ABSTRACT

For many years it has been popular to make the time-period divisions of Chinese literature correspond to China's historical periods of social development. In ancient China the evolution of literary genres was not simply a matter of the evolution of the forms of language; it was closely connected with the changes in the socio-economic base, in social practices and in cultural psychology. The evolution of literary genres is an important aspect of the development of literature itself. Every genre of Chinese literature has its gestation, maturation and declination periods, just like a living organism. Its maturation period is short, like the blossoming of a flower. The various literary genres, in the course of their development, often blended and mingled with each other. After a particular genre reached maturity and sought to develop further, it often attracted characteristics from other genres. The new literary genres were often conceived and born among the common people.