Literature—China
From earliest times, literature in China was considered to include philosophical and historical writing along with prose and poetry; literature was writing that met social needs or expressed one's deepest feelings, or both. Oral literary forms were often respected, and most written forms through time regularly drew material from the folk tradition; conversely, the dominant written forms helped shape the ethics and aesthetics of popular oral traditions as well.
Earliest Forms and Functions
China's earliest extant texts presumably reflect the spoken language of the time, but writing was increasingly reserved for the social and political elite; consequently, the language of classical.....
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