Characteristics of historical prose

When there were words in the Shang Dynasty, there were essays to record history.

In the Zhou Dynasty, the historiographers of various vassal States further recorded the historical facts between countries in simple language and concise words, such as Spring and Autumn Annals.

Later, with the needs of the times, historical literature describing reality appeared, and historical works such as Zuo Zhuan, Mandarin and Warring States Policy appeared.

Zuo Zhuan is the abbreviation of Zuo Zhuan in the Spring and Autumn Period, also known as Zuo Chunqiu. According to legend, it was written by Zuo Qiuming, a Lu historian at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, with the word 180000, which recorded the political, military and diplomatic activities and speeches of various countries in the Spring and Autumn Period for 240 years, as well as events such as heaven, ghosts, disasters and blights.

This book is full of drama and compact plot, especially excellent war description, concise language and rich images.

Guoyu is a kind of national history, which records the events of Zhou Dynasty and vassal states (BC 1000-00) respectively. It recorded more words than notes, and most of them were the words of enlightened nobles with foresight at that time.

The author of the Warring States Policy cannot be tested, and the current version is compiled by Liu Xiang in the Western Han Dynasty.

Like Guoyu, it is also a chronicle of different countries, which records the major events of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, Qin, Qi, Chu, Zhao and other countries, and records the activities and speeches of counselors and military strategists.

The article "Warring States Policy" is characterized by being good at saying things, making good use of metaphors and creating vivid characters.

Pre-Qin historical prose laid the foundation of China's historical literature and had a far-reaching influence on later historians and ancient writers.

The turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period is an era of great social change, and various academic schools have written books and argued endlessly, forming a situation in which a hundred schools of thought contend.

The works of thinkers representing different classes or strata promote the development of reasoning prose.

These thinkers include Confucianism, Mohism, Taoism and Legalism.

The books recording their speeches have been handed down to this day, including The Analects of Confucius, Mencius, Mozi, Zhuangzi, Han Feizi and so on.

The Analects of Confucius and Mencius are all Confucian works that interpret benevolence.

The Analects of Confucius recorded the words and deeds of Kong Qiu and his disciples, most of which were short conversations and questions and answers.

Mencius recorded Monk's remarks.

Monk is good at arguing, so the language in the book is lively and inspiring.

Mozi represents Mo Zhai's thought of "universal love", with simple language, clear reasoning and strong logic, and articles such as "universal love" and "non-aggression" are very representative.

Zhuangzi represents the Taoist Zhuang Zhou's thought of "governing by doing nothing".

Zhuangzi's prose has a unique charm among various schools of thought.

This is manifested in the author's fantastic imagination and keen observation, making good use of folk fables and being good at metaphors, which makes the article full of literary interest.

Han Feizi represents the legalist thought of "adapting to the times".

Han Fei's prose is rigorous in structure, sharp-edged and profound in reasoning.

Xunzi represents Xun Kuang's theory, with 32 articles and many long articles.

Xunzi's prose is characterized by clear arguments, clear levels, complete syntax and rich vocabulary.

Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals is a collective creation of the Prime Minister of Qin Dynasty.

It includes eight views, six theories and twelve periods, including Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, law and agriculture.

This book retains a large number of documents and anecdotes from the pre-Qin period.

It is a systematic, * * * many single-item reasoning articles, which are deep and most organized.

Like hundred schools of thought's essays, it is often compared with fables, so the article is full of images.

The reasoning prose of pre-Qin philosophers had a significant influence on the development of later prose both in thought and artistic style.

At the beginning of Han Dynasty, political papers developed.

Jia Yi (200 BC-BC 168) was an outstanding writer in the early Western Han Dynasty. His article "Crossing the Qin Dynasty" summed up the reasons for the demise of Qin Dynasty, learned the lessons of the peasant uprising at the end of Qin Dynasty, and developed the people-oriented thought in the pre-Qin period.

His prose makes good use of metaphors, and his language is full of images.

