The

history of literature The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/listener/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques ...

of the early modern period (

16th 16 (sixteen) is the natural number following 15 and preceding 17. 16 is a composite number, and a square number, being 42 = 4 × 4. It is the smallest number with exactly five divisors, its proper divisors being , , and . In English speech, ...

, 17th and partly 18th century literature), or early modern literature, succeeds

Medieval literature Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (that is, the one thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire ca. AD 500 to the beginning of t ...

, and in Europe in particular

Renaissance literature Renaissance literature refers to European literature which was influenced by the intellectual and cultural tendencies associated with the Renaissance. The literature of the Renaissance was written within the general movement of the Renaissance, ...

. In Europe, the Early Modern period lasts roughly from 1550 to 1750, spanning the

Baroque period The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

and ending with the

Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...

and the

wars of the French Revolution The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted France against Britain, Austria, Prussia ...

. The Early Modern period in

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

corresponds to the rule of the

Safavid dynasty The Safavid dynasty (; fa, دودمان صفوی, Dudmâne Safavi, ) was one of Iran's most significant ruling dynasties reigning from 1501 to 1736. Their rule is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history, as well as one of th ...

. In

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, the "Early Modern period" (

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

) is taken to last down to 1868 (the beginning of Industrialization during the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

). In

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, the

Mughal era The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

lasts until the establishment of the

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...

in 1857. The

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

underwent various attempts of modernization from 1828 (

Tanzimat The Tanzimat (; ota, تنظيمات, translit=Tanzimāt, lit=Reorganization, ''see'' nizām) was a period of reform in the Ottoman Empire that began with the Gülhane Hatt-ı Şerif in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. ...

). Chinese literature of the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

remains mostly unaffected by European influence, and effects of modernization that would lead up to the New Culture Movement became apparent only from the Late Qing period in the 1890s.

Europe

A new spirit of science and investigation in Europe was part of a general upheaval in human understanding, which began with the discovery of the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

in 1492 and continues through the subsequent centuries, even up to the present day. The form of writing now commonplace across the world—the

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

—originated from the early modern period and grew in popularity in the next century. Before the

modern novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

became established as a form there first had to be a transitional stage when "novelty" began to appear in the style of the epic poem. Plays for entertainment (as opposed to religious enlightenment) returned to Europe's stages in the early modern period.

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

is the most notable of the early modern playwrighters, but numerous others made important contributions, including

Pierre Corneille Pierre Corneille (; 6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684) was a French tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine. As a young man, he earned the valuable patronag ...

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...

Jean Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditio ...

Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño (, ; ; 17 January 160025 May 1681) was a Spanish dramatist, poet, writer and knight of the Order of Santiago. He is known as one of the most distinguished Baroque w ...

Lope de Vega Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio ( , ; 25 November 156227 August 1635) was a Spanish playwright, poet, and novelist. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Age of Baroque literature. His reputation in the world of Spanish literature ...

and

Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe (; baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the Elizabethan playwrights. Based upon the ...

. From the 16th to the 18th century

commedia dell'arte (; ; ) was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is also known as , , and . Charact ...

performers improvised in the streets of Italy and France. Some Commedia dell'arte plays were written down. Both the written plays and the

improvisation Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

were influential upon literature of the time, particularly upon the work of Molière. Shakespeare drew upon the arts of

jester A jester, court jester, fool or joker was a member of the household of a nobleman or a monarch employed to entertain guests during the medieval and Renaissance eras. Jesters were also itinerant performers who entertained common folk at fairs and ...

s and strolling players in creating new style comedies. All the parts, even the female ones, were played by men (''

en travesti En or EN may refer to: Businesses * Bouygues (stock symbol EN) * Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway (reporting mark EN, but now known as Southern Railway of Vancouver Island) * Euronews, a news television and internet channel Language and writing * ...

