Literature of the Han Dynasty
2 min readThe next dynasty to come into power is the Han Dynasty，including the Western Han and Eastern Han Dynasties.Quite opposite to the strict control over individual thoughts in the Qin Dynasty，Han rulers exerted a free cultural policy，which helped the reflowering of literature.
During these 400 years，classical essays，both political and historical，reaped a new harvest.With the reactivation of the Music Bureau in 120 BC，a large quantity of folk songs were preserved and Chinese poetry was further enriched.Many poems were collected in An Anthology of Yuefu Poetry compiled by Guo Maoqian（1041-1099）in the Northern Song Dynasty.But the most notable achievement is the appearance of a new literary genre named Fu.
Essays in the Han Dynasty
Based on former resources，essays both political and historical had significant developmentin this dynasty.The early Han Dynasty produced many essays which are primarily comments on the success and failure of Qin’s policy or provide suggestions for the new dynasty.Famous writings of this kind include essays in Lu Jia’s（c.240-170BC）New Words，Jia Yi’s（200-168BC）famous piece“On the Faults of Qin” in his New Book and Chao Cuo’s（200-154 BC）famous piece“On the Vital Importance of Grain Production”.Generally speaking，essays produced in this period display somewhat similar literary features to those written in the Pre-Qin Period.
The Han Empire was at its peak during Emperor Wu’s reign（141-87 BC）.It is in this greatperiod that the historical landmark Records of the Grand Historian was completed by Sima Qian.
Sima Qian（145-C.87BC），was a famous Western Han historian in the government，responsible for astronomical and diachronic records of the empire.He was later titled the Father of Chinese History by modern Chinese scholars.He took on an ambitious project started by his father-to write the first full history of China，which would cover the period from the prehistoric times to the present.Unfortunately，Sima Qian incurred the emperor’s displeasure and was sentenced to castration for his political mistake of seeking to defend a general，Li Ling，who led a force of infantry to fight the Huns in today’s Mongolia and finally was forced to surrender after a desperate struggle.Instead of choosing suicide，Sima Qian accepted the punishment and consequent disgrace in order to complete his grand history.
