Overview of the development history of prose

The pre-Qin period was the mature period and the first prosperous period of China's prose. At present, the earliest collection of China's essays is Shangshu. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, a hundred schools of thought contended in the history of China thought. They each put forward their own ideas on how to solve the social problems at that time, so the development of prose advanced by leaps and bounds, resulting in philosophical prose and historical prose. Famous philosophical papers include Laozi, which records Laozi's thoughts, and many important thinkers' own works, such as Mozi, Zhuangzi, Han Feizi, Lv Chunqiu, Xunzi and so on. Spring and Autumn Annals, Zuo Zhuan, Guoyu and Warring States Policy recorded the political, military and diplomatic activities and major events of various countries in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, as well as the speeches of military strategists and lobbyists who wandered around various countries, which can be attributed to historical prose and set an example for China's narrative literature.

The prose of Han Dynasty continued the prose of pre-Qin Dynasty and developed. Pre-Qin philosophical prose flourished under the specific conditions of contemporary politics, economy and society, and its thoughts and principles were also triggered by reality. On this basis, the political comments of the Han Dynasty combined the thoughts of Confucianism, Taoism and law, further closely integrated with the times, and played the role of helping the people by running the country.

Prose in Han Dynasty can be divided into three categories: historical prose, political prose and philosophical prose. Historical prose includes Historical Records and Hanshu. Political essays include Jia Yi's Public Security Policy, On Crossing the Qin Dynasty, Chao Cuo's Talk on Military Affairs, and Talking about your millet. Philosophical papers include Huai Nan Zi by Liu An and Lun Heng by Wang Chong.

Prose in the pre-Qin and Han dynasties recorded and explained history, criticized and discussed the present, or wrote for solving problems or stating ideals. Their motivation and purpose are not in the text, so each essay has its own characteristics. This is the basic reason why prose writers have been advocating prose in these two eras since the Tang and Song Dynasties.

Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties is the second period of great social change in China's history after the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The difference between them is that the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period is a transitional stage of feudal disintegration and state formation, and it is a process of separation and integration. Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were split after the collapse of the unified Han Empire. Due to the chaotic political environment, the decline of Confucianism and the prosperity of metaphysics, the spread of Taoism and Buddhism and other factors, the unique literary interest and atmosphere of this period were created. At this time, the prose generally pursues "beauty", emphasizing form and rhetoric, but personal feelings have increased a lot. The style of writing in this period tends to be exquisite and delicate, which is quite different from the magnificent prose of the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, but represents the style of writing that expresses the beauty of mountains and rivers. Mountains and rivers are natural, while politics, economy and society are artificial. Faced with man-made chaos and darkness, literati seek sustenance and comfort from the beautiful scenery of mountains and rivers.

The prose works in this period are represented by Li Daoyuan's Notes on Water Classics in the Northern Wei Dynasty and Yang Xuanzhi's Notes on Galand in Luoyang. Notes on Water Mirror is exquisite and fluent in writing, presenting magnificent and beautiful landscapes, vivid and charming, which has had a far-reaching impact on later landscape travel notes. Galand in Luoyang describes the Buddhist temple gardens in Luoyang. The writing is concise, rich and beautiful, and detailed, which reflects the contemporary social outlook and the extravagant life of rich monks and nuns. Other landscape sketches, with beautiful words, lofty artistic conception and meaningful interest, fully show the mentality of literati in this period.

The Tang Dynasty is different from the Han Dynasty, and its culture is tolerant, so Buddhism, old ideas and aesthetic style have continued since the Wei and Jin Dynasties. Until the middle Tang Dynasty, Han Yu noticed that the country was declining. In view of the luxury of parallel prose in the Six Dynasties, he began to call for the movement of ancient prose, trying to replace flashy parallel prose with plain and lively prose. Therefore, easy-to-write and easy-to-read prose was once popular in the Tang Dynasty, but it gradually declined in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties.

The language of Han Yu's creation is bright and fluent, full of literary spirit, and he has made great achievements in discussion, narration and lyricism. Liu Zongyuan, another advocate of the ancient prose movement, used landscape travel notes and fable prose to illustrate that prose is superior to parallel prose. Liu Zongyuan's landscape travel notes use landscapes to write his own experiences and feelings; Fable prose is short, sharp and far-reaching, or comments on current politics, or satirizes human nature.

In the mid-Northern Song Dynasty, Ouyang Xiu, following Han Yu, took Su Xun, Su Shi, Su Zhe, Ceng Gong and Wang Anshi as pioneers and led the modern ancient prose movement. Together with Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan in the Tang Dynasty, the six of them are called "the eight masters of ancient prose in Tang and Song Dynasties". Their prose combines historical prose, philosophical prose and feelings of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Prose reached its peak, so it left a brilliant page in the history of China's prose.

After Jin and Yuan Dynasties, the development of prose in Ming Dynasty was sluggish, and writers were silent. Due to the political characteristics of stereotyped writing, some intellectuals at that time had a reaction to stereotyped writing. The literary group, headed by the former seven sons, advocates antique and retro, emphasizing that "literature must be in the Qin and Han Dynasties, and poetry must flourish in the Tang Dynasty". At that time, the imitation of ancient Chinese prose flourished in Qin and Han dynasties, and the imitation of ancient styles enveloped the literary world of Ming Dynasty for about one hundred years. But blindly copying and imitating is not a good creative mentality after all, and the value of the works produced is limited. In addition, the appearance of prose also injected new breath into the prose of Ming Dynasty.

In Qing Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, frank and romantic essays appeared, mainly including Zhang Dai, Li Yu and Yuan Mei. Together with Wei and Wang Wan, they are called "the three great essayists in the early Qing Dynasty". However, their style of writing was not supported by Taoist scholars. They initiated the ancient prose movement to revive the style of writing in Tang and Song Dynasties, that is, Tongcheng School, which inherited the ancient prose tradition of Gui Youguang's "Tang and Song School". Founder Fang Bao, Liu Dakui and Yao Nai are also called "Three Ancestors of Tongcheng". Yao Nai is a master of Tongcheng School. His ancient prose advocated that "righteousness (reasonable content), textual research (accurate materials) and lyric poetry (exquisite wording) should not be neglected." Pay attention to righteousness and law, advocate righteousness and reason, require elegant and clean language, and oppose vulgarity. Later, Zeng Guofan developed into Xiangxiang School, and Ji Jing and Zhang Huiyan developed into Yanghu School.

After the Sino-Japanese War in the Qing Dynasty, the style gradually changed. Represented by Liang Qichao's On Politics, the style of writing is shallow and mixed with slang, which is quite different from the ancient Tongcheng school in Qing Dynasty. 19 17 years, Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu advocated the literary revolution, taking the vernacular as the essence of China literature, and advocated the establishment of easy-to-understand social literature. At this time, young students began to follow suit.

Modern prose uses more styles, is more simple, is less archaized, is more Europeanized, pays more attention to individuality, has wider themes, and is more subtle and ironic. Prose is easy to read and write, which makes this style widely used. Almost all students' compositions are expressed in the form of essays, so it can be said that everyone knows how to write.