China

People in China began writing about 1500 BC, more than a thousand years later than people in West Asia or Egypt, but earlier than anyone in Europe, Africa, or Central America. The earliest writing that we know of from China was on animal bones, which are called "oracle bones" because priests used them to tell the future. The writing on these oracle bones is the same writing that people use in modern China, just in an earlier version. The signs they used came from pictures, like earlier Egyptian hieroglyphs or Sumerian cuneiform

People in early China also wrote on strips of bamboo wood. Later on, people also wrote on silk cloth. The earliest Chinese literature that we know of probably comes from the later part of the Western Chou Dynasty about 800 BC (the same time as Hesiod in Greece) and was written on silk. This is the I Ching, a fortune-telling book, like the earlier oracle bones.

Around 100 BC, people in China invented paper to write on. Paper was cheaper to write on than silk, so more people wrote and copied books during the Han Dynasty

During the Tang Dynasty, about 700 AD, people in China invented wood-block printing, which was easier than copying out books by hand and made books much cheaper than they had been before. Many more people learned to read, and many more people wrote books. The poet Bai Juyi wrote a famous poem, the Song of Everlasting Sorrow.

Oracle Bone around 1500 BC

Mapping Ancient literature

The region of the Near East between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, called Mesopotamia (meaning "between the rivers"), is thought to be the birthplace of civilization--non-nomadic societies characterized by agriculture and cities. The inhabitants of Mesopotamia raised crops on this rich but dry land by developing and using complex irrigation systems so successful they resulted in a surplus of food. This in turn led to population growth and the emergence of cities.

 Like the people of Mesopotamia, the Egyptians took advantage of a water source, the Nile River, to irrigate arid land and produce a surplus of food. The river also acted as a highway for traveling north to the Mediterranean and south to Nubia (present-day Sudan). Egypt enjoyed a degree of safety because of its location: The only easy land route into and out of Egypt lay through the northern Sinai Peninsula to the coast of the Levant. Egyptian rulers always fought for control of these areas.

King Solomon ruled Israel from 960 to 622 B.C.E. This "Golden Age of Israel" was prosperous and peaceful. After Solomon's death, however, the kingdom was divided into two states, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Israel vanished as a political entity in 722 B.C.E., and its people were dispersed throughout the Near East. In 597 B.C.E. Judah was conquered by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and in 586 B.C.E. most of the Jewish survivors were deported to Babylon, becoming the first diaspora community.

Although they reached unprecedented cultural heights in art, drama, philosophy, and architecture, the Greeks failed to achieve political unity and harmony. Athens and Sparta, along with their respective allies, fought the bloody and costly Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.E.). Defeating the Athenians, the Spartans then tried to become an international power by sending campaigns east into Anatolia (present-day Turkey), threatening the Persians who then ruled most of Anatolia and resulting in ongoing turmoil in the Mediterranean.

For close to one hundred fifty years, Rome steadily expanded its borders. In 30 B.C.E. Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) captured Egypt following the suicides of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Imperial conquest reached its height in 114-117 C.E., when Emperor Trajan seized southern Mesopotamia, the farthest east Rome had yet extended.

Two early Indian cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, located along the Indus River, underwent first a gradual decay and then sudden destruction around 1500 B.C.E. Although archaeologists still search for explanations for these civilizations' demise, they do know it was hastened by the arrival of the Aryans from Central Asia. After 1000 B.C.E., the Aryans continued to migrate into India, mixing with and replacing indigenous peoples.

About 250 B.C.E., political power in China was dispersed among the seven so-called warring states: Han, Wei, Zhao, Qin, Qu, Yen, and Qi. All maintained fortifications and engaged in intermittent conflict, but Qin emerged as the most technologically and militarily powerful state. In 221 B.C.E., after a decade of war, all seven states were united under the conquering Qin.

History of literature. Timeline

Antiquity (3000 BC to 476 BC)

The Middle Ages (476 BC to 1450 AD)

The Renaissance (1450 - 1650)

The Enlightenment ( 1650 - 1770)

Romanticism (1770 - 1832)

The Realist Age (1832 - 1880)

Modernism (1880-1950)

Postmodernism (1950 - present)

What is literature?

The Dog and the Piece of Meat

¨A dog carrying a piece of meat in his mouth was crossing a river when he suddenly saw his own reflection in the water. Mistaking the image for another dog, he dropped his meat and jumped to the attack. His piece of meat fell in the water and was carried away by the current. And so the dog lost both what he had and what he didn't have.¨

In itself an amusing story, we know nevertheless that one of the purposes of this fable of Aesop--a Greek storyteller of the 6th century B.C.--is to teach a point about the dangers of greed and the importance of being happy with what we have. Although those points are not literally or explicitly made in the story, they are embedded in its symbolism. In this story, the animal and his actions are not to be taken literally but instead are to be understood as symbolic representations of certain kinds of human character and behavior. An important guide in literary study is the idea that one must always strive to go beyond the literal or the mere appearances of things and search instead for the "meat" of the story. Unlike the dog of Aesop's fable, we should not allow ourselves to be fooled by false appearances. In the reading you will do in this course, you will be engaging in a constant search for the ideas and values which, although often not explicitly mentioned in the texts, constitute the substance of literary works.