Prose in a broad sense refers to all articles that do not rhyme in ancient times. However, there was no such name as "prose" in ancient times; The name "Prose" came into being during the May 4th Movement. In modern times, prose in a broad sense includes all narrative, argumentative and lyrical styles except poetry, novel, drama and film and television literature. For example, Qin Mu said in "Generalized Prose Field" that "all short essays that do not belong to other literary genres but have literary flavor belong to the category of prose". In this way, there is a classification of lyric prose, narrative prose and argumentative prose.

Prose in a narrow sense refers to lyric prose. This is because with the development of style, the communication characteristics, biographical literature and reportage in narrative prose have all developed into independent styles, each of which has become a category; Argumentative essay has a special name-prose, which is also separated from prose, leaving only lyric prose, that is, narrow prose.

Prose is a branch of prose and a variant of argumentative writing, which is both argumentative and lyrical. They are usually short in length and varied in form. Writers often use various rhetorical devices to convey their views and emotions in twists and turns, and the language is smart, gentle and ironic. This is a popular style in a society where words are forbidden.

Definition and attribution of the concept of prose

There are different opinions about the concept and attribution of essays, which can be roughly divided into the following categories:

1 belongs to the category of prose in literature. This division accounts for the vast majority. such as

(1) An Introduction to Literature (135) [1] classifies literary works into four categories: novels, poems, essays and plays, and clearly classifies prose as essays. Excerpts are as follows:

"Essay: Literary thesis is a kind of prose, characterized by the combination of lyric and political theory, eclecticism, rapid reflection of life events and people's thoughts and feelings, integration of logical power and fighting passion, and incisive exposition in the image. Known for being short, pithy, vivid and sharp, it has profound ideological content, sharp fighting and full artistic persuasion. In the history of China literature, many ancient prose with progressive ideological content and artistic value are mostly famous works. In modern times, due to the advocacy and practice of revolutionary writers represented by Lu Xun, essays became extremely sharp spears and daggers to expose and attack the enemy, and also became weapons to criticize bad tendencies among the people. Essays are mainly used to satirize and expose, and can also be used to praise new ideas, new characters and new styles. "

(2) the 20th century China prose history [2] (page 5):

"Essays are essays, mainly discussing and criticizing; Essays mainly focus on extensive social criticism and civilization criticism, and generally affirm and praise truth, goodness and beauty by exposing and criticizing falsehood, ugliness and ugliness; The essay format is rich and varied, short and flexible, and it requires rationality, lyricism and vividness of discussion and criticism in art, with distinctive irony and humorous comedy color. "

(3) Xinhua Dictionary 200 1 revised edition [3]:

"Essay, a kind of prose, is a kind of literary paper which is mainly about discussion and lyrical. Known for being short, sharp and sharp, there are many styles, such as essays, miscellaneous feelings, miscellaneous talks, notes, etc. "

(4) Ci Hai [4]:

"Essay, a kind of prose, is an essay. Generally short, lively and sharp. The content is all-encompassing, with rich and diverse formats, including miscellaneous feelings, rambling, short comments, essays, notes and so on. There are many such articles in China's works on hundred schools of thought since the Warring States Period. After the May 4th Movement, with the efforts of Lu Xun and others, it became a literary newspaper that directly and quickly reflected the real life of society or expressed the author's thoughts. It is good at ideology and controversy. In art, he is alert in words and full of feelings in words. He often talks about people or things with the help of image metaphors, which is very powerful. "

(5) "Modern Chinese Dictionary" and "Modern Chinese Dictionary" in 2002 supplement [5]:

"Essays, a kind of modern prose, do not stick to a certain form, but focus on discussion and narration."

2. It belongs to literature, but not to prose. For example:

(1) China's essay history [6] (page 8):

"Essays are a literary style, including novels, plays, poems and essays. It can be said to be a kind of marginal literature. "

(2) Liu Xiqing's artistic prose: aesthetic norms of contemporary prose [7].

