contentsprefacepart oneancient chinese literatureoverview of ancient chinese literature evolution ofancient chinese literaturemain characteristics ofancient chinese literature an age of essayspre-qin schools of thoughtsima qian and records ofthe grand historianeight great prose masters of the tang and song dynastiesthe rise of poetrythe book of songs:the first collection of poemsqu yuan: romantic lyric poemstao yuanming:a hermit's pastoral poemsimmortal li baipoet-sage du fubai juyi and "new yuefu"ci poetrysu shi: a fresh approach to ci poetryli qingzhao: gracefuland restrained ci poetryxin qiji: bold andunconstrained ci poetrydrama comes of age guan hanqing: great yuan playwright romance of the west chamber tang xianzu's drama legends novels reach a peak historical novel: romance of the three kingdoms heroic legend: water margin gods and demons novel: journey to the west ghost novel: strange stories from a chinese studio masterpiece: dream of the red chamberpart two chinese modern and contemporary literature overview of chinese modern and contemporary literature evolution of chinese modern and contemporary literature main characteristics of chinese modern and contemporary literature modern novels: echoes of the timeslu xun: founder of new literatureba jin: the torrents trilogylao she: beijing civil societyshen congwen's world of west hunaneileen chang's life legendsmodern poetry: seeking a voice of its ownguo moruo: destruction and creation xu zhimo: crescent moon poetry ai qing: rooted in the land mu dan: abundance and the pain of abundancemodern stage plays: development of an importcao yu: born for drama tian han: drama imitates life contemporary period: new trends in poetrythe rise of misty poetry bei dao: a rational poet gu cheng: a fairytale poet hai zi: the catcher in the rye contemporary period: diverse novels jia pingwa: returning to cultural roots yu hua: vanguard novels su tong: new historical novels mo yan and hallucinatory realism concluding remarks: trends of the new century