China's History, Literature and Art up to the First Half of the 19th Century 3600-19-SIW1-HLSCXIX

The course is designed to help students become acquainted with the most essential issues associated with China's history, literature and art up to the first half of the 19th century. Participants will develop an understanding of connections among phenomena conventionally researched within the scope of three separate disciplines. The course will be held in the form of a lecture supplemented with discussion. The information provided by lecturers will be treated as a point of departure for reflection and discussion concerning historical facts, source materials, works of art and literary texts. The course will help the participants specify their research interests, which will be further developed in later stages of the study program.

In the historical section, particular emphasis of the course will be placed on the major political, social, and cultural processes that shaped Chinese civilization from the earliest times to the first half of the nineteenth century. The course will examine the fundamental geographical and cultural factors underlying the development of Chinese civilization, the earliest Neolithic cultures, and the origins of state formation in China. The history of the Shang and Zhou dynasties will be discussed, with special attention paid to the emergence of key political and social concepts such as the Mandate of Heaven, as well as to the processes that led to the formation of the classical Chinese tradition.

A substantial part of the course will be devoted to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, during which the principal currents of Chinese philosophical thought, including Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism, developed. The course will then address the unification of China under the Qin dynasty and the establishment of the first centralized empire, as well as the development of political and administrative institutions during the Han dynasty. Particular attention will be paid to the role of Confucianism as a state ideology, the growth of the bureaucratic system, and the importance of commercial and cultural contacts conducted through the Silk Roads.

The course will further examine the political and social transformations associated with the fall of the Han dynasty, the Three Kingdoms period, the Jin dynasty, and the era of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. The introduction and spread of Buddhism in China and its impact on culture, religion, art, and intellectual life will also be discussed. Subsequent classes will focus on the reunification of China under the Sui and Tang dynasties, the development of imperial institutions, and the place of Tang China within the political, economic, and cultural networks of East and Central Asia.

Students will also become familiar with the transformations that took place during the Song dynasty, including economic development, urbanization, the expansion of trade, technological innovation, and the evolution of the civil service examination system. The history of non-Han states that existed within or alongside the territories of present-day China, including the Liao, Jin, and Western Xia dynasties, will also be examined in order to highlight the multiethnic character of Chinese history. The course will then address the Mongol conquest, the functioning of the Yuan dynasty, and the significance of China's incorporation into the Mongol Empire.

Subsequent parts of the course will discuss the establishment and development of the Ming dynasty, the functioning of the state apparatus, maritime and commercial contacts, as well as the first encounters between China and Europeans and the growth of intercontinental exchange in the early modern period. The Manchu conquest and the establishment of the Qing dynasty will also be examined, with particular emphasis on the multiethnic nature of the empire, its territorial expansion, and the processes that contributed to the formation of the borders of modern China.

The final part of the course will focus on the society and culture of late imperial China. Topics will include social structure, family and lineage organization, the role of the scholar-official elite, the civil service examination system, and the place of history, literature, and art in traditional Chinese culture. The course will conclude with an overview of the Qing Empire in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and a discussion of the major historical processes that laid the foundations of modern China.

In the section devoted to literature, students will become acquainted with the history of the Chinese literature from its beginnings to the first half of the 19th century. The class takes form of a lecture supplemented with discussion and reading of selected texts, which should be conducive to developing a better understanding of the discussed issues.
The class helps students identify the most important trends in the Chinese literature but also provides them with detailed knowledge concerning selected writers and their works. The problems will be addressed chronologically. The cultural background will be introduced extensively.
While discussing the pre-imperial period, students will become acquainted with the oldest examples of Chinese written heritage (jiaguwen and jinwen) as well as texts crucial for later development of the Chinese literature: Shijing, Shujing, Yijing, Chunqiu, Zuo zhuan. The problem of the role of historiography in the Chinese literature will be addressed. The lecturer will introduce the participants to the idea of the Confucian canon and discuss the meaning of the most important philosophical and poetic texts. One of the most essential phenomena during the reign of the Han dynasty was the undertaking of recovering and/or recreating the heritage of pre-imperial literature, which had been partially destroyed in the 3rd century BC. That period saw the creation of influential historiographic texts and development of court (fu) and folk-inspired poetry (yuefu). The Six Dynasties period was characterized by an intellectual awakening, which inspired numerous interesting literary phenomena: poetic works of Cao Zhi, Tao Yuanming or the landscape poets, the creation of zhiguai xiaoshuo and literary-theoretical texts. A poetic revolution initiated at that time precipitated into the most famous works of Tang poetry. Social functions of poetry as well as the image of the ideal poet evolved significantly during the Tang period. Chuanqi brought about a breakthrough in the realm of popular prose. Students will also become acquainted with the Dunhuang discoveries, which deepened the researchers’ understanding of the Tang (not just) literary heritage. During the reign of the Song dynasty, the use of printing became widespread. The process of separation of literary and administrative elites was underway. There occurred significant changes in poetry (creation of ci, the works of Su Shi, Li Qingzhao and Huang Tingjian). Both official and popular (huaben, biji, travelogues) prose was developing. During the Yuan period, Chinese intellectual elites suffered from political marginalization. However, the period also witnessed the birth of the Chinese theatre (zaju). Theatre, especially its “Southern” branch, developed rapidly also during the Ming period: it was at this point in time that Tang Xianzu wrote The Peony Pavilion. Important phenomena appeared in the official prose (the eight-legged essay), but they were overshadowed by a revolution in the popular prose associated with the creation of the Chinese novel. Sanguo zhi yanyi, Shuihu zhuan, Xiyou ji, Jin ping mei were all written in that period. Simultaneously, the literati class was taking shape. The Qing period was dominated by developments in prose and theatre. The collection of short prose Liaozhai zhi yi and the great novels Rulin waishi and Honglou meng were produced. In the realm of theatre, there appeared a number of important dramatic texts (e.g. Changsheng dian, Taohua shan), but special attention should be paid to the creation of Beijing opera.