The Four Literary Styles

The four major literary styles are: poetry, drama, fiction, and prose.

The four divisions of literature

In the "four divisions", the category of poetry includes the "three divisions" of lyric poetry in the lyric category and narrative poetry in the narrative category. "Poetry", is because the two in the shape of the image, organizational structure and language use have a lot of **** the same point.

Novels are part of the narrative category in the "trichotomy". Because it is centered on characterization, characterization, plot narration, environmental description, structural arrangement and language, etc., have outstanding characteristics, and poetry, prose compared with the obvious difference, and this genre in modern times is the most popular, therefore, in the "four divisions" in the independent as a The first is the "Prose", which is the most popular genre in the modern world.

The category of prose refers to all literary genres other than novels, poems and dramatic literature. Its scope is very wide, belonging to the lyrical class of lyrical prose can be categorized into this category, belonging to the narrative class of travelogue, miscellany, reportage, biography, etc. can also be categorized into this category, and even include the miscellaneous essays, novels, and so on, mixed with narrative.

The essay as a separate category, because this genre of work on a wide range of subjects, a variety of styles, which is different from poetry, fiction and dramatic literature and other categories of work, but also the basic characteristics of literature. At the same time, this can also correct some narrow understanding of literature and prevent some works with literary value and characteristics from being excluded from literature. As for the category of dramatic literature, it is exactly the same as the category of drama in the "three divisions".

Basic classification:

In the process of creation and development of various literary genres, they gradually formed their own characteristics, which are specifically manifested in the image shaping, plot conception and language use. The various literary genres are distinguished from each other by their different characteristics and effectiveness in reflecting social life and expressing thoughts and feelings.

Throughout the ages, writers and literary critics, in order to study and master the laws and characteristics of various literary genres, so as to promote the development of literary creation and literary criticism, have constantly categorized various literary works, and some theories and writings on the categorization of literary genres have appeared.

Throughout the ages, there have been different standards for the classification of literary genres, and thus there have been different classifications. The earliest classification in China was the bifurcation method, that is, the literary genre was divided into two categories, rhyme and prose, according to rhyme or no rhyme.

But the most common classification in China since the May Fourth Movement has been two kinds of classification: one is the "three-part method" and the other is the "four-part method". After entering the 21st century, another new literary genre, the drama novel, was born, thus giving rise to the "five-pointed method".

Expanded Information:

The Formation

The formation of literary genres, besides In addition to being determined by social life in the final analysis, it is also closely related to the inheritance and innovation of literary tradition and the accumulation of creative experience and the development of creative ability through the ages. The earliest genre to appear in the literature of the peoples of the world was poetry, and only later did novels and dramatic literature gradually develop.

On the one hand, this is determined by the increasing richness and development of social life, and on the other hand, it is also inseparable from the writers' inheritance of the literary traditions of the previous generations, their accumulation of creative experience and their creativity. An era, a writer, if you can not be based on the literary heritage of the previous generation, long-term accumulation of creative experience, well adapted to the requirements of the times, to give full play to their creativity, then a new genre of literature can not be produced.

Historically, literary genres of greater length, such as the middle and long novels, multi-act plays, and even movie literature, have been gradually produced under such conditions. For example, the first literary genres to arise and develop in China were poetry and prose, while novels and theater literature appeared later.

In the development of poetry, most of the poems collected in the earliest collection of poems, the Classic of Poetry, were simple four-character poems, followed by five- and seven-character poems, and then, around the time of the Sui Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, there gradually appeared the perfect couplets and rhymed poems with harmonious rhymes. These developments and evolutions undoubtedly reflected the development of social life and the development of artistic expression techniques in line with it.

Ancient Literary Genres

1, Fu

Ancient China's a literary style, which emphasizes style and rhythm, both poetry and prose. It is characterized by "paving the text, body writing", focusing on writing scenery, and expressing emotions through the scenery. The earliest appeared in the prose of the sons, called "short fu"; Qu Yuan as the representative of the "tao style" is a poem to the transition of the fu, called "tao fu"; the Han Dynasty formally established the fugue style, called the The Han Dynasty formally established the style of fugue, called "rhetoric fugue".

After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, it was increasingly developed in the direction of parallelism, which was called "parallel fugue"; in the Tang Dynasty, it was transferred from parallelism to the legal form, which was called "legal fugue"; and in the Song Dynasty, fugue was written in the form of prose, which was called "literary fugue". In the Song Dynasty, foo was written in prose form and called "literary foo". Famous fugu include: Du Mu's "A Fang Palace Fugu", Ouyang Xiu's "Autumn Sound Fugu", Su Shi's "Former Red Cliff Fugu" and so on.

2. Pianwen

Originated in the Han and Wei Dynasties, formed in the North and South Dynasties, and flourished in the Sui and Tang dynasties. It is known as "four or six words" because it is characterized by four or six words in a sentence. The parallelism of the text is due to the accommodation of the sentence, piling up words, often affecting the expression of the content, Han, Liu advocated the movement of ancient literature, parallelism gradually declined. The famous one is "The Book with Zhu Yuan Si" written by Wu Jun of Liang in the Southern Dynasty.

3, the original

The meaning of the original source, is an ancient style of argument. This style of writing is on a certain theory, proposition, political system or social customs, from the root to examine, explore, the theory is strong. For example, Han Yu's "Original Destruction" and Huang Zongxi's "Original Jun".

4, defense

"Defense" that is, the defense of right and wrong, don't know the truth, this style of writing is characterized by refuting an erroneous argument, or analyze certain facts. This style is characterized by refuting a wrong argument or analyzing certain facts. For example, Han Yu's "Defense of the Secret" and Liu Zongyuan's "Defense of Tong Ye's Sealing of the Brotherhood".

5, said

Anciently, the general term for a class of articles. It is not very different from "thesis", so later collectively referred to as the reasoning and analysis of the text for the discourse. Some of the essays of this genre that we have studied are The Teacher's Sayings, The Horse's Sayings, Young China's Sayings, The Snake Catcher's Sayings, and Huang Sheng's Sayings on Borrowing Books.

7, thesis

A thesis style, according to the "rhyme technique": "thesis, discuss also. Zhaoming Wenxuan ": " thesis has two bodies, one is said that the history of thesis, is the loyal ministers at the end of the biography of the discussion, in order to determine the good and evil of their people. Such as "the historical record" after the Tai Shi Gong said ....... The second political theory, the scholar discusses the ancient and modern characters or comment on the words of history and scripture, correct its fallacy". Such as "six countries", "over Qin theory" and so on.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Literary Genres