Cao Cao Reciting A Short Song
2 min readChinese literature，a very considerable number of brilliant and profound writings of the Chinese people，is one of the major literary heritages of the world，with an uninterrupted history of more than 3，000 years.Throughout thousands of years of civilization，Chinese writers have woven a variety of genres and forms with high aesthetic value，including poetry，essays，fiction，drama，Fu and so on，each in its own way reflecting the social climate of its day.The following words by Guo Shaoyu（1893-1984），a famous contemporary historian of Chinese literature，draw a rough outline of the history of Chinese literature.
As far as literature was concerned，the Zhou and Qin Dynasties were famous for the essay，the State of Chu for Chu Ci，the Han Dynasty for Fu，the Wei，Jin and Six Dynasties for florid Pianti Wen or parallel prose style，the Tang Dynasty for poetry，the Song Dynasty for Ci），the Yuan Dynasty for drama，the Ming Dynasty for novels and drama.During the Qing Dynasty，no particular genre became dominant over other genres.Generally speaking，literature of the Qing Dynasty was all-embracing，with all genres developing equally.’
Literature of the Pre-Qin Period
The Pre-Qin Period lasted from the unrecorded prehistoric time to the close of the Warring States Period，which ended up with the appearance of the first united feudal country of Qin in the history of China.During this period of time，China saw the very birth of early literary forms：unrecorded oral songs and mythology in the prehistoric era，Shi Jing（the first anthology of Chinese poetry in the Zhou Dynasty），essays of various kinds produced by great thinkers in the turbulent and contending Spring and Autumn Period and its successive WarringStates Period，and Chu Ci appeared in the late years of the Warring States Period.In general，Chinese literature in this period witnessed a literary transition from a collective poetry creation represented by Shi Jing to an individual composition represented by Chu Ci.2 An interesting point about Pre-Qin Poetry is the strong musical rhythm，which allowed it to be used for entertainment such as dancing and singing.The other transition is from a simple-sentence writing to a complex one with more complex arguments and vivid descriptions of human conversations and mood manifested in some historical writings written in the late Warring States Period.