'') but that would change, first in France and then in England too, by the end of the 17th century. The earliest work considered an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

in the sense the work is usually understood dates from around 1597. It is ''

Dafne ''Dafne'' is the earliest known work that, by modern standards, could be considered an opera. The libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini survives complete; the mostly lost music was completed by Jacopo Peri, but at least two of the six surviving fragment ...

'', (now lost) written by

Jacopo Peri Jacopo Peri (20 August 156112 August 1633), known under the pseudonym Il Zazzerino, was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera. He wrote the ...

for an elite circle of literate Florentine

humanists Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanis ...

who gathered as the " Camerata".

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...

's ''

Don Quixote de la Mancha is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of Western ...

'' has been called "the first novel" by many literary scholars (or the first of the modern European novels). It was published in two parts. The first part was published in 1605 and the second in 1615. It might be viewed as a parody of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' (and other examples of the

chivalric romance As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalric k ...

), in that the novel form would be the direct result of poking fun at a collection of heroic folk legends. This is fully in keeping with the spirit of the age of enlightenment which began from about this time and delighted in giving a satirical twist to the stories and ideas of the past. It is worth noting that this trend toward satirising previous writings was only made possible by the

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...

. Without the invention of

mass-produced Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...

copies of a book it would not be possible to assume the reader will have seen the earlier work and will thus understand the references within the text. In the 18th century

Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its ...

and

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...

wrote famous novels. The 16th century saw outstanding

epic poem An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. ...

s of

Torquato Tasso Torquato Tasso ( , also , ; 11 March 154425 April 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem ''Gerusalemme liberata'' (Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between ...

and

Luís de Camões Luís Vaz de Camões (; sometimes rendered in English as Camoens or Camoëns, ; c. 1524 or 1525 – 10 June 1580) is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespear ...

. Later the most well-known

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

s were

Juana Inés de la Cruz ''Doña'' Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana, better known as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (12 November 1648 – 17 April 1695) was a Mexican writer, philosopher, composer and poet of the Baroque period, and Hieronymite nun. Her contributi ...

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...

and

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

. In turn

Jean de La Fontaine Jean de La Fontaine (, , ; 8 July 162113 April 1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his ''Fables'', which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Euro ...

and

Charles Perrault Charles Perrault ( , also , ; 12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was an iconic French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales ...

are appreciated for their

fable Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular mo ...

Ottoman Empire

The two primary streams of Ottoman written literature are poetry and

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

. Of the two, poetry—specifically, Divan poetry—was by far the dominant stream. Moreover, until the 19th century, Ottoman prose did not contain any examples of

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditi ...

; that is, there were no counterparts to, for instance, the European

romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

, or

(though analogous genres did, to some extent, exist in both the Turkish folk tradition and in Divan poetry). Ottoman Divan poetry was a highly

ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...

ized and

symbol A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...

ic art form. From the Persian poetry that largely inspired it, it inherited a wealth of

s whose meanings and interrelationships—both of similitude (مراعات نظير ''mura'ât-i nazîr'' / تناسب ''tenâsüb'') and opposition (تضاد ''tezâd'')—were more or less prescribed. Until the 19th century, Ottoman prose never managed to develop to the extent that contemporary Divan poetry did. A large part of the reason for this was that much prose was expected to adhere to the rules of ''sec'' (سجع, also transliterated as ''seci''), or

rhymed prose Rhymed prose is a literary form and literary genre, written in unmetrical rhymes. This form has been known in many different cultures. In some cases the rhymed prose is a distinctive, well-defined style of writing. In modern literary traditions ...

, a type of writing descended from the Arabic ''

saj' Saj‘ ( ar, سجع) is a form of rhymed prose in Arabic literature. It is named so because of its evenness or monotony, or from a fancied resemblance between its rhythm and the cooing of a dove. It is a highly artificial style of prose, character ...

'' and which prescribed that between each adjective and noun in a sentence, there must be a

rhyme A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...

. Nevertheless, there was a tradition of prose in the literature of the time. This tradition was exclusively nonfictional in nature—the

tradition was limited to narrative poetry.

