Transcriber's Note
Italic text is indicated by _underscores_. Non-italic text in italic
blocks is marked by ~swung dashes~.
A HISTORY OF
CHINESE LITERATURE
BY
HERBERT A. GILES, M. A., LL. D. (ABERD.)
PROFESSOR OF CHINESE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
AND LATE H. B. M. CONSUL AT NINGPO
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1927
COPYRIGHT, 1901,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
Printed in the United States of America
PREFACE
This is the first attempt made in any language, including Chinese, to
produce a history of Chinese literature.
Native scholars, with their endless critiques and appreciations of
individual works, do not seem ever to have contemplated anything of the
kind, realising, no doubt, the utter hopelessness, from a Chinese point
of view, of achieving even comparative success in a general historical
survey of the subject. The voluminous character of a literature which
was already in existence some six centuries before the Christian era,
and has run on uninterruptedly until the present date, may well have
given pause to writers aiming at completeness. The foreign student,
however, is on a totally different footing. It may be said without
offence that a work which would be inadequate to the requirements of
a native public, may properly be submitted to English readers as an
introduction into the great field which lies beyond.
Acting upon the suggestion of Mr. Gosse, to whom I am otherwise
indebted for many valuable hints, I have devoted a large portion of
this book to translation, thus enabling the Chinese author, so far as
translation will allow, to speak for himself. I have also added, here
and there, remarks by native critics, that the reader may be able to
form an idea of the point of view from which the Chinese judge their
own productions.
It only remains to be stated that the translations, with the exception
of a few passages from Legge’s “Chinese Classics,” in each case duly
acknowledged, are my own.
HERBERT A. GILES.
CAMBRIDGE.
CONTENTS
_BOOK THE FIRST--THE FEUDAL PERIOD_ (B.C. 600-200)
CHAP. PAGE
I. LEGENDARY AGES--EARLY CHINESE CIVILISATION--ORIGIN OF WRITING 3
II. CONFUCIUS--THE FIVE CLASSICS 7
III. THE FOUR BOOKS--MENCIUS 32
IV. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS 43
V. POETRY--INSCRIPTIONS 50
VI. TAOISM--THE “TAO-TÊ-CHING” 56
_BOOK THE SECOND--THE HAN DYNASTY_
(B.C. 200-A.D. 200)
I. THE “FIRST EMPEROR”--THE BURNING OF THE BOOKS--MISCELLANEOUS
WRITERS 77
II. POETRY 97
III. HISTORY--LEXICOGRAPHY 102
IV. BUDDHISM 110
_BOOK THE THIRD--MINOR DYNASTIES_ (A.D. 200-600)
I. POETRY--MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE 119
II. CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP 137
_BOOK THE FOURTH--THE T‘ANG DYNASTY_ (A.D. 600-900)
I. POETRY 143
II. CLASSICAL AND GENERAL LITERATURE 189
_BOOK THE FIFTH--THE SUNG DYNASTY_ (A.D. 900-1200)
I. THE INVENTION OF BLOCK-PRINTING 209
II. HISTORY--CLASSICAL AND GENERAL LITERATURE 212
III. POETRY 232
IV. DICTIONARIES--ENCYCLOPÆDIAS--MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE 238
_BOOK THE SIXTH--THE MONGOL DYNASTY_
(A.D. 1200-1368)
I. MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE--POETRY 247
II. THE DRAMA 256
III. THE NOVEL 276
_BOOK THE SEVENTH--THE MING DYNASTY_
(A.D. 1368-1644)
I. MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE--MATERIA MEDICA--ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF
AGRICULTURE 291
II. NOVELS AND PLAYS 309
III. POETRY 329
_BOOK THE EIGHTH--THE MANCHU DYNASTY_
(A.D. 1644-1900)
I. THE “LIAO CHAI”--THE “HUNG LOU MÊNG” 337
II. THE EMPERORS K‘ANG HSI AND CH’IEN LUNG 385
III. CLASSICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE--POETRY 391
IV. WALL LITERATURE--JOURNALISM--WIT AND HUMOUR--PROVERBS AND
MAXIMS 425
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 441
INDEX 443
BOOK THE FIRST
_THE FEUDAL PERIOD_ (B.C. 600-200)
CHAPTER I
LEGENDARY AGES--EARLY CHINESE CIVILISATION--ORIGIN OF WRITING
The date of the beginning of all things has been nicely calculated by
Chinese chronologers. There was first of all a period when Nothing
existed, though some enthusiasts have attempted to deal with a period
antecedent even to that. Gradually Nothing took upon itself the form
and limitations of Unity, represented by a point at the centre of
a circle. Thus there was a Great Monad, a First Cause, an Aura, a
Zeitgeist, or whatever one may please to call it.
