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The studies contained in this volume arose over the last thirty years. Originally the range of the materials I intended to include in my selection was very much wider. Publishing difficulties, however, have obliged me to curtail them to something less than half the planned content. At first I intended to include all the studies I supposed might be of interest to readers and represent contributi ons still of some significance for research in this domain of Oriental scholarship. When the necessity arose to limit the contents I gave preference to the standpoint of thematic completeness rather than to what would be of interest to the general reader. Thus in this volume I have confined myself to two them atic fields only-Old Chinese literature and studies dealing with mediaeval storytellers' productions-hua-pen. I have excluded the whole complex of historical studies and all studies relating to the new literature. I am now preparing, on the principal historical theme on which I was engaged already in the period of my studies in Prague under Prof. J. Bidlo, and then in 1928 till 1930, with Prof. B. Karlgren in Sweden and Prof. G. Haloun in Halle, in Germany, a more compendious study in which I hope to sum up the results of my research, and I also intend to publish a volume of selected studies dealing with the New Chinese literature at some later date.
List of contents
I. Ancient Literature. Literature of the Ch'ing Period. Folklore.- 1. Some Basic Features of Chinese Culture.- 2. History and Epics in China and in the West.- 3. The Authenticity of the Chu-shu-chi-nien.- 4. L'art de la guerre de Sun-tz?.- 5. Some Marginal Notes on the Poems of Po Chü-i.- 6. Two Documents Relating to the Life of P'u Sung-ling.- 7. Liao-chai chih-i by P'u Sung-ling.- 8. P'u Sung-ling and his Work.- 9. Liu O et son roman.- 10. Chui-tz?-shu - Folk-Songs from Ho-nan.- II. Medieval Popular Literature.- 11. Popular Novels in the Collection of Ch'ien Tseng.- 12. The Narrators of Buddhist Scriptures and Religious Tales in the Sung Period.- 13. Researches into the Beginnings of the Chinese Popular Novel, I.-II.- 14. New Studies of the Chinese Colloquial Short Story.- 15. Shui-hu-chuan et son auteur.- 16. The Creative Methods of Chinese Medieval Story-tellers.- 17. The Realistic and Lyric Elements in the Chinese Medieval Story.- 18. The Beginnings of Popular Chinese Literature; Urban Centres-the Cradle of Popular Fiction.- 19. Boccaccio and his Chinese Contemporaries.- 20. Les contes chinois du Moyen-âge comme source de l'histoire économique et sociale sous les dynasties des Sung et des Yüan.- 21. General Bibliography to Medieval Popular Literature.- Index to Part I.- Index to Part II.- List of Chinese Names and Quotations.
