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).

* 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.