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Literary Theory and Critique (shiwenping lei 詩文評類)

Literary Theory and Critique (shiwenping lei 詩文評類) is a sub-category to the literary category of belles-lettes (jibu 集部) in the collectanea Siku quanshu 四庫全書. It has a special position in the whole corpus of Chinese literature, and of the most important ancient literary critiques, the Dianlun 典論 is lost except one chapter. The Wenxian diaolong 文心雕龍 is the oldest and one of the few comprehensive critique of all types of literature. Most later literary critiques are only concerned with poetry. The oldest critique specialized in poetry is the Shipin 詩品. It was the forerunner of a long tradition of treatises of the type of "talks about poetry" (shihua 詩話).

Table 1. Books on literary theory and critique (shiwenping lei 詩文評類)
Part of Siku quanshu 四庫全書
Part of Xuxiu siku quanshu 續修四庫全書
詩經·小序 Xiaoxu (preface) of the Shijing (Zhou) NN
典論·論文 Dianlun, ch. Lunwen (Cao-Wei) 曹丕 Cao Pi
文賦 Wenfu (Jin) 陸機 Lu Ji
文心雕龍 十卷 Wenxin diaolong (Liang) 劉勰 Liu Xie
詩品 三卷 Shipin (Liang) 鍾嶸 Zhong Rong
文選 六十卷 WenxuanAnthologies and Collections (Liang) 蕭統 Xiao Tong (comp.); (Tang) 李善 Li Shan
本事詩 一卷 Benshishi (Tang) 孟棨 Meng Qi
六一詩話 一卷 Liu-yi shihua (Song) 歐陽修 Ouyang Xiu
四六話 二卷 Liu-si hua (Song) 王銍 Wang Zhi
庚溪詩話 二卷 Gengxi shihua (Song) 陳巖肖 Chen Yanxiao
漁隱叢話 一百卷 Yuyin conghua (Song) 胡仔 Hu Zai
文則 二卷 Wenze (Song) 陳騤 Chen Gui
詩人玉屑 二十卷 Shiren yuxie (Song) 魏慶之 Wei Qingzhi
文體明辨 Wenti mingbian (Ming) 徐師曾 Xu Shizeng
宋詩紀事補遺 一百卷 宋詩紀事小傳補正 四卷 Songshi jishi (Qing) 陸心源 Lu Xinyu
遼詩話 二卷 Liaoshihua (Qing) 周春 Zhou Chun
元詩紀事 二十四卷 Yuanshi jishi (Qing) 陳衍 Chen Yan (comp.)
明詩紀事 Wenti mingbian (Qing) 陳田 Chen Tian (comp.)
全唐文紀事 一百二十二卷 Quantangwen jishi (Qing) 陳鴻墀 Chen Hongxi (comp.)
歷代詩話 八十卷 Lidai shihua (Qing) 吳景旭 Wu Jingxu

* not included in the collectanea Siku quanshu 四庫全書, the catalogue Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目題要, nor the Xuxiu siku quanshu 續修四庫全書.