Ancient literature is a precious cultural heritage of China's several thousand years of civilization. The Book of Songs, a collection of 305 folk ballads of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn period, compiled in the sixth century B.C., is China's earliest anthology of poetry.
There were pre-Qin prose, magnificent Han fu (rhymed prose), and the yuefu folk songs of the end of the Han Dynasty. The Wei and Jin Dynasties (220-420) were a great period for the production of poetry. The Tang Dynasty gave birth to a great number of men of letters. The Complete Tang Poems is an anthology of more than 50,000 poems. Representative poets include Li Bai, Du Fu, and Bai Juyi, who are the pride of the Chinese people. The Song Dynasty is well known for its ci (lyric). The most notable achievement of Yuan Dynasty literature was the zaju, poetic drama set of music. The Ming and Qing dynasties saw the development of the novel.
