Cyril Birch – författare

This collection of Chinese stories begins with the great legends of how Earth and Heaven came into being, and of how the archer Yi rid the Emperor Yao of the menace of the ten suns. There are folk-tales too, about ghosts and rain-makers, poor students and magicians, and the man who was nearly made into fishpaste. Throughout all these stories the author has kept the subtle oriental flavour of the originals and brings to life all the magic and mystery of China.

-- Asian Thought and Society

Edited by Cyril Birch, Studies in Chinese Literary Genres is a landmark collection that foregrounds genre as the key to understanding the evolution of China’s literary tradition. Eleven leading scholars trace the histories, functions, and transformations of forms ranging from the earliest Shih-ching hymns to late imperial novels. Each essay isolates defining features—metrical, thematic, or rhetorical—that reveal how genres both guided writers and conditioned readers’ expectations, while also providing the pressure points at which innovation and literary history emerge.With contributions by Hans H. Frankel on yüeh-fu poetry, James J. Y. Liu on the tz’u lyric, David Hawkes on archetypes in the Ch’u-tz’u, Patrick Hanan on early hua-pen fiction, Jaroslav Průšek on storytelling culture, G. T. Hsia on “military romances,” and others, the volume models approaches that balance native Chinese criticism with comparative and theoretical insights drawn from Western traditions. For students and specialists alike, this collection demonstrates how close attention to genre illuminates not only the form and meaning of individual works, but also the broader trajectory of Chinese literary history. It remains essential reading for anyone seeking a rigorous yet flexible framework for the study of China’s vast and varied literary heritage.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

Edited by Cyril Birch, Studies in Chinese Literary Genres is a landmark collection that foregrounds genre as the key to understanding the evolution of China’s literary tradition. Eleven leading scholars trace the histories, functions, and transformations of forms ranging from the earliest Shih-ching hymns to late imperial novels. Each essay isolates defining features—metrical, thematic, or rhetorical—that reveal how genres both guided writers and conditioned readers’ expectations, while also providing the pressure points at which innovation and literary history emerge.With contributions by Hans H. Frankel on yüeh-fu poetry, James J. Y. Liu on the tz’u lyric, David Hawkes on archetypes in the Ch’u-tz’u, Patrick Hanan on early hua-pen fiction, Jaroslav Průšek on storytelling culture, G. T. Hsia on “military romances,” and others, the volume models approaches that balance native Chinese criticism with comparative and theoretical insights drawn from Western traditions. For students and specialists alike, this collection demonstrates how close attention to genre illuminates not only the form and meaning of individual works, but also the broader trajectory of Chinese literary history. It remains essential reading for anyone seeking a rigorous yet flexible framework for the study of China’s vast and varied literary heritage.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

Presents classic Chinese tales of love and morality, marriage and justice, and the strange and supernatural.