Another famous poetry collection in ancient China is Songs of the South. The main author is Qu Yuan, an aristocrat of Chu State. His works include Li Sao, Nine Songs, Nine Chapters and Tian Wen. The political lyrics in Li Sao are great poems cast by Qu Yuan in his whole life. Strong patriotism and persistent pursuit of life have merged into a radical spiritual force, and strange imagination and magnificent language have produced great artistic charm. Qu Yuan's works shine with the brilliance of great personality and the exotic color of southern Chu culture. The works of other authors of Songs of the South, such as Song Yu and Jia Yi, all inherited the tradition of Qu Yuan.
Chuci has become a unique style with a long history. The Book of Songs and Songs of the South have always been called "coquettish", which are the two major sources of ancient Chinese poetry, and have been regarded as models of learning by poets of all ages for more than 2,000 years.
Pre-Qin Prose and Han Fu In ancient China, there was a system of historiographers, whose records became history books, that is, the so-called historical prose. The pre-Qin history books are rich in content and diverse in forms, mainly including Zuo Zhuan in chronological style, Guoyu Warring States Policy in national style, and Yanzi Chunqiu devoted to personal words and deeds. Zuo Zhuan is one of the three biographies of Chunqiu, with the highest literary value. It is said that it was written for Lu Zuo Qiuming's biography of Confucius' Spring and Autumn Annals. Narrative has written a broad picture of social life, which profoundly reflects the historical process of the struggle between governors and the rapid social changes at that time.
Since the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, with the rapid changes of society, the "scholar" class has risen and developed, becoming the most active social force. In view of the social reality at that time, they put forward various political opinions and started arguments, which formed a situation in which a hundred schools of thought contended, and thus produced hundred schools of thought's essays.
The development of various schools of thought's prose can be divided into three periods: the first period is from the late Spring and Autumn Period to the early Warring States Period. At this time, prose was mainly recorded, and the masterpiece was The Analects of Confucius. The second period was the mid-Warring States period, when prose changed from quotation to dialogue and argument, represented by Mencius and Zhuangzi. The third period was the late Warring States period, when prose developed into monographs, including Xunzi and Han Feizi.
The Analects of Confucius mainly records the words and deeds of Confucius and his disciples. The language is concise and clear, and the reasoning is simple. Some chapters describe the dialogues and manners of the characters, which are quite vivid and reflect the characters' personalities. Mencius and Zhuangzi are mostly argumentative essays, which are typical prose forms when a hundred schools of thought contend.
Mencius was written by Monk and his disciples. Its central content is to promote the Confucian theory of "benevolent government", attack tyranny and advocate that "the people are more valuable than the monarch" He is good at convincing the enemy by catching the enemy first and attracting attention, and he is also good at reasoning with clever and accurate metaphors and fables, so he is confident and persuasive, with strong logical persuasion and artistic appeal.
Zhuangzi is a Taoist classic, written by Zhuang Zhou and his later studies. The main content of Zhuangzi is to conform to nature, oppose the system of rites and music, and hope that human society will return to the primitive state and the primitive society of quietism. Zhuangzi's prose is characterized by variety, strangeness and Wang Yang's wanton style. When it is discussed, it uses a lot of "absurd words, absurd words and endless cliff words" (Zhuangzi world), that is, fables and fantasies, which are full of poetic and lyrical colors. In particular, articles such as Happy Journey, with its peculiar imagination, smooth brushwork, vivid description and magnificent language, have high literary value.
Xunzi and Han Feizi are both rigorous academic essays with clear center, clear organization, strict logic, full argumentation and strong persuasiveness. The metaphors and rhetoric in Xunzi are rich and colorful, and the fables in Han Feizi are vivid and alert, with strong literary meaning.
Fu is a unique style in China. It has both the nature of prose and verse, and its main feature is meticulous description and no songs. The formation and development of Fu has gone through a long process. It came into being at the end of the Warring States period and was greatly influenced by lobbyists and Chu Ci, reaching its peak in the Han Dynasty.