After countless ages, spent apparently in doing nothing, this Monad
split into Two Principles, one active, the other passive; one
positive, the other negative; light and darkness; male and female. The
interaction of these Two Principles resulted in the production of all
things, as we see them in the universe around us, 2,269,381 years ago.
Such is the cosmogony of the Chinese in a nutshell.
The more sober Chinese historians, however, are content to begin with a
sufficiently mythical emperor, who reigned only 2800 years before the
Christian era. The practice of agriculture, the invention of wheeled
vehicles, and the simpler arts of early civilisation are generally
referred to this period; but to the dispassionate European student it
is a period of myth and legend: in fact, we know very little about
it. Neither do we know much, in the historical sense, of the numerous
rulers whose names and dates appear in the chronology of the succeeding
two thousand years. It is not indeed until we reach the eighth century
B.C. that anything like history can be said to begin.
For reasons which will presently be made plain, the sixth century
B.C. is a convenient starting-point for the student of Chinese
literature.
[Sidenote: FEUDALISM]
China was then confined to a comparatively small area, lying for the
most part between the Yellow River on the north and the river Yang-tsze
on the south. No one knows where the Chinese came from. Some hold the
fascinating theory that they were emigrants from Accadia in the ancient
kingdom of Babylonia; others have identified them with the lost tribes
of Israel. No one seems to think they can possibly have originated in
the fertile plains where they are now found. It appears indeed to be
an ethnological axiom that every race must have come from somewhere
outside its own territory. However that may be, the China of the eighth
century B.C. consisted of a number of Feudal States, ruled by nobles
owning allegiance to a Central State, at the head of which was a king.
The outward tokens of subjection were homage and tribute; but after
all, the allegiance must have been more nominal than real, each State
being practically an independent kingdom. This condition of things
was the cause of much mutual jealousy, and often of bloody warfare,
several of the States hating one another quite as cordially as Athens
and Sparta at their best.
There was, notwithstanding, considerable physical civilisation in the
ancient States of those early days. Their citizens, when not employed
in cutting each other’s throats, enjoyed a reasonable security of life
and property. They lived in well-built houses; they dressed in silk
or homespun; they wore shoes of leather; they carried umbrellas; they
sat on chairs and used tables; they rode in carts and chariots; they
travelled by boat; and they ate their food off plates and dishes of
pottery, coarse perhaps, yet still superior to the wooden trencher
common not so very long ago in Europe. They measured time by the
sundial, and in the Golden Age they had the two famous calendar trees,
representations of which have come down to us in sculpture, dating
from about A.D. 150. One of these trees put forth a leaf every day for
fifteen days, after which a leaf fell off daily for fifteen more days.
The other put forth a leaf once a month for half a year, after which a
leaf fell off monthly for a similar period. With these trees growing in
the courtyard, it was possible to say at a glance what was the day of
the month, and what was the month of the year. But civilisation proved
unfavourable to their growth, and the species became extinct.
In the sixth century B.C. the Chinese were also in possession
of a written language, fully adequate to the most varied expression of
human thought, and indeed almost identical with their present script,
allowing, among other things, for certain modifications of form brought
about by the substitution of paper and a camel’s-hair brush for the
bamboo tablet and stylus of old. The actual stages by which that point
was reached are so far unknown to us. China has her Cadmus in the
person of a prehistoric individual named Ts‘ang Chieh, who is said to
have had four eyes, and to have taken the idea of a written language
from the markings of birds’ claws upon the sand. Upon the achievement
of his task the sky rained grain and evil spirits mourned by night.
Previous to this mankind had no other system than rude methods of
knotting cords and notching sticks for noting events or communicating
with one another at a distance.
As to the origin of the written language of China, invention is
altogether out of the question. It seems probable that in prehistoric
ages, the Chinese, like other peoples, began to make rude pictures of
the sun, moon, and stars, of man himself, of trees, of fire, of rain,
and they appear to have followed these up by ideograms of various
kinds. How far they went in this direction we can only surmise. There
are comparatively few obviously pictorial characters and ideograms
to be found even in the script of two thousand years ago; but
investigations carried on for many years by Mr. L. C. Hopkins, H.M.
Consul, Chefoo, and now approaching completion, point more and more
to the fact that the written language will some day be recognised as
systematically developed from pictorial symbols. It is, at any rate,
certain that at a very early date subsequent to the legendary period
of “knotted cords” and “notches,” while the picture-symbols were still
comparatively few, some master-mind reached at a bound the phonetic
principle, from which point the rapid development of a written language
such as we now find would be an easy matter.