Ancient Chinese Literature Pros and Cons

Ancient Chinese literature has a long history of glorious history and splendid achievements.

Ancient myths and ballads were the earliest oral literary creations, and during the pre-Qin period, the first collection of poems, the Classic of Poetry, appeared in China. The Book of Songs contains three hundred and five poems, divided into "wind", "elegant", "ode" three parts, and the flexible use of fugue, than, Xing three expressive techniques; as the source of Chinese realism literature, it laid the foundation for the development of later literature. As the source of Chinese realistic literature, it laid a solid foundation for the development of later literature. In the south, Chu Rhetoric, a new form of poetry characterized by the Chu culture, was produced, and the great patriotic poet, Qu Yuan, used this form to compose the Nine Songs and the Nine Chapters. His masterpiece "Li Sao" is the most magnificent long lyric poem in the history of ancient literature, which created the Romantic tradition of Chinese poetry.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, in the atmosphere of the Hundred Schools of Thought, the prose of all the sons was produced, among which the Analects of Confucius is a discourse, the Bonzi is a dialogue, the Zhuangzi is good at argumentation and is the most literary, and the late Xunzi and Hanfeizi already seem to be a collection of thematic essays. Historical essays mirrored it, among which Zuo Zhuan was a chronicle, Guoyu and Zhanguo Ce were country-specific, and Zhanguo Ce was very skillful in characterization and sharp in rhetoric, which was of great literary value. The Qin Dynasty was a time when there was no literature to speak of, and Li Si's "Book of Admonition" is the only surviving prose masterpiece.

The literature of the two Han dynasties is very energetic is the music and folk songs, music and folk songs, "feeling in the sadness and happiness, because of the matter and hair", focus on reflecting the real life, expressing the thoughts and feelings of the working people; it is a long dry narrative spread, the language is rich in the flavor of life, the sentence style of miscellaneous words and five words is the main, to promote the development of the art of poetry, the "Ancient Poetry for the wife of Jiao Zhongqing" is one of the biographies. Jiao Zhongqing's Wife" is one of the most famous poems in the world. In the Han Dynasty, the poems of the literati gradually matured, and in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, there appeared a group of lyrical poems called "Nineteen Ancient Poems", which was called "the crown of the five words" by the later generations.

Early Han prose was dominated by political essays, with Jia Yi's "Discourse on Exchanging Qin" being the most famous. The Western Han Dynasty was a great unified empire, which led to the emergence of rhetorical fugues, which flourished around the time of the Emperor Wu, and produced great fugues, such as Meicheng's "Seven Hair" and Sima Xiangru's "Ziqiu Fugu" and "Shanglin Fugu".

The highest achievement in prose in the two Han dynasties was Sima Qian's Shiji, which not only created a new style of biographical history, but also was a fine piece of biographical literature, with a mastery of narration and characterization, and an expressive language, which provided a model for the creation of prose for the next generation.

The Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties were a time of literary self-awareness, with promising gains in poetry, prose, rhetoric, fiction, and ekphrasis. At the end of the Han Dynasty, during the Jian'an period, the Yedi Literary Group, with Cao Cao, Cao Pi and Cao Zhi as its core, and Wang Chuan and the other "Seven Sons of Jian'an" as its wings, embodied the poetic creation of the era of "generosity to the gas" style; and then, Ruan Ji, Jikang, and Zuo Si, inherited the style of the Wei-Jin Dynasty, and inherited the style of the era, Later, in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Ruan Ji, Jikang, Zuo Si and others inherited the excellent tradition of "Jian'an Style and Bone", and Tao Yuanming, a great poet in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, was a great poet who surpassed the common people and whose poems were mostly written about idyllic life and seclusion, with a natural and light style, which was the ancestor of the idyllic poems in China. Xie Lingyun and Xie Wu of the Southern Dynasty were outstanding landscape poets, while Bao Zhao was good at expressing his cynicism in a new style of seven lines, and Yu Xin, who came from the South to the North, was the master of poetry in the Six Dynasties. In this period, the music and folk songs showed their splendor again. The folk songs of the Southern Dynasties, such as the "West Island Song", were bright and clear, while the folk songs of the Northern Dynasties, such as the "Mulan Dictionary", were robust and vigorous, each of them could be described as extremely wonderful. Wang Chuan, Yu Xin and other people's lyrical fugue and parallelism, parallelism in the book and landscape sketches, fresh mood, beautiful text, to Gan Bao, "Search for God," as the representative of the novel, to Liu Yiqing, "Shishu Xinyao" as the representative of the anecdotal novels, is the first of the later generations of the notebooks novels.