Overview of ancient and modern prose

1. Ancient prose: In ancient China, in order to distinguish it from rhymes and parallel prose, all prose articles, including classics, biographies and history books, were called prose.

The development of China's ancient prose;

(1) Pre-Qin Prose: Including the Prose of Various Scholars and Historical Prose.

Hundred schools of thought's essays are mainly expositions, such as The Analects of Confucius, Mencius and Zhuangzi. Historical prose mainly focuses on historical themes, and all articles and books describing historical events and historical figures are historical prose, such as Zuo Zhuan.

(2) Prose in the Han Dynasty: Sima Qian's Historical Records in the Western Han Dynasty pushed biographical prose to an unprecedented peak.

After the Eastern Han Dynasty, individual prose forms such as books, notes, inscriptions, essays and prefaces began to appear.

Prose in Tang and Song Dynasties: Under the impetus of the ancient prose movement, prose writing became increasingly complex, and literary prose appeared, resulting in many excellent works such as landscape travel notes, fables, biographies and essays. And the famous "Eight Masters of Tang and Song Dynasties" also emerged at this time.

(3) Prose in the Ming Dynasty: First, there were "Seven Scholars", mainly imitating ancient times. Later, in the Tang and Song Dynasties, all works were advocated to flow from the chest, the most famous of which was Gui Youguang.

Qing dynasty prose: represented by Tongcheng school, Qing dynasty prose pays attention to the embodiment of "righteousness"

Yao Nai, a representative writer of Tongcheng School, summed up the style of ancient Chinese prose and classified it into 13 categories, including argumentative essays, prefaces and postscripts, recitation, calligraphy, preface, imperial edict, biography, epitaph, miscellaneous words, ode, ci fu and mourning.

2. Modern prose: refers to the literary style on an equal footing with poetry, novels and dramas.

It is characterized by expressing the author's views and feelings and revealing its social significance through the description of some fragments or life events in real life, which can be processed and created on the basis of real people and things; It doesn't necessarily have complete stories and characters, but focuses on expressing the author's feelings about life, with flexible selection of materials and strong lyricism. The "I" in prose is usually the author himself; Language is not limited by rhythm, and its forms of expression are diverse. It can be combined with narration, discussion, lyricism and description, or it can be emphasized. According to the needs of content and theme, we can create a certain artistic conception by describing typical details in life, describing images, depicting psychology, rendering the environment and setting off the atmosphere. Such as in novels, and use artistic techniques, such as symbols in poetry.

Prose has many forms, such as essays, short comments, sketches, close-ups, travel notes, newsletters, letters, diaries, memoirs and so on.

In a word, prose is short in length, free in form, widely used, flexible in writing and beautiful in language, which can quickly reflect life and is deeply loved by people.

Classification of prose

According to the content and nature of prose, it can be divided into the following categories:

(1) Narrative Prose: Prose focusing on writing characters' notes.

This kind of prose gives a concrete and outstanding description and portrayal of people and things, expresses the author's understanding and feelings at the same time, and also has a strong lyrical component, with full feelings between the lines.

Narrative prose focuses on reflecting the essence of things from the development and changes of narrative characters and events, with factors such as time, place, characters and events, selecting themes from one angle and expressing the author's thoughts and feelings.

For example, Mr Fujino by Lu Xun, Remember a Spinning Wheel by Wu Boxiao, and Remember Mother by Zhu De.

(2) Lyrical Prose: Prose mainly expressing the author's thoughts and feelings.

This kind of prose narrates and describes specific things, but usually it doesn't run through the whole story. Its outstanding feature is strong lyricism.

It is either straightforward or touching, full of poetry and painting, even if it describes natural scenery, it also gives profound social content and thoughts and feelings.

Excellent lyric prose has sincere feelings and vivid language, and often uses symbols and analogies to visualize ideas, which has strong artistic appeal.

For example, Mao Dun's Praise of Poplar, Wei Wei's Sincere Farewell, Zhu Ziqing's Moonlight on the Lotus Pond and Bing Xin's Praise of Cherry Blossoms.

