Chinese Tradition in the World Literature: Review of Zhang Longxi’s A History of Chinese Literature

This essay reviews Zhang Longxi’s A History of Chinese Literature. The book covers Chinese literature from its very beginning to modern times. It emphasizes texts’ literary and aesthetic qualities when evaluating and historicizing literature. The book demonstrates the importance of canons in literary history, using Chinese tradition as an example. Therefore, it also brings the Chinese tradition into the broader framework of world literature. Reading Zhang’s concise historical overview of Chinese literature, we can better understand the interplay between literary tradition and the individual talent. Zhang Longxi has skillfully combined the writing of a history of literature with literary criticism in this book. Zhang’s successful attempt informs literary scholars of possible paradigms of compiling literary history in a post-cultural-studies theoretical context.