In the Tang Dynasty, poetry entered a golden age, the beginning, Sheng, in the late period of masters, such as the stars and clouds, the "Four Heroes of the Early Tang Dynasty" Wang Bo, Yang Jiong, Lu Zhaolin, Luo Binwang and a little later, Chen Zi'ang, on the inheritance of Jian'an style, the force to sweep the Qi Liang Yu wind, hair for the refreshing song, the Sheng Tang appeared in the two major schools of poetry, Wang Wei, Meng Haoran as the representative. Two schools of poetry emerged in the Sheng Tang Dynasty: the landscape and idyllic poetry school represented by Wang Wei and Meng Haoran, which mostly wrote about seclusion and beautiful scenery; and the border poetry school represented by Gao Shi and Cen Sen, which was good at depicting the cool and strange border landscapes and the arduous military life, with a majestic style and a broad meaning. Li Bai and Du Fu rose to prominence one after another, and are known as the "Gemini constellation" in the history of Chinese poetry. Li Bai's poetry enthusiastically celebrates the greatness of the motherland, expresses the sharp contradiction between personal ideals and social realities, and his feelings are exuberant and intense, with a bold and elegant style; Du Fu's poetry focuses on a series of major events that reflect the decline of the Tang dynasty from prosperity to decline, and cuts into all aspects of social life, so it has the reputation of "Poetry History", and his poems have deep inner feelings, and the style is Li Du's poems are characterized by deep inner feelings and a somber, staccato style. The poems of Li and Du, with their outstanding achievements in romanticism and realism respectively, have been honored by the future generations and have become a glorious example of poetic creation. After the Anshi Rebellion, Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen, led by Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen, advocated the "New Lefu" during the Yuanhe period. They proposed that "essays should be written for the times, and songs and poems should be composed for the events", and created new music poems that directly reflected the reality of life and the people's suffering. Bai Juyi's sentimental poems "Song of Eternal Hatred" and "Pipa Xing" were also popular. Other famous poets included Han Yu, who was famous for his strange and dangerous poems, Meng Jiao and Jia Dao, who were famous for their bitter poems, as well as Liu Zongyuan, Liu Yuxi, and Li He, who had their own specialties. The most accomplished poets of the Late Tang were Du Mu and Li Shangyin. Du Mu was good at seven poems, many sad spring borrowing parting and ahistorical and nostalgic works, style or embroidery, or handsome; Li Shangyin's seven rhythms of deep, broad and beautiful, to ahistorical and love poems excel in the field of "untitled poems" meaning deep and eternal, and is good at the comparison of Xing, but some of the works in the obscurity.

During the Middle Tang Dynasty, Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan revived Confucianism and opposed parallelism, and devoted themselves to restoring the dominant position of the ancient languages and initiating a movement of ancient languages. His writings were full of content, actively reflecting the various social ills of the Middle Tang period, with sincere feelings, diverse techniques, and innovative language. Among them, argumentative essays, biographies, fables and landscape travelogues had the highest achievements. In the late Tang Dynasty, the novels and fugues are also worthy of attention.

There were also two new genres in the Tang Dynasty. Legendary novels with distinctive characters and bizarre twists and turns in the story, marking the maturity of the ancient art of fiction; song lyrics first began in the folk, after the Middle Tang Dynasty, the literati dyed more and more, the first literati word collection, "Flower Collection," included the late Tang Dynasty, Wen Tingjun and the Western Sichuan lyricist's words. Li Yu, the later lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty in the Fifth Dynasty, used his words to express the pain of his country's demise, and many of them were excellent works.

The words of the Song Dynasty were known as the poetry of the Tang Dynasty. At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, Yanshu, Ouyang Xiu, Zhang Xian and others entertained the guests and linger in the light. The first is a new and exciting story of a man who was born and raised in the late 19th century, and who was born and raised in the early 20th century. Liu Yong drew his creative materials from the life of the lower class people in the city, and was famous for writing about the city's prosperity and lovesickness. He created a large number of slow lyrics with slang language, which were widely circulated among the citizens. Su Shi broke the boundaries between poetry and lyrics, expanded the subject matter of lyrics, improved the realm of lyrics, enriched the expressive techniques of lyrics, got rid of the excessive constraints of sound and rhythm, and created a revolutionary school of bold and freewheeling lyrics. In addition, the Northern Song Dynasty's Qin Guan, He cast, Huang Tingjian, Zhou Bangyan and others, **** with the creation of the Song word a variety of styles to win the prosperity of the situation