(3) Scenery Prose: Prose mainly describing scenery.

Most of these articles express their feelings while describing the scenery, or express their feelings through the scenery, or indulge in the scenery, grasp the characteristics of the scenery, use the method of changing the scenery in the order of spatial transformation, and take the observed changes as the context of the full text.

Vivid scenery description can not only explain the background and render the atmosphere, but also set off the thoughts and feelings of the characters and better express the theme.

For example, Liu's Three Gorges of the Yangtze River.

(4) Philosophical Prose: Philosophy is insight, spark of thought, condensation of thought and crystallization of wisdom.

It runs through ancient and modern times, across China and foreign countries, embraces the world, penetrates the society of life, stays in the parents of life and flashes in the field of thinking.

Clever writers are good at grasping the flash of philosophy and writing rich and thought-provoking beautiful articles in the form of pen and ink.

Reciting such beautiful prose often can naturally be enlightened, edified, baptized and sublimated in a subtle way. This internalization is undoubtedly great.

Philosophical prose participates in the truth of life with various images, thus revealing the eternal similarity between all things. Because of its profundity and spiritual penetration, it gives us a shocking aesthetic effect of penetrating into the essence through phenomena and revealing the inside story and thoughts of things.

Grasp the way of thinking embodied in philosophical prose and experience the profound cultural connotation and accumulation contained in philosophical prose.

1. Symbolic thinking in philosophical prose: Philosophical prose constitutes a symbolic expression of ontology, because it transcends the meaning of daily experience and its own natural physical attributes.

It abandons shallowness, but reaches the state of empathy with people's thoughts and resonance with life and gas field. We get rational awakening and carefree spirit from symbols, from the peace of mind to the tremor of the soul, which goes beyond the general emotional response and stays at the top of the spirit.

2. Associative thinking of philosophical prose: Because philosophical prose is a three-dimensional and comprehensive thinking system, after association, the connotation of the article is richer, not thin, and nature, society and life are integrated.

3. Emotional thinking of philosophical prose: Philosophical prose is essentially a dependence of ideological expression on emotion.

Because the author has emotional participation in the process of understanding life, and the result of understanding is the fusion of emotion and imagination, the thoughts in philosophical prose are not ordinary dry discussions, but thoughts containing life emotions and full of aesthetic emotional juice.

Read the depth of the soul from between the lines of philosophical prose and understand the original meaning of life.

This is the artistic beauty of philosophical prose.

Main features of prose

1. The shape is scattered but the spirit is not scattered.

"Form and dispersion" mainly means that prose is widely used and free, and is not limited by time and space; Expression techniques are not limited to one pattern: it can describe the development of events, describe characters, convey feelings with things, and make comments. The author can freely adjust and change according to the needs of the content.

"Distraction" mainly comes from the intention of prose, that is, the theme to be expressed in prose must be clear and concentrated, no matter how extensive the content of prose is and how flexible the expression is, it serves to better express the theme.

In order to be scattered in shape but not in spirit, we should pay attention to the internal relationship between materials and central ideas in material selection, so that materials can run through an organic whole with certain clues in structure. Common clues in prose are: (1) taking things with profound or symbolic significance as clues; ⑵ Taking the "I" in the works as a clue and "I" as a clue, because I wrote what I saw, heard, thought and felt, and Kan Kan and Kan Kan talked freely, making readers feel more real, cordial and touching.

2. Deep artistic conception, paying attention to expressing the author's life feelings, strong lyricism and sincere emotion.

With the help of imagination and association, the author writes from the superficial to the deep, from the real to the imaginary, in turn, which can integrate feelings into the scenery, send feelings to help each other, express the author's true feelings, realize the unity of things and me, show more profound thoughts and make readers understand more profound truths.

3. Beautiful and concise language, rich in literary talent.

The so-called elegance means that the language of prose is fresh, lively and full of musical sense, and the writing is like a trickle, tinkling and sounding, sincere and sincere.

