人间词话

Its best-known passage says that everyone who achieves great things passes through three stages, 境界, each given by a line of Song ci: searching, 望尽天涯路 'gazing down the road to the edge of the sky' (晏殊); toiling without regret, 衣带渐宽终不悔 'my sash grows loose, yet I have no regrets' (柳永); and finding it at last, 那人却在灯火阑珊处 'and there she was, where the lanterns were dim' (辛弃疾).

Published in 1908–1909, its 64 short entries judge ci poets by whether their work has 境界, a world of real scenes and real feeling. 王国维 had read Kant and Schopenhauer, and their ideas of beauty show in his terms, which set the book apart from older Chinese criticism.