Face. Li Qingzhao is China's most outstanding female lyricist in ancient times, her words are elegant and fresh, and her later works are especially touching when she writes about the feeling of her life and the pain of her family and country. After the Jingkang change, the sense of sadness and chaos, anti-JinJin patriotism has become a major theme of the word creation, the famous lyricists are Zhang Yuan Gan, Zhang Xiao Xiang, etc., the greatest patriotic lyricist in the Southern Song Dynasty, Xin Qiji, so that the ideological realm of the Song lyrics and the spirit of the unprecedented height in the word of the artistic expression of the techniques and forms of the word, but also more new breakthroughs and creations. The Xin school of lyricists included Chen Liang, Liu Chao, Liu Kezhuang, Liu Chenweng, and so on. In the late Southern Song Dynasty, the elegant school of lyricists Jiang Kui, Shi Dazu, Gao Guanguo, Wu Wenying, etc., advocating elegance and metrics; among them, the relics of the lyricists Zhang Yan,

Zhou Mi, Wang Yisun, etc. mournful and valiant singing, into the Song lyrics of the end of the rest of the rhyme.

Song poetry, compared with Tang poetry, has its own characteristics. In the early Song Dynasty, there were famous poets such as Wang Yuzheng and Yang Yi, the poet of "Xikun style". Since Mei Yao Ju, Su Shunqin, Ouyang Xiu, Song poetry has its own face, the most influential poets of the Northern Song Dynasty are Su Shi and Huang Tingjian, Su poetry, free and unrestrained; Huang Tingjian is the patriarch of the Jiangxi School of Poetry, the style of thin, hard and new. The Southern Song poets include Lu You, Yang Wanli and Fan Chengda, among them Lu You is the most outstanding patriotic poet of the Song Dynasty, leaving nearly ten thousand poems, singing the strong voice of the times of the anti-Golden restoration of the country. In the late Southern Song Dynasty, there were the "Yongjia Four Spirits" and the "Jianghu Poetry School". To the end of the Song Dynasty, the national hero Wen Tianxiang and the relics of the poet Wang Yuanliang and other people's poems, magnificent, for the Song Dynasty poetry added the last touch of luster.

Song prose creation enough to be comparable to the Tang Dynasty. Ouyang Xiu is the leader of the Poetry and Literature Innovation Movement of the Northern Song Dynasty, he insisted on the unity of the creative ideas of literature and Taoism, and advocated the easy and easy style, the prose is rich in rhyme, Ouyang Xiu, Su Xun, Su Shi, Su Zhe, Wang Anshi, Zeng Gong, plus the Tang Dynasty, Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, was honored by posterity for the "Tang and Song Dynasty", of which Su Shi prose achievements, the most prominent, and all the body of the prepared, such as the clouds and flowing water, the gestures of horizontal life. The last generation of popular literature styles are the talk of the book, the Palace of the tune and the southern theater.

The Yuan Dynasty is the golden age of Chinese opera literature. Guan Hanqing's "sinus e grievance" Wang Shifu's "West Wing", is the Yuan miscellaneous operas in the dazzling pearl. In the southern opera, there was Gao Ming's Pipa Tale. The Yuan Dynasty also saw the emergence of a kind of lyrical poetry that was sung in tune with the popular tunes of the time, i.e., prose songs. The writers of prose songs in the first period were represented by Guan Hanqing and Ma Zhiyuan, whose works were popular and easy to understand, witty and spicy; the representative writers in the later period were Zhang Kejiu and Qiao Ji, whose styles tended to be elegant and elegant. Other important composers include Guan Yunshi, Zhang Yanghao and Suijingchen. Jin, Yuan period of poetry and literature is relatively inferior, Yuan Hao Wen is a more distinguished poet.

The Ming Dynasty, the high development of the urban economy, to adapt to the needs of the public popular literary styles such as novels, opera, especially prosperous. The pioneering work of the long chapter book is the early Ming Luo Guanzhong according to the folk tales of the Three Kingdoms organized and processed into the "Three Kingdoms Zhi Popular Romance". Shi Nai-an's Shui You Zhuan artistically reproduced a dramatic peasant uprising in the late Northern Song Dynasty. After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, there was a climax in the creation of novels, such as Wu Chengen's novels of gods and demons, Journey to the West, with a distinctive romantic character; the world of love novels, "Plum in the Golden Vase," directly from the social life of the Ming Dynasty, and is long in copying the world's conditions and human feelings. The main form of short stories in the Ming Dynasty is the proposed book, focusing on the depiction of "the public class of merchants, craftsmen and prostitutes in the life and mentality, representative of Feng Menglong collection of processing of the" Metaphors", "cautionary tale" and "waking up the world of constant speech", Ling Mengchu compiled "the first quarter of a shot at surprise" and "the second quarter of a shot at surprise," collectively referred to as the "Three Words ", collectively known as "Three Words" and "Two Beats". In terms of opera, the love drama "Peony Pavilion" created by the Ming legendary writer Tang Xianzu revealed the theme of anti-feudalism and embodied the spirit of the times of individuality liberation. The drama, with its strange artistic imagery, delicate psychological descriptions, and beautiful and touching lyrics, is a masterpiece of romanticism in the history of Chinese opera.

