The course introduces students to works of Chinese literature ranging from the pre-Qin period until the late 18th century. As a culture that conceived of the ability to write poetry and prose as the distinctive characteristic of its elites, China boasts one of the largest and most diverse bodies of literature in the world. Since Western classifications of literature hardly suit Chinese typologies, the course approaches traditional Chinese literature according to its own generic classifications, using them as a guideline while tracing their modification and growth through time.
Aside from receiving an overview of certain periods, authors, and genres, students will also study a wide variety of examples of literature in translation. Not only will they investigate the formal attributes that may qualify a text to be part of a particular genre; they will also engage reflectively with the backgrounds, contents, structures, meanings and intentions of the presented works. The aim of the course is therefore to enable students to understand and reproduce the major developments and genres of traditional Chinese literature as well as to classify works, previously unknown to them, according to genres.