21ST (week 3 ver)

• Homo Erectus (Upright Man)


  Lived in both East and Southeast Asia almost 2 million years ago.
• 40 Homo Erectus men, or Peking Men, were found near Beijing, China.
• Postcolonial Literature/Postcolonialism


  Literature by people from formerly colonized countries. It exists on all continents except Antarctica.
• Decolonization


  Intellectual process of returning to the former independence that colonies have enjoyed before the coloizers came.
• Xia Dynasty (c. 2070-1600 BC)

  • First Chines dynasty
  • Founded by the legendary Yu the Great
  • Known for developing a flood control technique that stopped the Great Flood that ravaged farmer's crops for generations
• Shang Dynasty (about 1700-1050 BC)

  • Development of Chinese writing
  • Earliest recorded Chinese dynasty supported by archaeological evidence
  • Advances in maths, astronomy, art and military technology
  • Used a highly developed calendar system and an early from of modern Chinese language
• Zhou Dynasty (1045-225 BC)

  • Basic Philosophical and Religious Literature
  • Longest dynasty in the history of China, ruling that region for almost 8 centuries
  • Sprint and Autumn period (770-476) and the Warring States period (475-221)
• China's vast influence also reflects on its religion

  • Confucianism
  • Buddhism
  • Taoism
• Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC)

  • Literary disaster and legalism
  • First dynasty of Imperial China (era of centralized, dynastic government in China between 221 BCE and 1912 CE) which united the separate states
  • Founded by Shi Huangdi, known as Qin Shi Huandi, Shi huangti or Shih Huan-ti, the first emperor of a unified China
• Han Dynasty (206-220 AD)

  • Scientific and Historical texts
  • Founded by commoner Liu Bang who became the Chinese emperor Gao of the Han (Gaozu)
  • Known as the golden age in Chinese history, with a prolonged period of stability and prosperity
• Sima Qian

  • Records of the Grand Historian
  • Father of Chinese History
• Cai Lun

  • Chinese inventor of paper and the papermaking process
  • In 105 CE, he submitted to the emperor a process for making paper
• Tang Dynasty

  • Early woodblock printing and poetry
  • One of the greatest in imperial Chinese history
  • Golden age of reform and cultural advancement which lay the foundation for policies which are still observed in China today
  • The rule of Emperor Xuanzong (712-759), China was the largest and most populous country in the world
• Li Bai (701-762)

  • One of the greatest romantic poets of ancient China
  • He wrote at least a thousand poems on a variety of subjects from political matters to natural scenery
• Du Fu (712-770 AD)

  • Also wrote more than a thousand poems and is thought of as one of the greatest realist poets of China
  • His poetry shows a concern for civil society, and for lives of the underprivileged, that marks him as one of the most humane and moral of Chinese poets
• Song Dynasty (960-1279)

  • Early woodblock printing, travel literature, poetry, scientific text and the Neo-Confucian classic
• Northern Song Empire (960-1127)

  • was based north of the Yangtze river, had its capital in Kaifeng, and was smaller than the Tang empire


  Southern Song Empire (1127-1279)

  • had its capital at Hangzhou, was mainly south of the Yangtze, and flourished substantially both economically and in population growth
• The five classics

  • The Book of Changes
  • The Classic Poetry
  • The Record of Rites
  • The Classic of History (Shu)
  • The Spring and Autumn Annals or Chunqiu
• The four books

  • The Analects of Confucius
  • Mencius
  • The Doctrine of the Mean
  • The Great Learning
• Lu (Lu You)

  • Written almost 10,000 poems
  • Chinese poet of the southern song dynasty
• Su Tung-Po

  • Chinese poet, writer, artist, and statesman during China's Song era
• Shen Kuo

  • Chinese astronomer, mathematician, and high official whose famous work Mengxi bitan ("brush talks from dream book")
• Su Song

  • Chinese scholar and administrative and financial expert in the imperial bureaucracy
  • The Ben Cao Tu Jing (Atlas of Materia Medica) was first published in 1061 in China, during the reign of Ren Zhong, one of the emperor of the Song Dynasty
• Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368)

  • Drama and great fictional novels
  • established by the Mongols and ruled by Kublai Khan (1260-1279), grandson of Genghis Khan
  • Shadow puppet plays
  • Dramatic operatic theaters with human actors speaking
  • best dramatic scripts were written
• Guan Hanqing

  • one of the best playwrights of the times
  • Midsummer Snow
• Wang Shifu

  • The Romance of the Western Chamber
• The Romance of the Three Kingdoms

  • written in vernacular language by Luo Guan Zhong
• Water Margin

  • written in vernacular language by Shi Nai An
• Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

  • Novels

  Journey to the West

  • based on the historical journey of a Buddhist to India
  • Ming-era novel said to have been written by Wu Cheng'en
  • a romanticized account of the real-life pilgrimage of the Tang dynasty monk Xuanzang, who spent 17yrs traveling from China to India and back in search of authentic Buddhist scriptures
• Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)

  • Novels and Pre-modern Literature


  Dream of the Red Chamber

  • Dream of Red Mansions
  • explores the private lives and emotions of a sprawling cast of largely female characters
  • Cao Xuegin
  • Redology
• Modern era (1912-present)

  • Westernized literature
  • Sun Yat-sen led a revolution that marked the end of Chinese dynasties in which a clan rules an empire
• Ge Fei

  • one of the first and most influential avant-garde writers of China

  Jiangnan Trilogy - awarded the Mao Dun Literary award

  The Invisibility Cloak - awarded the Lu Xun Literary prize and Lao She Literary award
• Bi Feiyu

  • started writing novels in the 1980s
  • The Moon Opera and Three Sisters - most of representative work
  • Mao Dun Literary award
  • Le Mode Prize in literature
• Yang Hongying

  • present-day China's most influential writers of children's literature
  • Hans christian andersen award in 2014
  • written more than 80 fairy tales, children's novels and essay
• Dong Xi

  • Help, Our Father and Life without Language
  • First Lu Xun literary prize in 1998
• Nara period (710-794)

  • Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters
  • Nihon shoki (Chronicle of Japan)
  • Fudoki (Records of Wind and Earth)
  • Man'yoshu (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves)
  • Kokin wakashu or kokinshu (Collection of Poems from Ancient and Modern Times)
• Heian period (710-1185)

  • The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari) by Murasaki Shikibu
  • Konjaku monogatari (Tales of a Time that is Now Past)
  • Kokin wakashu or Kokinshu (Collection of Poems from Ancient and Modern Times)
  • Makura no soshi (The Pillow Book) by Sei Shonagon
  • Iroha poem
• Taketori monogatari 


  10th century Japanese narrative and considered an early example of proto-science fiction
• Kamakura-Muromachi period (1185-1573)

  • Heike Monogatari (The Tale of the Heike)
  • Shin kokin wakashu (New Collection of Poems from Ancient and Modern Times)
  • Renga, or linked verse
  • Noh theater
• Kamakura-Muromachi period

  • Hojoki (An Account of my Hut) - Kamo no Chomei
  • Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness) - Yoshida Kenko