Persia

Regarding the tradition of Persian love poetry during the

Safavid Safavid Iran or Safavid Persia (), also referred to as the Safavid Empire, '. was one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia, which was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often conside ...

era, Persian historian

Ehsan Yarshater Ehsan Yarshater ( fa, احسان يارشاطر, April 3, 1920 – September 1, 2018) was an Iranian historian and linguist who specialized in Iranology. He was the founder and director of The Center for Iranian Studies, and Hagop Kevorkian Profe ...

notes, "As a rule, the beloved is not a woman, but a young man. In the early centuries of Islam, the raids into

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

produced many young

slaves Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

. Slaves were also bought or received as gifts. They were made to serve as pages at court or in the households of the affluent, or as soldiers and bodyguards. Young men, slaves or not, also, served wine at banquets and receptions, and the more gifted among them could play music and maintain a cultivated conversation. It was love toward young pages, soldiers, or novices in trades and professions which was the subject of lyrical introductions to panegyrics from the beginning of Persian poetry, and of the ghazal."Yar-Shater, Ehsan. 1986. ''Persian Poetry in the Timurid and Safavid Periods,'' Cambridge History of Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.973-974. 1986 After the 15th century, the ''Indian style'' of Persian poetry (sometimes also called ''Isfahani'' or ''Safavi'' styles) took over. This style has its roots in the

Timurid Timurid refers to those descended from Timur (Tamerlane), a 14th-century conqueror: * Timurid dynasty, a dynasty of Turco-Mongol lineage descended from Timur who established empires in Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent ** Timurid Empire of C ...

era and produced the likes of

Amir Khosrow Dehlavi Abu'l Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrau (1253–1325 AD), better known as Amīr Khusrau was an Indo-Persian culture, Indo-Persian Sufi singer, musician, poet and scholar who lived under the Delhi Sultanate. He is an iconic figure in the cultural his ...

, and Bhai

Nand Lal Goya Bhai Nand Lal ( fa, ; pa, ਭਾਈ ਨੰਦ ਲਾਲ; 1633–1713), also known by his pen name Goya ( fa, ; pa, ਗੋਯਾ), was a 17th-century Sikh poet in the Punjab region. He was born in Ghazni Afghanistan . His father Diwan Chajju ...

India

Classical Sanskrit literature Sanskrit literature broadly comprises all literature in the Sanskrit language. This includes texts composed in the earliest attested descendant of the Proto-Indo-Aryan language known as Vedic Sanskrit, texts in Classical Sanskrit as well as som ...

went into decline in the High Middle Ages, to the benefit of

Middle Indic The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA; ...

vernaculars such as

Old Hindi Old Hindi was the earliest stage of the Delhi dialect (Khariboli) of the Hindustani language, and so the ancestor of Modern Hindi and Modern Urdu. It developed from Shauraseni Prakrit and was spoken by the peoples of the Hindi Belt, especially aro ...

, notably in use for Late Medieval

Bhakti ''Bhakti'' ( sa, भक्ति) literally means "attachment, participation, fondness for, homage, faith, love, devotion, worship, purity".See Monier-Williams, ''Sanskrit Dictionary'', 1899. It was originally used in Hinduism, referring to d ...

poetry. The

sees the development of various literary dialects such as ''

Dakkhini Deccani (also known as Deccani Urdu and Deccani Hindi). https://knowledgehubadda.blogspot.com/2022/02/blog-post_74.html? m=1 or Dakni, Dakhni, Dakhini, Dakkhani and Dakkani (, ''dekanī'' or , ''dakhanī''), is a variety of Hindustani spoken ...

