Qing dynasty: 1644–1911/12

Poetry and prose nonfiction

In the field of ci writing, the 17th-century Manchu poet Nara Singde (Sinicized name Nalan Xingde) was outstanding, but even he lapsed into conscious imitation of Southern Tang models except when inspired by the vastness of open space and the beauties of nature. In nonfictional prose, Jin Renrui continued the familiar essay form.

Prose fiction

Pu Songling continued the prose romance tradition by writing in guwen (“classical language”) a series of 431 charming stories of the uncanny and the supernatural titled Liaozai zhiyi (1766; “Strange Stories from the Liaozai Studio”; Eng. trans. Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio). This collection, completed in 1679, was reminiscent of the early literary tale tradition, for it contained several Tang stories retold with embellishments and minor changes to delineate the characters more realistically and to make the plots more probable. Such traditional supernatural beings as fox spirits, assuming in these stories temporary human form in the guise of pretty women, became for the first time in Chinese fiction humanized and likable. Despite the seeming success of these tales, the author soon became aware of the limitations of the guwen style for fiction writing and proceeded to produce a vernacular novel of some one million words, the Xingshi yinyuanzhuan (“A Marriage to Awaken the World”). This long story of a shrew and her henpecked husband was told without any suggestion of a solution to the problems of unhappy marriages. Unsure of the reaction of his colleagues to his use of the vernacular as a literary medium, Pu Songling had this longest Chinese novel of the old school published under a pseudonym.

Wu Jingzi satirized the 18th-century literati in a realistic masterpiece, Rulin waishi (c. 1750; “Unofficial History of the Literati”; Eng. trans. The Scholars), 55 chapters loosely strung together in the manner of a picaresque romance. Unlike Pu Songling, whom he far surpassed in both narration and characterization, he adopted the vernacular as his sole medium for fiction writing.

Better known and more widely read was Cao Zhan’s Hongloumeng (Dream of the Red Chamber), a novel of a love triangle and the fall of a great family, also written in the vernacular and the first outstanding piece of Chinese fiction with a tragic ending. Because its lengthy descriptions of poetry contests, which interrupt the narrative, may seem tiresome, especially to non-Chinese readers, they have been largely deleted in Western translations. Nevertheless, some Western critics have considered it one of the world’s finest novels.

Drama

In drama, the Ming tradition of chuanqi was worthily continued by several leading poets of the conventional school, though as a whole their dramatic writings failed to appeal to the masses. Toward the end of the 18th century, folk dramas of numerous localities began to gain popularity, converging finally at the theatres of Beijing and giving rise to what came to be designated as Beijing drama—a composite product that has continued to delight large audiences in China.

19th-century translations of Western literature

By the early 19th century, China could no longer ward off the West and, after the first Opium War (1839–42), China’s port cities were forcibly opened to increased foreign contacts. In due course, many Western works on diverse subjects were translated into Chinese. The quality of some of these was so outstanding that they deserve a place in the history of Chinese literature. One distinguished translator was Yan Fu, who had studied in Great Britain and whose renderings of Western philosophical works into classical Chinese were acclaimed as worthy of comparison, in literary merit, with the Zhou philosophers. Another great translator was Lin Shu, who, knowing no foreign language himself but depending on oral interpreters, made available to Chinese readers more than 170 Western novels, translated into the literary style of Sima Qian.

19th-century native prose and poetry

Meanwhile, writers of native fiction, especially in central and southern China, began to be seriously influenced by Western models. Using the vernacular and mostly following the picaresque romance structure of the Rulin waishi, they wrote fiction usually intended for serial publication and satirizing Chinese society and culture. One of these writers was Liu E, whose Laocan youji (1904–07; The Travels of Lao Can ), a fictional account of contemporary life, pointed to the problems confronting the tottering Qing dynasty.

Poetry, long stagnant, at last began to free itself from the shackles of traditionalism. The most prominent poet, Huang Zunxian, inspired by folk songs and foreign travel, tried to write poetry in the spoken language and experimented with new themes, new diction, and new rhythm. His young friend Liang Qichao not only fervently supported Huang and his associates in what they called “the revolution in Chinese poetry” but also ventured forth in new directions in prose. Liang’s periodical publications, especially, exerted an extensive influence on the Chinese people in the early years of the 20th century. Fusing all the unique and attractive features of the various schools of prose writing of the past into a new compound, Liang achieved a vibrant and widely imitated style of his own, distinguished by several characteristics: flexibility in sentence structure so that new terms, transliterations of foreign words and phrases, and even colloquial expressions could be accommodated; a natural liveliness; and a touch of infectious emotionalism, which the majority of his readers enjoyed. Although he was too cautious to use the vernacular, except in fiction and plays, he did attempt to approximate the living speech of the people, as Huang Zunxian had done in poetry.

As part of a Westernization movement, the competitive literary examination system, which had been directly responsible for excessive conservatism and conventionality in thought as well as in literature, was abolished in 1905.