In the 26th year of Qin Shihuang (22 1 BC), the literature of Qin Dynasty established a unified centralized feudal autocratic country, which was destroyed by Liu Bang shortly after Yan Ziying ascended the throne (207 BC) and lasted only 15 years, with no significant achievements in literature. At the beginning of national reunification, the Qin Dynasty practiced extreme cultural absolutism. "Historians burned all the records of the Qin Dynasty. If you are not a doctor, those who dare to collect poems and collect hundreds of languages in the world will be burned by the guards, and those who dare to say poems and collect books carelessly will be abandoned; Ancient times are not today, and home is also. " (Historical Records, Biography of Qin Shihuang) Not only that, the Qin Dynasty also implemented the policy of eliminating Confucian scholars, which once killed more than 460 Confucian scholars in one fell swoop. During the reign of the Qin Dynasty, the development of China's ancient culture suffered serious setbacks, and almost all the documents and classics of the pre-Qin era were destroyed. "Although Qin can't read, there are many miscellaneous poems" (Wen Xin Diao Long Shi Fu) and "Qin Huang destroyed the canon and made immortal poems" (Wen Xin Diao Long Ming Poetry), even though some miscellaneous poems and immortal poems were left behind. What we can see now is only the words written by Qin Shihuang praising merit when he traveled around the world. Because they are carved on rocks all over the country, later people call them. They imitate Song Ya in form, and they are four-character rhymes, mostly with three sentences as rhymes. The value of documents is not high, but because they are the oldest surviving inscriptions, they have a certain influence on later inscriptions.
In the early days of the establishment of the Western Han Dynasty, the rulers learned the lesson from the short-term collapse of the Qin Dynasty, politically resumed the enfeoffment system of princes with the same surname, in order to consolidate their ruling foundation, and economically adopted a series of policies and measures to reduce the burden on farmers, so as to restore and develop agricultural production; Huang Lao's theory of "governing by doing nothing" became the ruling thought at that time.
In terms of cultural policy, Hui Di abolished the law of leaning on books in the Qin Dynasty, and "collected a large number of books and opened up the road of offering books" (History of Han, Art and Literature). In addition, due to the influence of a hundred schools of thought contending since the Warring States Period, governors all over the country have also imitated the methods of the philosophers of the Warring States Period, attracting all kinds of talents to their own door, making philosophy and social thoughts more active and free in the early Han Dynasty and promoting the development of academic culture.
The literary achievements in the early Han Dynasty were mainly manifested in the development of harmony and ci-fu. Scholars in the early Han Dynasty had a lingering wind of wandering in the Warring States. They liked to run around under the authority of princes and dignitaries, cared more about the problems of the country and society, and dared to express their views, which promoted the development of political papers. The author of political papers in the early Han Dynasty is most famous for his works. They paid attention to summing up the experience and lessons of the Qin Dynasty from weak to strong and the gains and losses of political power, and expressed their own political opinions on how to consolidate the rule of the Han Dynasty and improve the centralized political system. These political articles are broad-minded, eloquent, full of emotion and rich in literary talent, which have obvious influence on prose creation after Tang and Song Dynasties. Cifu in the early Han Dynasty belongs to the legacy of the Warring States, but the authors of Cifu in the early Han Dynasty lacked such strong feelings, and most of them were imitations, and their works were also lost. The existing "Recruit Hermit" is one of the best because of its weather and style close to buckling. When Jia Yi was relegated to Changsha, he wrote "Ode to Hanging Qu Yuan" and "Ode to Flying Birds", which permeated his personal life experience and expressed his political ambition, especially the latter, which showed traces of the transition from Chu Ci to Han Fu in system and writing style. He was an important writer in Wenjing period. He is famous for writing about the King of Wu and remonstrating his rebellion. Although his "Qi Fa" is not famous for Fu, its writing style and pattern can be said to be the first work formed by Han Dynasty's new style Fu-Han Da Fu, which plays an important role in the development of Han Fu.