'' or ''

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Persian influence. The earliest examples of

Khariboli Kauravi ( hi, कौरवी, ur, ), also known as Khaṛībolī is a set of Western Hindi varieties of Shauraseni Prakrit mainly spoken in Northwestern Uttar Pradesh. Standard Hindi and Urdu are based on Khariboli, specifically on its D ...

can be seen in some of

Kabir Kabir Das (1398–1518) was a 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint. His writings influenced Hinduism's Bhakti movement, and his verses are found in Sikhism's scripture Guru Granth Sahib, the Satguru Granth Sahib of Saint Garib Das, ...

and

Amir Khusro Abu'l Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrau (1253–1325 AD), better known as Amīr Khusrau was an Indo-Persian Sufi singer, musician, poet and scholar who lived under the Delhi Sultanate. He is an iconic figure in the cultural history of the Indian s ...

's lines. More developed forms of Khariboli can be seen in some mediocre literature produced in early 18th century. Examples are ''Chand Chhand Varnan Ki Mahima'' by Gangabhatt, ''Yogavashishtha'' by Ramprasad Niranjani, ''Gora-Badal ki katha'' by Jatmal, ''Mandovar ka varnan'' by Anonymous, a translation of Ravishenacharya's ''Jain Padmapuran'' by Daulatram (dated 1824).

China

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

Gui Youguang Gui Youguang (; 1507–1571) was a Chinese writer of Ming Dynasty. His courtesy name was Xifu () and his art name was Zhenchuan (),'' Britannica Kokusai Dai-Hyakkajiten'' article "Gui You-guang" (帰有光, ''Ki Yūkō'' in Japanese). Shogakukan. ...

歸有光 (1506–1571) **

Yuan Hongdao Yuan Hongdao (, 1568–1610) was a Chinese poet of the Ming Dynasty, and one of the Three Yuan Brothers, along with his brothers Yuan Zongdao and Yuan Zhongdao. Hongdao's life spanned nearly the whole of the Wanli period (1573-1620) in Chinese h ...

袁宏道( 1568–1610) **

Xu Xiake Xu Xiake (, January 5, 1587 – March 8, 1641), born Xu Hongzu (), courtesy name Zhenzhi (), was a Chinese travel writer and geographer of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), known best for his famous geographical treatise, and noted for his bravery ...

徐霞客 (1586–1641) **

Gao Qi Gao Qi (, 1336–1374), courtesy name Jidi (), pseudonym Qingqiuzi (), was a Chinese poet who lived in the early Ming dynasty. He is generally acknowledged as one of the greatest creators of Ming poetry. Gao Qi was born and raised in the shore o ...

高啟 ** Zhang Dai 張岱 **

Tu Long Tu Long (; Wade-Giles: T'u Lung, 1542–1605), was a playwright and essayist who lived during the Ming Dynasty. He was born in Yin county (now Yin county, in suburb of Ningbo city, Zhejiang). In 1577, Tu Long obtained the degree of jinshi. He ...

屠隆 **

Wen Zhenheng Wen Zhenheng (, 1585–1645) was a Ming dynasty scholar, painter, landscape garden designer, and great grandson of Wen Zhengming, a famous Ming dynasty painter. Wen was born in Suzhou in 1585. In 1621, he graduated from the Imperial Academy, obt ...

文震亨 *

** Fang Pao 方苞 (1668–1749) ** Liu Dakui 劉大櫆 (1698–1779) **

Yao Nai Yao Nai (姚鼐, pinyin: Yáo Nài; 1731–1815) was a scholar of the Qing Dynasty. Born in Tongcheng (), Anhui province, Yao Nai achieved the degree of Jinshi in 1763, and was appointed to the Hanlin Academy (). Later he worked as official of se ...

姚鼐 (1731–1815) **

Yuan Mei Yuan Mei (; 1716–1797) was a Chinese painter and poet of the Qing Dynasty. He was often mentioned with Ji Yun as the "Nan Yuan Bei Ji" (). Biography Early life Yuan Mei was born in Qiantang (, in modern Hangzhou), Zhejiang province, to a cu ...

袁枚 (1716–1798) **

Gong Zizhen Gong Zizhen ; 1792–1841), courtesy name(''zi'') Seren, literary name (''hao'') Ding'an, was a Chinese poet, calligrapher and intellectual active in the 19th century whose works both foreshadowed and influenced the modernization movements of the ...

