Edward M. GUNN
Historical illustration of Wenchang, the god of literature.
From the earliest times in China verse dominated literary composition, while forms of opera and prose fiction developed into the most ambitious genres beginning in the fourteenth century. Experiments with features of Western literature in the early twentieth century grew steadily into a highly Westernized array of literature that largely displaced pre-twentieth-century forms.
Prior to the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) musical
