban Gu, this direction has only just begun to develop. Such genres at the time of their appearance were not yet aware of independent directions. They were components of large treatises, but even then something foreign, atypical and new was felt in them.
These atypical innovations were decrees and appeals to the ruler, which were included in the Book of Historical Gives. In his work “Historical Notes”, Sim Qian singled out a genre such as Zhuang, a biography that soon began to be perceived as an independent phenomenon.
But there were in ancient centuries those genres that became separate in the literature of China in the 19th century. The parables that were composed before the Confucianism movement appeared could not become a separate genre until the end of the XIX beginning of the XX century.
In the Middle Ages, genres became a style-forming category, but in ancient China they were classified according to a utilitarian-thematic principle. In the Middle Ages, reports to the sovereign were reports to the sovereign; they did not adjoin other works, sharing a single genre with them. In antiquity there was no such distinction. The reports to the ruler were included in the Book of Historical Traditions, the Book of Rituals, were part of the chronicles, and even became noticed in Confucius's Conversations and Judgments. In short, the literature of China in the Middle Ages took a lot from the works of antiquity, but the division into genres was fundamentally new in it.
"Nineteen Ancient Poems"
The development of literature in China was influenced by poetic cycles and narrative prose. For a long time about the collection "Nineteen Ancient Poems" there were quite conflicting opinions. Modern scholars say that these poems were selected by Prince Xiao Tong in the VI century. Today, the names of their authors are irretrievably lost. In these poems, themes traditional for the poetry of that time were described: longing for abandoned wives, separation of friends, sadness of travelers, thoughts about life and death.
L. Eidlin once noticed that all these works are subordinated to the "only in thought of the transience of human life." Poems from this collection seem to be at the junction between author and folk poetry. They are written under the influence of folk songs compiled by officials of the Music Chamber. Often in them you can find whole stanzas from folk texts, but here you can already feel the presence of the author’s beginning.
The influence of poets and writers affects the poetic form. While folk songs had lines of different lengths, nineteen ancient poems became the founders of five-complex poems. For many centuries, these have been leading dimensions not only in Chinese, but throughout Far Eastern poetry.
Studies of the literature and philosophy of ancient China showed that the transition from folklore to the author’s text was characterized by a movement to written creativity and a reverse transition from writing to oral element. Author and folk poetry of that time had a common figurative system; there was still no linguistic and stylistic barrier.
Narrative prose
The first narrative works are characterized by anonymity of creativity. As in other countries of the world, prose in China began to take shape only at the end of the ancient period. In the second century AD, fictionalized stories and biographies began to appear, which were conventionally called ancient stories. Both the first and second genres of works are associated with historiographic prose.
For example, the story “The Yang Heir to the Tribute” tells the story of the attempted assassination of the brave Jing Ke on the Qin prince, the tyrant who created the first Chinese empire. In fact, this story is close to the events that actually took place in the history of the country. In many ways, the story is close to biography, so philologists, reading literature and archeology of ancient China, expressed the opinion that it was she who became the source for Sima Qian. Although there were objections on the other hand, other researchers believed that everything was exactly the opposite. These disputes were resolved by bibliographer Hu Yinlin, who lived in the 16th century. He said that “The Yansky Heir to the Tribute” became the progenitor of ancient and modern narrative works.
The main difference between this story and official biographies is the great narrative and the introduction of a number of episodes of a legendary nature. “Private biography of Zhao the Flying Swallow” differs in the same way from the original biography of the famous concubine and wife of Emperor Cheng-di.
It is worth paying attention to the small work "Biography of the Virgin from U, nicknamed Purple Jade." This is one of the first works of Chinese prose, which describes the meeting of a young man with the spirit of his beloved. Later, in the Middle Ages, this plot will be used more than once by the novelists of the Far East. In the "Biography of the Virgin" the plot is described in an archaic form - the student dies and marries a girl nicknamed Purple Jade. This narrative is simple both in plot and design, it has not yet managed to acquire, as in the later short stories, complex plot moves. The author is not so much interested in the fate of the heroes as an event that is surprising in itself.
Ideology
In ancient China, the ideological foundation was laid, on which art and literature later developed in the Middle Ages. The development of literature in ancient China gave impetus to the formation of writing in Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other regions of the Far East. At the same time, many topics of Chinese poetry were composed , as well as a rich arsenal of images and symbols, without which it is impossible to understand the classical literature of the peoples of the Far East.
Chinese literature is special in its own way. And there is a simple explanation for this. It appeared at a time when humanity was not yet surrounded by large information flows and if you wanted to sing or write something, then there were no examples anywhere. Therefore, a person had to look for everything within himself. Use your own experience, knowledge, conclusions and conjectures, creating the best works of historical, philosophical and religious literature of ancient China.