Novels of Qing Dynasty were the most prominent literary achievements during the Qing Dynasty. The novels in Qing Dynasty were not only in huge number, but also included a number of progressive pieces with high artistic achievements, such as The Strange Tales, The Scholars and A Dream of the Red Mansions, among which, A Dream of the Red Mansions was the most well-known. The Strange Tales was a collection of short stories written in ancient Chinese by Pu Songling, a literateur in early Qing Dynasty. Most of the tales, with bizarre plotes but penetrating philosophies, were about gods, ghosts, fox spirits, and seductresses. The writer was good at utilizing romantic writing techniques to disclose and attack the ugly reality of the feudal society by telling tales about ghosts and fox spirits. The Scholars written by Wu Jinzi, a novelist in early Qing Dynasty, was a monument of Chinese ancient satires. The whole book focused on opposing the imperial examination system of ancient China. The author disclosed and criticized the darkness of the official circles and the corruption during late feudal society. Mansions is a novel with the best combination of ideologies and artistry in Chinese history of classical literature. Most of the poems were in the style of the previous dynasties. Although without great artistic achievements, the poetry of Qing Dynasty was unprecedented in terms of the number of poets and poems. In modern history, some poets, stirred by righteous national indignation, wrote to bitterly attack the corruption of the Qing rulers and to eulogize the anti-invasion.
Quite a few thinkers with rudimentary democratic ideology and materialist trends of thought emerged in the early Qing Dynasty, the most famous being Gu Yanwu, Huang Zongxi, and Wang Fuzhi. Social and economic progress and the introduction of western scientific and technological knowledge also helped promote the development of the natural sciences in China, notably astronomy, calendrical systems and mathematics, in which outstanding achievements were made. New methods of Xiao'en by astronomer Wang Xichan improved upon certain methods of calculation in astronomy, and mathematician Ming Antu was the first to study by analytic methods. Famous works by outstanding novelists and dramatists such as Strange Tales from Liaozhai, The Scholars, A Dream of Red Mansions and Peach-Blossom Fan are still being avidly read today. In the fine arts, diverse schools of painting appeared and with it a large number of celebrated painters. The handicraft industry turned out numerous superb and colorful works. |