"Reportage, historical biography, essays and essays should be separated from the' matrix' of prose, and' self-reliance' should be independent. The new' literature classification' can adopt the ten-point method: poetry; Novel; Dramatic literature; Film and television literature; Reportage; Historical biographical literature; Prose and essays; Artistic prose; National and folk literature; Children's literature. "

(3) What is an essay by the famous essay editor and critic Liu [8]: "In short, (essay) is a short critical and satirical literary work of art, but it is not a novel or essay.

3. It belongs to "cross-type" literary genre.

(1) Introduction to Literature [9] classifies both essays and reportage as "cross" literature, also known as "marginal" literature genre, which has both literary and non-literary attributes. (See P86 and P87)

"Essays are a kind of' cross' style, which has both the nature of political theory and the characteristics of literature."

4. It belongs to "literary argumentative essay"

(1) Modern Chinese Standard Dictionary [10] defines "essays" as follows:

"Essays, mainly about discussion, are characterized by narrative and lyrical literary argumentations, which can quickly reflect social problems, be lively and combative."

Although there are different opinions on the definition of the concept of essays, each has its own emphasis, but regarding the attribution of essays, most people agree to classify essays as literary genres, and almost everyone thinks that essays are literary or literary! As a result, this view was instilled in students in the field of education, and the whole society accepted this concept of essays, which caused many misunderstandings and confusions.

When discussing the difference between prose and essays, I also mentioned this aspect: essays should try to avoid emotional participation in expression. If there is too much emotional intervention, it will become essays, and the language should be as objective as possible, otherwise it will be easily regarded as a tendency to vent. This is the answer to the positioning of the article. We know that the forms of prose and essays are gradually becoming clear, but in the category of "big prose", traditional essays, essays, notes and so on. They are all essays, and essays, essays and essays are all among essays, so it is difficult to make an exact division. In the 1930s, literary and art circles used to treat essays as essays. In Ci Hai, essays are short essays such as essays and miscellaneous feelings. The interpretation of essays is: literary essays that directly and quickly reflect social events or social tendencies, and miscellaneous feelings, ramblings and essays all belong to this category; On the other hand, Zhang Henshui drew a line about essays in Xinmin Daily on May 23rd 1946: essays are poetic essays, but not poems, novels, notes and various essays. Regardless of who is right or wrong, you can look at the current essays. Personally, there are three types of "essays" at present. One is an article that satirizes reality by criticizing the shortcomings of the present; One kind is an article about life interest and life ideal, which is developed through daily life trivia; Third, some articles, such as notes, notes, essays, diaries, etc. There are both written elements and emotional elements. The feeling here is the same as that of essays, so it also belongs to essays. Looking back at the positioning of prose from the three types of prose, prose and other branches of prose overlap, which is also where we are entangled. If the style requirements are not too strict, it is no problem to put emotional articles in essays, which can be extensive; However, the issue under discussion is precisely because of its extensiveness. The orientation of the essay I mentioned below the letter article is the same as some viewpoints in this article. I need to refine the essay. Of course, the refinement theory is aimed at the essay version, not the essay style, and the positioning problem discussed is also the positioning problem of the essay version. The essays that need to be refined under the sub-essay version are not only sentimental essays, comments and satirical sketches, humanistic essays and humanistic mixed feelings. However, diaries, notes, travel notes and other sentimental and elegant styles that are biased towards life interests and ideals belong to the prose version. Panda wants to discuss this issue well. First of all, whether "standing in a good position" means the position of the essay in the essay style or the position of the sub-essay. In the article, I saw that Da stood in the position of essay style and essay forum. When we talked yesterday, I stood in the position of dividing the composition version, and the limitations are self-evident, but this is in line with my thinking of section positioning. There are many controversies about the essay itself in literary theory and writing. I can only speak according to my own understanding, but I'm not dead. Then you compare it with prose, so you can say that prose is positioned from the perspective of style. "Prose should try to avoid emotional participation in expression. If there is too much emotional involvement, it will become an essay, and the language will be as objective as possible, otherwise it will easily be regarded as an venting tendency. " Stylistic essays, miscellaneous feelings, notes, etc. Ok, so what do you mean by positioning? How to deal with the intersection of various styles after prose refining? This issue is not explicitly discussed in the article.