| * Boldface
titles indicate works in the anthology. |
TEXTS
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CONTEXTS
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1300–1350 Earliest printed versions of vernacular drama
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ca. 1350 Earliest publication of vernacular short stories
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1368 Ming Dynasty is established with the capital at Nanking
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1405–1421 Ming admiral Cheng Ho explores southeast Asia, Sri
Lanka, and the coast of Africa
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1421 The capital is moved to Peking
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early 16th century Earliest edition of Water Margin, an
episodic novel about a band of outlaws
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1522 Earliest edition of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a
long historical novel about the fall of the Han Dynasty
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| 1550–1617
T'ang Hsien-tsu, a major dramatist who developed
the long ch'uan-ch'i play into a literary form
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1574–1646 Feng Meng-lung, collector and author of vernacular
stories and popular songs, important in raising the status of
vernacular literature
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1580–1644 Late Ming, a period of radical subjectivism and
questioning of authority of tradition
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1583–1610 Matteo Ricci, Jesuit missionary, serves in China
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1592 Earliest extant edition of Monkey ( Journey to the
West)
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| 1611–1680
Li Yü, comic dramatist, story writer, and champion
of vernacular literature |
|
| 1617
Earliest edition of Chin P'ing Mei (Golden
Lotus), a satirical novel of manners about a corrupt
sensualist |
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1644–1645 Manchus conquer China • Ch'ing Dynasty is established
• All Chinese males are forced to cut their hair and wear the queue
|
| 1648–1718
K'ung Shang-jen, author of the Peach Blossom
Fan (1699) |
|
| 1715–1763
Cao Xueqin, author of the Story of the Stone
(1740–50) |
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1736–1794
"Literary inquisition": earlier works are censored
and many writers imprisoned for suspected critical references
to the Ch'ing Dynasty |
| ca. 1750
Ju-lin wai-shih (The Scholars), a satirical
novel; first extant edition 1803 |
|
| 1788
The completion of the Ssu-k'u ch'üan-shu,
a massive collection of all important earlier literature
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