ABSTRACT
Scholastic literature was an important part of literary creativity in ancient China. Its content is quite rich and heterogeneous. The chief way for some poets to describe their feelings upon encountering misfortune in political life, and to express their ideals and personalities, was to relate historical incidents in verse. The importance attached by Chinese scholar-officials to individual inquiry lay in the problems of chu and chu, and qiong and da. Landscape and pastoral themes of literature are often conflated, but there is a real distinction between the two. The first takes mountain and streams, that is, the natural scenery, as the principal objects of description, while the latter focuses on the life of the recluse amid fields and gardens. As early as in the Han Dynasty, works depicting the life of expeditionary soldiers appeared, with the Music Bureau's South of the Embattled City. Expressions of friendship were important themes of scholar-official literature.