The poems of Liu Ji, Song Lian, and Gao Qi in the early Ming Dynasty reflected the social reality and were full of content. After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the "Former Seven Sons" and the "Later Seven Sons", with the aim of restoring the ancient times, put forward the slogan of "The literature must be of the Qin and Han Dynasties, and the poems must be of the Sheng Tang Dynasty". The "Former Seven Sons" and "Later Seven Sons" after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, with the aim of restoring the past, put forward the slogan that "literature must be Qin and Han, poetry must be Sheng and Tang", and opposed the tendency to restore the past to its original form. In addition, there are Yuan Hongdao brothers as the representative of the "Public Security School", Zhong Xing, Tan Yuanchun as the head of the "Jingling School", the late Ming small essays, becoming the end of the Ming Dynasty in the prose varieties of light, the representative writer is Zhang Dai, the end of the Ming Dynasty, Chen Zilong, Xia Wanshun's poems, showing a strong national spirit, and the poems of the late Ming Dynasty.

The greatest literary achievements of the Qing Dynasty when the novel, long novels, Cao Xueqin's "Dream of Red Mansions" is known as the peak of the art of ancient Chinese novels; Wu Jingzi's "Confucian History", the spearhead of the examination system to the eight shares of the scholarly, is a rare satirical masterpieces of the history of literature. Literary short stories are Pu Songling's "Liaozhai Zhiyi", with many stories of flowers, demons and foxes, glorifying love, reflecting the reality, attacking the ills of the times, the plot twists and turns, attracting people to win. The masterpiece of the Qing dynasty opera when pushed Hong Sheng's "Palace of Eternal Youth" and Kong Shangren's "Peach Blossom Fan", to achieve a better unity of historical truth and artistic truth.

The poetry, lyrics, and prose of the Qing Dynasty, although the overall achievement failed to exceed that of the Tang and Song dynasties, but there were many famous writers, many genres, and there was no lack of excellent works. In the early Qing Dynasty, the poet's achievements were high, and then a variety of poems, schools of thought, most of which advocated the restoration of the ancient, Yuan Mei, represented by the "spirit of the school" and Zheng Xie, Huang Jingren, etc., their poems can be untainted by the wind, the more distinctive. Word to the Qing Dynasty, known as the "Zhongxing", there are Chen Wisong as the head of the Yangxian school of lyrics, Zhu Yizun as the head of the Zhequ school of lyrics, Zhang Huiyin as the head of the Changzhou school of lyrics, the words of Nalan Shide is a family of its own. In prose, there was the Tongcheng school and its offshoot, the Yanghu school, represented by Fang Zhao, Yao Nai, Liu Dakui, Yun Jing, etc.

Chinese literature after the Opium War of 1840 showed a strong political and combative character. Gong Zizhen, the Enlightenment thinker, was the first to create poetry and literature, followed by Wei Yuan, Lin Zexu, and Zhang Weiping, who wrote many works of contemporary color and historical significance. Before and after the Hundred Days Reform, the prose of Liang Qichao, a representative figure of the reformist school, broke the pattern of the traditional ancient text, which was easy to use and had a mobilizing effect, and it was called the "new style of writing". During the Xinhai Revolution, the works of poets such as Liu Yazi of the Southern Society were full of patriotism and the spirit of democratism. The representative works of modern novels include Twenty Years of Witnessing the Strange Present Situation, The Present Condition of Officialdom, Sinful Sea Flower, and Journey of the Old Remnant, which are known as the four major condemnatory novels of the late Qing Dynasty. The achievements of modern opera are mainly reflected in the fact that many local operas tend to mature, among which Beijing Opera has the widest influence, and drama has begun to emerge in China, and various drama groups have played an important role in publicizing the revolution and opening up the minds of the people. May Fourth" New Culture Movement and the outbreak of the Literary Revolution, marking the beginning of modern Chinese literature, literary history has since opened a new page.