In the era of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the feudal dynasty of the Western Han Dynasty entered its heyday. After 60 or 70 years of rest and recuperation since the early Han Dynasty, the economy has recovered and developed to a certain extent. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was brilliant and managed internally and externally, which further strengthened the feudal centralization of authority of the Han Dynasty. In line with this, in terms of ideology and culture, hundreds of schools were ousted and Confucianism was the only one. Under the cloak of Confucianism, Confucian scholars, represented by thought, embraced the ideas of Yin and Yang, Five Elements, Huang Lao and the name of punishment from the Warring States period. It not only shows the rationality of seizing power in the Han Dynasty, but also points out the ways to consolidate the rule. Since then, Confucianism has been the orthodox thought of the feudal ruling class. On the one hand, it promoted the formation of a unified feudal empire and the consolidation of feudal centralization of authority; on the other hand, it ended the situation of a hundred schools of thought contending since the Warring States Period, and the thought was fixed on a statue, which had a great influence on the academic and cultural development at that time and later.
From the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to the end of the Western Han Dynasty, literary achievements were mainly manifested in the establishment and expansion of Yuefu institutions and the prosperity and emergence of Ci and Fu creation.
During the reign of Emperor Gaozu, Sun Tong, his uncle, made a court document, which made Emperor Gaozu realize that "the emperor is the most important thing" and the importance of the ritual and music system in establishing the feudal dynasty order. Yuefu was founded in the early Han Dynasty, which mainly managed the activities of suburban temples and chaohui. However, due to the fact that "big people are initially determined, there are too many to mention", it is still impossible to carry out large-scale "customized fun" ("Han Shu? Li Lezhi) works. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty expanded the scale and function of Yuefu, and collected folk songs from all over the country on a large scale to enrich the court movement, with the aim of "making the past serve the present" (Ban Gu's Preface to Two Beijing) and "promoting harmony" (the history of rites and music in the Han Dynasty). The so-called "Wu Xuantian is a ritual-worshipping officials, taking an examination of articles, setting up the Golden Horse Shiqu House inside and promoting Yuefu Xiefa outside" (Ban Gu's Preface to Two Capitals), reciting poems at night, with Zhao Qin Chu as the trustee and Li Yannian as the coordinator, and giving dozens of people more poems. On the rhythm of Lu, with eight tones as the key, it is nineteen. The establishment and expansion of Yuefu organs made it possible to record, condense and perfect folk songs in various places, which was of epoch-making significance in the history of China literature. It had a far-reaching influence on the development of China's ancient poetry. The music played by Yuefu in the Western Han Dynasty was based on the original version, except The Song of Anshifang, which was founded by Mrs. Tang Gaozu Tangshan, and The Song of Suburb Sacrifice in the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty? There are also 55 folk songs all over the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. Now, except for Eighteen Songs of the Song Dynasty, most of them have not been handed down. Song of Songs is a military music that absorbed northern folk music during the period of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty. Its lyrics are difficult to understand because of too many mistakes in words. Among them, a few love stories and chapters reflecting the tragic scenes of the battlefield are understandable and can be recited, which has certain practical significance.
In the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, due to the need of "keeping things quiet", the creation of Ci and Fu has been greatly developed and entered the most prosperous era of Han Fu creation. There were more than 900 fu poems in the Western Han Dynasty, not counting miscellaneous fu poems, and there were more than 400 fu poems during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Sima Xiangru is the most accomplished representative writer of Han Fu. With its grand structure, gorgeous literary talent and exaggerated presentation, Zixu Shanglin Fu described the magnificence of the Shanglin Garden of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and the magnificent momentum of the emperor's hunting, which catered to the psychology of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, so it was paid attention to and showed the characteristics of Han Fu as court literature. Before and after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in addition to Sima Xiangru, there were so-called "courtiers" such as Gao Mei, who "thought day and night, offered gifts to the sun and the moon", while ministers such as Ni Kuan and Dong Zhongshu also "occasionally planted", which formed the heyday of Han Fu creation. The story of Xuan Di's filial piety to Liang Wudi is also good. There are also a number of poets around him, such as Zhang, Hua Long and so on. Some of their works describe the hunting of the emperor and the gardens of the court, and some praise things, such as "arguing beauty and rejoicing" and "worrying about (entertaining) the eyes and ears". But most of the works of this period did not exist.
He was a famous fu writer in the late Western Han Dynasty. His four poems, Ganquan, Hedong, Hunting Feather and Changyang, are imitations of Sima Xiangru's poems and lack creativity. However, due to his high academic level, some fu poems are still fluent and verve. In his later years, Yang Xiong realized that Han Fu didn't help satire and admonition, so he stopped. He put forward his own literary thoughts in his works such as Fa Yan, emphasizing the social function of literature and the unity of literary content and form, which was of certain progressive significance at that time.
