An Anthology of Chinese Literature

Winner of the 1997 American Literary Translators Association Outstanding Translation Award Hailed as a groundbreaking text in Chinese Studies, An Anthology of Chinese Literature brings together representative works from the first millenium B.C. to the end of the imperial system in 1911. This collection of over 600 pieces, translated with great clarity and sense of the original, presents the tradition in historical and aesthetic context. Moving roughly chronologically through the tradition, An Anthology of Chinese Literature gathers texts in a variety of genres—songs, letters, anecdotes, poetry, political oratory, plays, traditional literary theory, and more—to show how the essential texts build on and echo each other. Coupled with highly readable commentary, this innovative structure uniquely highlights the interplay among Chinese literature, culture, and history.

Stephen Owen is Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. His books include The Poetry of Meng Chiao and Han Yü, The Poetry of the Early T’ang, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang, Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics: An Omen of the World, Remebrances: The Experience of the Past in Classical Chinese Literature, Mi-lou: Poetry and the Labryinth of Desire, and Readings in Chinese Literary Thought. He is also an editor of The Norton Anthology of World Literature, and of The Vitality of the Lyric Voice: Shih Poetry from the Late Han to the T’ang.