ABSTRACT
Chinese Literature After 1500, China’s earlier episodic short story tradition was the foundation for the first published and widely circulated Asian novels. The major novels of the sixteenthcentury Ming era include Journey to the West, a fictional account of the legendary journey to India undertaken by the seventhcentury Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang and his disciples. The novel is a humorous allegory full of Chinese folklore, mythology, and inflections from Taoist and Buddhist religions. Many have read it as a critique of Chinese society at the time. Journey to the West is counted as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.