The so-called conciseness means that the language of prose is concise, natural and fluent. A few words can describe vivid images, outline the scenes of characters and show far-reaching artistic conception.

Prose tries to write the scenery as if it were in front of you and the feelings as refreshing.

Prose is known as "beautiful prose", which not only has spiritual views and beautiful artistic conception, but also has fresh, meaningful and unpretentious literary talent.

Reading some good essays regularly can not only enrich knowledge, broaden horizons and cultivate noble thoughts and sentiments, but also learn the skills of selecting materials, planning layout, choosing words and making sentences, and improve your language expression ability.

Prose appreciation skills

Prose appreciation focuses on the relationship between "form" and "spirit".

Prose appreciation should pay attention to the following points:

1. Read prose from the perspective of literature.

All poems that are exquisitely conceived, full of artistic conception or implicitly written often have an "eye".

When appreciating prose, we should try our best to find a "literary eye" that can reveal the overall theme and make the finishing point, so as to understand the reasons and purposes of the author's writing.

The setting of Yan Wen varies from text to text, which can be a sentence, a sentence, a detail, a trace of emotion or even a scene.

Not every essay has the necessary "literary vision".

2. When reading prose, we should grasp the clues, clarify the author's ideas and accurately grasp the intention of the article.

Structure is the skeleton of the article, and clues are the context of the article, which are closely related.

Grasping the clues in prose can help us have a clear idea of the work, which is not only helpful to understand the author's writing intention, but also an appreciation of the author's planning and layout skills, so as to grasp the vivid essence of prose through the appearance of prose, and analyze the intention of the article along the author's thinking.

There are usually the following clues: (1) Take the image of things as a clue, such as Ba Jin's Lamp; (2) Taking emotional development as a clue, such as Yang Shuo's "Litchi Honey"; (3) Taking time sequence as a clue, such as Liu's Three Diaries of the Yangtze River; (4) Taking spatial order as a clue, such as Zhu Ziqing's green; 5] Take the activities of characters as clues, such as Lu Xun's "From Baicaoyuan to San Tan Yin Yue"; (6) Take things as clues, such as Tang Tao's "trivial memories".

3. Pay attention to the characteristics of prose expression and deeply understand the content of the article.

Prose often entrusts with things. In order to make readers feel the rich connotation of the important task entrusted to them, the author often gives a meticulous description of what he has written, which is called "getting the shape and getting the heart".

When reading an article, we should grasp the characteristics of "form", see "spirit" from "form" and deeply understand the content of the article.

4. Pay attention to expand association and understand the charm of the article.

The ways of association are: ① series connection: for example, Orion, Shang Shu → Zhong Bai old man → Dong Kun; (2) radiant: for example, Land focuses on "land" and writes "Love life, defend land and build land"; 3 False support: such as Praise of Poplar; 4 picture type: such as "landscape talk".

Pay attention to enrich associations, from this to that, from the shallow to the deep, from the real to the virtual, so as to understand the charm of the article and understand the deeper truth.

5. Taste the language of prose.

A major feature of prose is the beauty of language.

A good essay is concise and beautiful, free and flexible, and close to spoken English.

Beautiful prose is full of philosophy, poetry and painting.

Excellent essayists have different language styles: Lu Xun's prose language is concise and profound, Mao Dun's prose language is exquisite and profound, Guo Moruo's prose language is magnificent, Ba Jin's prose language is simple and beautiful, Zhu Ziqing's prose language is fresh and meaningful, Bing Xin's prose language is euphemistic and lively, Sun Li's prose language is plain and unpretentious, Liu's prose language is bold and unrestrained, and Yang Shuo's prose language is exquisite.

What is the elegance of prose language?

The language of some essays often varies with the content.

For example, Lu Xun's "In Memory of Liu Hezhen Jun" is as sharp as a dagger; The language of "Good Story" is gorgeous as a cloud; The language of kites is as dignified as a deep pool.

If you appreciate the language style of prose, you can appreciate the content of prose more deeply.