Han Fu is the product of highly developed economy, politics and culture in the Western Han Dynasty. However, as far as its ideological and artistic achievements are concerned, it is not enough to show the development of all aspects of the Western Han Dynasty. What truly represents the highest achievement of cultural development in this era is Yes.
During the period of Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty, "the strategy of building a treasure was to set officials to write books, and all the legends of various schools had secrets" (Han Shu's Records of Literature and Art), which prepared material conditions for the writing of Historical Records. Sima Qian's Records of the Historian, which was independently completed, set up a monument for the development of China's ancient history and culture. Historical Records, centered on biographies of people, not only created biographical history, but also created history. The so-called "historian's swan song, Li Sao has no rhyme" correctly evaluates Sima Qian's contribution to the development of history and literature.
Sima Qian's Historical Records spread in the society after Emperor Xuan Di. Because its records ended in the early years of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, many scholars compiled current events to supplement them, but most of them were vulgar books, which could not be compared with Historical Records. The achievements of prose in the late Western Han Dynasty are manifested in political essays. Huan Kuan's proofreading books "Harmony" and "Narration" inherited the tradition of political essays in the early Han Dynasty, which were rich in content and clear in logic, and showed the author's enthusiasm for saving the current disadvantages.
In the first year of the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 8), Wang Mang proclaimed himself emperor on behalf of the Han Dynasty, and a peasant uprising broke out in Tianfeng four years (AD 17). In the first year of Jianwu (AD 25), Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu of Han Dynasty, made Luoyang its capital, which was called the Eastern Han Dynasty in history. In the nature of political power, the Eastern Han Dynasty is a continuation of the Western Han Dynasty. In the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu took some measures to alleviate social contradictions and made progress in agricultural technology, which made production develop. In order to legalize his rule, Liu Xiu praised the science of divination, which began to rise in the late Western Han Dynasty. It is integrated with the study of China's ancient classics and becomes the dominant ideology in the ideological and cultural field. Under the influence of politics, ideology and culture, the literature of the Eastern Han Dynasty has also undergone new changes and developments.
Han Shu is a representative of historical biographical literature in the Eastern Han Dynasty. It follows the slightly changed style of Historical Records, recounts the history of the Western Han Dynasty, and initiates the dynastic history of China, some of which are detailed and rigorous. In the old days, Han Shi and Banma were also called together, which showed that Hanshu, like Shiji, had a great influence on later history and literature. The political papers in the Eastern Han Dynasty, such as "On a Thousand Commandments", "On Cui Zheng" and "Chang Yan", inherited the tradition of the Western Han Dynasty and reflected various social contradictions and fierce political struggles after the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty. He was an outstanding thinker in the Eastern Han Dynasty and opposed Chen Wei's superstition. His Lun Heng is a book of "sickness and falsehood", which effectively exposes and criticizes the theological superstition advocated by the rulers at that time. Proceeding from this spirit, he criticized the "flashy, false and unreal" style of writing at that time, and actively put forward a series of literary ideas.
Under the influence of Sima Xiangru, the imitation of Ci and Fu in the Eastern Han Dynasty prevailed, but the Great Fu in Kyoto, which started with Ban Gu's Er Du Fu, was a progress in the theme development. After the mid-Eastern Han Dynasty, politics was extremely dark, and Fu Feng began to change. The novel Guitianfu, with its beautiful language and scene blending, shows the author's quiet state of mind in seclusion in the countryside, which is a sign of this change. After Huanling, some cynical literati wrote short poems to expose the reality and attack the darkness of society. Although the number of this kind of lyric fu is small, it breaks through the long-standing tradition of fu and is the forerunner of lyric fu in Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties.
Most of the existing folk songs of Han Yuefu are works of the Eastern Han Dynasty. These folk songs have various forms, which reflect the sufferings, thoughts and feelings of the people in the Eastern Han Dynasty and are a great achievement of Eastern Han literature. Another great achievement of literature in the Eastern Han Dynasty was the formation of literati under the influence of Yuefu folk songs. Anonymous is a mature work of scholars in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Five-character poems created by scholars in the Eastern Han Dynasty reflect the life and thoughts of the middle and lower classes in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Their authors all have certain cultural attainments. In their creation, they not only kept the simple and natural characteristics of Yuefu folk songs, but also borrowed the artistic techniques of Chuci. They strive for neatness in simplicity and naturalness, and see beauty in simplicity and fluency, which greatly improves the expressive force and lyricism of poetry and has a great influence on the development and production of five-character poems in Wei and Jin Dynasties.