龔自珍 (1792–1841) **

Wei Yuan Wei Yuan (; April23, 1794March26, 1857), born Wei Yuanda (), courtesy names Moshen () and Hanshi (), was a Chinese scholar from Shaoyang, Hunan. He moved to Yangzhou, Jiangsu in 1831, where he remained for the rest of his life. Wei obtained the ...

魏源 (1794–1857)

Japan

Literature during the largely peaceful

Edo Period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

, in large part to the rise of the working and middle classes in the new capital of Edo (modern

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

), developed forms of popular drama which would later evolve into

kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to ...

. The joruri and kabuki dramatist

Chikamatsu Monzaemon was a Japanese dramatist of jōruri, the form of puppet theater that later came to be known as bunraku, and the live-actor drama, kabuki. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' has written that he is "widely regarded as the greatest Japanese dramatis ...

became popular at the end of the 17th century.

Matsuo Bashō born then was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative '' haikai no renga'' form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as the greatest ma ...

wrote ''

Oku no Hosomichi ''Oku no Hosomichi'' (, originally ), translated as ''The Narrow Road to the Deep North'' and ''The Narrow Road to the Interior'', is a major work of ''haibun'' by the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, considered one of the major texts of Japanese l ...

'' (奥の細道, 1702), a travel diary.

Hokusai , known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock printing in Japan, woodblock print series ''Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the ...

, perhaps Japan's most famous woodblock print artist, also illustrated fiction as well as his famous 36 Views of Mount Fuji. Many genres of literature made their début during the Edo Period, helped by a rising literacy rate among the growing population of townspeople, as well as the development of lending libraries. Although there was a minor Western influence trickling into the country from the Dutch settlement at Nagasaki, it was the importation of Chinese vernacular fiction that proved the greatest outside influence on the development of Early Modern Japanese fiction.

Ihara Saikaku was a Japanese poet and creator of the " floating world" genre of Japanese prose (''ukiyo-zōshi''). Born as Hirayama Tōgo (平山藤五), the son of a wealthy merchant in Osaka, he first studied haikai poetry under Matsunaga Teitoku and later ...

might be said to have given birth to the modern consciousness of the novel in Japan, mixing vernacular dialogue into his humorous and cautionary tales of the pleasure quarters.

Jippensha Ikku was the pen name of Shigeta Sadakazu (重田貞一), a Japanese writer active during the late Edo period of Japan. He was among the most prolific writers of the late Edo period — between 1795 and 1801 he wrote a minimum of twenty novels ...

wrote ''

Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige , abbreviated as ''Hizakurige'' and known in translation as ''Shank's Mare'', is a comic picaresque novel ( kokkeibon) written by Jippensha Ikku (十返舎一九, 1765–1831) about the misadventures of two travelers on the Tōkaidō, the main ...

'', which is a mix of travelogue and comedy. Tsuga Teisho, Takebe Ayatari, and Okajima Kanzan were instrumental in developing the ''

yomihon is a type of Japanese book from the Edo period (1603–1867). Unlike other Japanese books of the periods, such as kusazōshi, they had few illustrations, and the emphasis was on the text. In storylines, Buddhist ethics such as karma are often pre ...

'', which were historical romances almost entirely in prose, influenced by Chinese vernacular novels such as

Three Kingdoms The Three Kingdoms () from 220 to 280 AD was the tripartite division of China among the dynastic states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu. The Three Kingdoms period was preceded by the Han dynasty#Eastern Han, Eastern Han dynasty and wa ...

and '' Shui hu zhuan''. Two ''yomihon'' masterpieces were written by

Ueda Akinari Ueda Akinari or Ueda Shūsei (, July 25, 1734 in Osaka – August 8, 1809 in Kyoto) was a Japanese author, scholar and ''waka'' poet, and a prominent literary figure in 18th-century Japan. He was an early writer in the ''yomihon'' genre and ...

: ''Ugetsu monogatari'' and ''Harusame monogatari''.