The concept of prose is very broad, and all articles except verse and parallel prose can be called prose. People in Tang and Song Dynasties called parallel prose "modern prose" and prose "ancient prose". Stylistically, the ancient prose movement advocated by Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan and Ouyang Xiu is to oppose parallel prose and advocate prose. Prose is divided into broad sense and narrow sense. Prose in a broad sense refers to general non-verse works, while prose in a narrow sense refers to a literary genre.
When we talk about ancient prose, we use the concept of generalized prose. Ancient prose can be divided into four categories: historical biography, argumentative essay, essay and practical essay. The following respectively introduces the characteristics of these four types of prose.
I. History
History is also called historical prose. There are three main categories.
(A) chronological style
The main feature of this kind of historical prose is to arrange related historical events with time as a clue.
Among the chronological historical prose, Zuo Zhuan and Zi Tongzhi Jian are the most influential. This is the style of The Battle of Yuan and Battle of Red Cliffs that we have studied. '
(2) Biographical style.
The main feature of this kind of historical prose is to reflect historical events by describing the activities of characters. The founder of biographical style is Sima Qian, and his Historical Records is mainly biographies, family biographies and biographies. The twenty-four histories we usually talk about are all of this genre. The Hongmen Banquet (excerpted from Historical Records of Xiang Yu), Biography of Lian Po and Lin Xiangru, Biography of Su Wu and Biography of Hai Rui are all of this genre. The twenty-four histories mentioned above are all official national histories, and private biographies also belong to this genre, such as Zuo's anecdotes.
Biography and historical biography are of great significance to the development of literary forms such as novels and stories. For example, the tales of the Six Dynasties, the legends of the Tang and Song Dynasties, and Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio are all deeply influenced by historical records. What we have learned. Liu Yichuan and Promotion of Weaving Department are such literary works.
(c) Final institutional chronicle
This school originated in the Southern Song Dynasty. According to the materials provided by Zi Tong Zhi Jian, Yuan Shu wrote Tong Jian Chronicle. Over 1300
The history of 2000 has been summarized into more than 230 special topics. It is characterized by taking events as the main line and collecting relevant theme materials, such as. The three tribes were divided into Jin, Qin merged into six countries, Chu was destroyed, and Xiongnu destroyed Qin.
Second, essays
An argumentative essay is an article that clarifies the truth. The argument needs to be clear, credible and rigorous. Political theory, literary theory, historical theory and academic papers are all argumentative.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, essays have developed to a fairly complete stage. The so-called "a hundred schools of thought contend" belongs to the category of essays. There were two main forms of argumentative essays at that time: one was quotations, such as The Analects of Confucius and Mencius, which mainly recorded the ordinary remarks of Confucius and Mencius. This kind of argumentative paper basically has no complete chapter structure, and the title of each article is not equal to the title, which has no internal connection with the content of the article. For example, the first article in The Analects of Confucius, "Learning while learning", is to take the first sentence. Confucius said: the word "learning while learning" in "learning while learning" has nothing to do with the whole content. The other is a collection of essays, such as Mozi, Zhuangzi, Gou Zi, Han Feizi and Lv Chunqiu. We have studied the articles in these collections, and all of them have formal topics. Each article has a clear theme, and the structure, level, beginning and end of the article are very particular.
Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, essays have made new progress, with a large number of individual essays and diverse genres. Common ones are as follows:
(1) theory.
The discussion mode of Lun is mainly argumentative, which needs a good analysis. The more thorough and accurate the analysis, the more it can reflect the characteristics of this genre. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, Jia Yi's On the Qin Dynasty was an early single paper. Later, there were some famous "theories" in each generation, such as Fan Zhen's theory of deity extinction in the Southern and Northern Dynasties and Su Xun's theory of six countries in the Song Dynasty.
(2) say.
The main feature of "Shuo" style is to explain the meaning of things and problems. For example, Han Yu's "Teacher's Theory" clarifies the truth of the profession of teachers; Liu Zongyuan's "On Snake Catchers" is to clarify why snake catchers should take catching snakes as their profession.
The boundary between "theory" and "theory" is difficult to distinguish so clearly. Generally speaking, some serious contents, such as the theory of characters and history, mostly adopt the genre of "theory"; Some "sayings" close to literary prose often do not adopt the genre of "on", such as Zhou Dunyi's "Ailian Shuo", which cannot be changed into "Ailian Shuo".
(3) debate.
"Debate" is to argue right and wrong, not true and false. This style is characterized by refuting a wrong argument or dialectical certain facts. For example, Han Yu's Debate on Taboo and Liu Zongyuan's Debate on Tongye are masterpieces of this style.
4 original text.
"Original" means tracing back to the source. This style is a fundamental investigation and discussion of a certain theory, proposition, political system or social custom. Han Yu's Road and Mourning, Huang Zongxi's Yuan Jun and Chen Yuan are all representative works of this style.
(5) fable.
Fable is a literary form, but a good fable should be philosophical. There have been a lot of fables in the philosophical papers of pre-Qin philosophers, such as "an expert in solving cattle" in Zhuangzi and "waiting for a rabbit" in Han Feizi. Liu Zongyuan in Tang Dynasty
The Three Commandments is also a famous fable.
(6) letters.
According to the standard of application scope, letters can be divided into practical articles. Judging from the language form and content of the article, most letters belong to argumentative essays, and letters occupy a very important position in ancient argumentative essays. Han Yu's answer to Li Yi's book and Wang Anshi's answer to Sima's suggestion can be read as literary theory and political theory.
(7) Gift order.
The preface is written for people, which is practical in the scope of application, but argumentative in the form of language. Song Lian's preface to seeing Ma Sheng off to Yang is a good argumentative essay.
(8) commemoration.
From the scope of application, the memorial can be classified as practical writing. But as far as content is concerned, most of them are argumentative papers. As far as the language form is concerned, some memorials are parallel prose and some are prose. There are several kinds of memorial halls. Here are two:
1. Sparse. Sparse means to state item by item. For example, Jia Yi's On Storing and Sparing, Wei Zhi's Ten Thoughts on remonstrating Taizong, etc.
2. table. State a feeling or opinion. Such as Shi Mi's Chen Qingbiao and Zhuge Liang's paradigm.
3. countermeasures. In the ancient exam, the topic was written in strategy, so that candidates could answer it. At that time, it was called "strategy questions", and the articles answered by candidates were called countermeasures. For example, Su Shi's "Teaching War and Defending Strategy".
Third, miscellaneous notes
Essays can be divided into two categories:
(1) personnel records of mountains and rivers.
There are many such articles, such as Liu Zongyuan's Little Stone Pond, Fan Zhongyan's Yueyang Tower and Yao Nai's Climbing Mount Tai.
(2) Precautions.
Notes are mainly notes, characterized by short length, only 1000 words; Rich in content, there are historical anecdotes, anecdotes, literary essays, people's essays, scientific essays, textual research, reading notes and so on. This is the style of Shi Shuo Xin Yu and Meng Qian Bi Tan.
Fourth, applied writing.
Practical writing covers a wide range. Here are two more:
1 epitaph. Epitaphs are words carved on stones and buried in graves. The content is about the life story of the deceased. For example, Han Yu's Epilogue of Six Sons Meiji is a famous article.
2 eulogy. It is an article expressing condolences to the deceased, such as Yuan Mei's Salute to Sister.