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Dream Pool Essays
The Dream Pool Essays was an extensive book written by the polymath Chinese scientist and statesman Shen Kuo by 1088 AD, during the Song Dynasty of China. Although Shen was previously a highly renowned government official and military general, he compiled this enormous written work while virtually isolated on his lavish garden estate near modern-day Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province. He named the book after the name he gave to his estate, the "Dream Brook".
The Painted Skin - A Strange Story from a Strange Chinese Studio
The story is taken from the Liaozhai Zhiyi by Pu Songling. Liaozhai Zhiyi - literally, "Strange (Historical) Stories from a Studio for Leisurely Conversations" - is a posthumous collection of five hundred-odd entries that the author Pu Songling made into little books called juan and circulated among his scholar friends during the last thirty or so years of his relatively long life (1640-1715). Although the stories met with immediate success upon publication and are now classic, it was ironically not Pu's life ambition to be known as the author of these "strange tales." For the most part, Pu...
Zeng Gong - Morality First, and Then Be an Author
Zeng Gong (曾巩, 1019–1083), courtesy name Zigu (子固), was a Chinese scholar and historian of the Song Dynasty in China. He was one of the supporters of the New Classical Prose Movement and is regarded as founder of one of the Eight Great Schools of Thought of the Tang and Song dynasties.
Jin Shengtan: the Champion of Vernacular Chinese Literature
Jin Shengtan, former name Jin Renrui, also known as Jin Kui, was a Chinese editor, writer and critic, who has been called the champion of Vernacular Chinese literature. The year of Jin's birth is unclear, with some sources reporting 1610 and others 1608. The former estimate is based on the fact that Jin's son was 10 years old in East Asian age reckoning in 1641, and is generally accepted by scholars.
Cao Xueqin: One of the China's Greatest Novelists
Cao Xueqin is the author of Dream of the Red Chamber, believed by many to be the greatest novel written in the Chinese language. His given name was Cao Zhan and his courtesy name is Mengruan. Cao belonged to a Han Chinese clan which later became part of the Plain White Branch of the Manchu Banners. Although forced into slavery to Manchu royalty in the late 1610s, his ancestors distinguished themselves through military service and subsequently held posts in officialdom.
Zhu Ziqing: Why Should Our Days Leave Us and Never to Return
Zhu Ziqing was a renowned Chinese poet and essayist. Zhu studied at Peking University, and during the May Fourth Movement became one of several pioneers of modernism in China during the 1920s. Later, he was appointed professor of Chinese Literature at Tsinghua University in 1925. From 1931 to 1932 he studied English Literature and Linguistics in London.
Chinese Literary Icon Ba Jin and His "Family"
Ba Jin (penname of Li Yaotang or Li Feigan, born November 25, 1904) is a writer considered to be one of the most important and widely read amongst Chinese writers of the twentieth century. Taking his pseudonym from Russian anarchists Bakunin and Kropotkin, Ba Jin started composing his first works in the late 1920s.
The Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars
The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars is a classic text of Confucian filial piety written by Guo Jujing, a scholar of the Yuan dynasty (1260-1368), who lived in Datian Xian, north of Dehua, in Fujian province. He was apparently much known for his filial piety, and took the occasion of the death of his father to publish the tales we read here, recounting the feats of filial children - nearly all male - towards their parents - mostly aged mothers - from the age of the primordial Emperor Shun down to his own era.
Xie Lingyun, the Founder of Chinese Natural Landscape Poems
Xie Lingyun, poet of Eastern Jin Dynasty, founder of Chinese natural landscape poems focusing on the "mountain and streams", was called the "Originator of Landscape Poems" and one of the most famous Chinese poets in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. He was borned in Shangyu City, Zhejiang Province. In Jin Dynasty, He was appointed as Kangle duke. Because of his flaunt character, he contradicted with the Court, so he was demoted as Kangle Marquis, who was named as "Xie Kangle".
Jiang Tingxi: More Than Just a Scholar, a Painter, or a Poet...
Jiang Tingxi(1669–1732), courtesy name Yangsun(杨孙), was a Chinese painter, and an editor of the encyclopedia Gujin Tushu Jicheng. Although better known for his Gujin Tushu Jicheng, Jiang also contributed—along with other scholars—in the compilation of the "Daqing Yitongzhi" (Gazetteer of the Qing Empire). This geographical gazetteer was provided with a preface in 1744, revised in 1764, and reprinted in 1849.