Chinese Literary Criticism - General

中國文學批評

Note the following three webpages also (in whole or in part) dedicated to Chinese literary criticism:

Zhong Rong 鍾嶸 (469-518), Tang-Song Literary Criticism 唐宋代文學批評,

and Yuan Haowen 元好問 (1190-1257)

Article:

      “‘Sincerity’ in Chinese Literary Theory,” Contrastes: Revue de linguistique contrastive (Paris/ Nice) 18-19 (Dec. 1989), pp. 81-87. On the term cheng 誠 (makoto in Japanese); includes treatment of its formulation in the Zhongyong 中庸.

‘Sincerity’  誠 in Chinese Literary Theory

Article:

      “Life Configurations: Perceived Patternings in Pre-modern China,” in Life Configurations, Gert Melville and Carlos Ruta, ed. (Berlin: De Gruyter 2014), pp. 107-119. 

Perceived Patternings in Pre-modern China

Review-article on:

      James J.Y. Liu (劉若愚 Liu Ruoyu), Chinese Theories of Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), in Monumenta Serica 33 (1977-78), pp. 466-471. 

 Review-article on James J.Y. Liu, Chinese Theories of Literature

Translation of the text used for the awards ceremony of a Japan Academy Prize:

      Anon., “Professor Kōzen Hiroshi 興膳宏: A Synopsis of His Research on Chinese Literary Theory,” The Japan Academy [日本学士院], 2016. Translation of (pp. 18-19 of) the following, used to accompany the award ceremony: http://www.japan-acad.go.jp/pdf/youshi/103/kozen.pdf.

Japan Academy Prize, Prof. Kōzen Hiroshi 興膳宏

      Yip Wai-lim (葉維廉 Ye Weilian), Diffusion of Distances: Dialogues between Chinese and Western Poetics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), in Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 43 (1995), pp. 177-179. 

Review of Yip Wai-lim, Diffusion of Differences

Book review of:

      John J. Deeney, ed, Chinese-Western Comparative Litera­ture: Theory and Strategy (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 1980), in Journal of Asian Studies 43.2 (Feb. 1984), pp. 312-313.

 Review of John J. Deeney, ed, Chinese-Western Comparative Litera­ture

Additional material:

     Note the treatment of Chinese literary theory and criticism in the translation of Yoshikawa Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎, Five Hundred Years of Chinese Poetry, 1150-1650: The Chin, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties; for fuller information, see the Post-Song Poetry webpage. The volume has a section on the Tangshi pinhui 唐詩品彚 by Gao Bing 高棅, a work of importance in the history of later poetic models, tastes, and evaluation. Further, the author argues that critical terms used by Gao Qi 高啟 — specifically, ge 格 (“poetic framework”), yi 義 (“meaning”), and qu 趣 (“atmosphere”) — are analogous to ones later made famous by Shen Deqian 沈德潛, Yuan Mei 袁枚, and Wang Shizhen 王士楨: namely, gediao 格調 “formal style”), xingling 性靈 (“native sensibility”), and shenyun 神韻 (“ineffable personal tone or flavor”).

Research resource:

      Note "Index H" to Japanese Scholars of China: A Bibliographic Handbook (for full citation, see the Japanese Sinology webpage), which  lists scholars by field of study (about whom more bibliographic information is supplied in the body of the handbook). Those active in the study of Chinese literary theory and poetics are listed on p. 448.