A History of Chinese Literature

by Herbert Allen Giles

General Books publication date: 2009
Original publication date: 1901
Original Publisher: Heinemann Subjects: Chinese literature

History / Asia / China

Literary Collections / Asian

Literary Criticism / Asian / General

Literary Criticism / Asian / Chinese Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text.
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Excerpt: CHAPTER II POETRY . At the beginning of the second century B. c., poetry was still composed on the model of the Li Sao, and we are in possession of a number of works assigned to Chia I (b. c. 199-168), Tung-fang So (b. B. c. 160), Liu Hsiang, and others, all of which follow on the lines of Ch'ii Yiian's great poem. But gradually, with the more definite establishment of what we may call classical influence, poets went back to find their exemplars in the Book of Poetry, which came as it were from the very hand of Confucius himself. Poems were written in metres of four, five, and seven words to a line. Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju (d, B. C. 117), a gay Lothario who eloped with a young widow, made such a name with his verses that he was summoned to Court, and appointed by the Emperor to high office. His poems, however, have not survived. MEI Sh£ng (d. B. C. 140), who formed his style on Ssu-ma, has the honour of being the first to bring home to his fellow-countrymen the extreme beauty of the five- word metre. From him modern poetry may be said to date. Many specimens of his workmanship are extant: -- (i.) " Green grows the grass upon the bank, The willow-shoots are long and lank; A lady in a glistening gown Opens the casement and looks down. The roses on her cheek blush bright, Her rounded arm is dazzling white ; A singing-girl in early life, And now a careless roufs wife. . . , Ah, if he does not mind his own, H...

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction

460 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1901

About the author

Educated at Charterhouse, Herbert Allen Giles was a British diplomat and author of books on China and the Far East. He served as British Vice-consul at Pagoda Island from 1880 to 1883 and at Shanghai from 1883 to 1885. He then became Consul at Tamsui in 1885 and in 1891 at Ningpo. He taught Chinese at Cambridge and, in 1902, became a senior lecturer at Columbia University. His works include Chinese Sketches (1876), Historic China (1882), The Remains of Lao Tzu (1886), China and the Chinese (1902), The Civilization of China (1911), Confucianism and Its Rivals (1915) and The Second Hundred Best Characters (1922).

Reviews

[Monty Milne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course this is dated – it was published in 1901. But I think it is still worth reading. First, the style is surprisingly breezy and refreshing – despite being a Victorian diplomat, there is nothing of the stuffed shirt about Giles. Also, it is remarkably wide ranging, and discusses a huge range of different genres over an immense period of time.

Occasionally – and I say this was some diffidence, being very much aware of my inability to read or speak Mandarin and my lack of expert knowledge on the subject – one feels Giles misses the point in surprising ways. For example – the I Ching (Book of Changes) is a fanciful system of philosophy based on the combinations of lines and dots originating from the patterns on a tortoise shell. Giles dismisses this as gibberish and says “Important lessons could be learned if only we had the wit to understand them.” But it is now generally accepted – and seems much more obvious to me than it did to Giles – that we are dealing with what was in origin a system of divination.

The 13th century plays of the Mongol period seem highly curious. The cast was all male, and realism was unimportant – corpses get up and wander off stage. There are no props (although the costumes were gorgeous) and the plots were generally weak and simple. It is therefore not surprising that the example given here looks to me like low rubbish. However, I expected better of the 17th century Manchu “Strange Stories” of Pu Sung Ling – Giles notes their excellent style and copious classical allusions. It was a disappointment that the extract quoted looks childish and unedifying to my eyes. It’s quite slippery to get a grip on all of this: how good is the translation? How is Giles’s gaze different to ours? How do we apprehend another culture which is, to me at least, very strange and unfamiliar? It’s not easy – but it’s always intriguing.

There is a lengthy and useful analysis of the famous Dream of the Red Chamber, but what I enjoyed the most was the more obscure things, such as the 18th century letter writer Yuan Mei. Giles calls him “the Brillat-Savarin of China” for his gossipy, witty and entertaining writing on cookery. I’ve read Brillat-Savarin, and thought him a pompous bore: Yuan Mei looks a great deal better. Discovering things like this which I had never heard of before are one of the joys of this very lengthy but rewarding book. It’s available for free download from Project Gutenberg.

[Chet]

As far as surveys of Chinese lit go this was a healthy palate cleanser after Megan Walsh's mess of a book. Giles was thorough as they come. He didn't zoom through the older dynasties, got cozy with nearly every writer he covered, and didn't limit himself genre-wise, in addition to poetry fiction drama essays we get jurisprudence, medical advice texts, and cookbooks. Giles and Waley two GOATs for the ages.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A readable, if somewhat dated, survey of Chinese literature up until roughly the mid 19th century. Of course, that ignores a whole host of contemporary writers, but their stuff is more readily in translation than what Giles is dealing with.