Han Fu can be divided into two categories according to its theme. One kind is short lyric poetry, such as Jia Yi's poem "Pengniao Diaoqu Yuan" in the early Han Dynasty, Zhang Heng's poem "Returning to the Field" in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and Zhao Yi's poem "Stabbing the World with Illness" in the late Han Dynasty. The other kind is the "physical object" fu, with the main technique of laying out the old and arranging the old. The latter is the mainstream of Han Fu.
In the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, the economy was developed and the country was strong, so there was a great fu for the purpose of singing praises. Sima Xiangru is the first representative of Da Fu in Han Dynasty. His masterpieces include Zi Xufu and Shang Fu Lin. Another important writer of Da Fu is Yang Xiong in the late Western Han Dynasty. His representative works include Ganquan Fu, Hunting Feather Fu, Changyang Fu and so on. Yang Xiong and Sima Xiangru, also known as "foreign horses", became model writers of Dafu in the eyes of later generations.
Han Fu (mainly Da Fu) came into being in the first unified empire in China history-the first Han Dynasty. The grandeur of Han Fu is the artistic embodiment of the national character of self-improvement and the positive and optimistic spirit of the times. It reflects the Chinese nation's high confidence in its own strength, its high affirmation of its own material and spiritual civilization and its love for the real world. In fact, it reflects the thinking characteristics of the Chinese nation in grasping the world as a whole.
China is a country of poetry, and Tang poetry is the most brilliant peak of the country of poetry.
Since the Han Dynasty, five-character poems and seven-character poems have experienced a long period of development. With the arrival of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, China's poetry also entered a peak period, producing the most brilliant Tang poetry in ancient literature.
There are a large number of Tang poems, rich in content, and famous artists come forth in large numbers. There are more than 55,000 works that have been handed down so far, which can be called a treasure house of ancient poetry and a great spectacle in the history of human culture.
The development process of Tang poetry can be roughly divided into four stages, namely, early Tang, prosperous Tang, middle Tang and late Tang. Among them, the poetry circles in the prosperous Tang Dynasty and the middle Tang Dynasty are the most brilliant.
In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Tang poetry reached the climax of all-round prosperity. Because of the country's prosperity and social stability, poets can realize their pursuit of life in many ways. The poet described the strange scenery of the desert beyond the Great Wall, shaped the heroic image of frontier athletes, and also expressed his life ideal of defending the motherland and establishing meritorious service. Relatively speaking, frontier fortress poems more clearly reflect the spirit of the times in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and also reflect the national character of the Chinese nation, which loves peace, opposes aggression and is not afraid of violence.
The meteorological poetry in the prosperous Tang Dynasty embodies the spirit full of romantic flavor and ideal color, and Li Bai is the most outstanding representative of the meteorological poetry in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Li Bai enthusiastically eulogized all the beautiful things in the real world, but cast a contemptuous look at unreasonable phenomena unscrupulously. This attitude of pursuing liberation and freedom, though limited by reality, is a typical embodiment of a powerful spiritual force for the Chinese nation to resist the dark forces and vulgar customs.
Du Fu, a great poet with the same fame as Li Bai, provided a vivid historical picture for the era when the Tang Empire turned from prosperity to decline before and after the An Shi Rebellion, and exposed and criticized the dark reality that "the wine and meat in Zhumen stinked and the road froze people to death", so he was praised as "the history of poetry" by later generations. Du Fu's poems are full of the consciousness of caring for the country and the people and the spirit of loving everything in the world, which is the artistic expression of the core spirit of Confucianism and the image embodiment of the cultural character of the Chinese nation. In terms of artistic style, Li Bai's poems are elegant and unrestrained, while Du Fu's poems are depressed and frustrated, which have distinct personality characteristics and rich connotations, thus having a far-reaching impact on the aesthetic trend of later poems.
There are two schools of Chinese Tang poetry. One school, headed by Bai Juyi, mainly inherited Du Fu's spirit of facing up to reality and attacking darkness, and strengthened the satire and satire function of poetry; In art, it is characterized by popular and fluent language and approachable style.
The other school, headed by Han Yu, mainly inherited Du Fu's spirit of deliberately seeking novelty and being brave in creation in art, especially devoted to the artistic realm that Du Fu's poems have not yet explored. As far as the diversity of poetic styles and the uniqueness of poets' artistic personality are concerned, the poetry circles in the middle Tang Dynasty are full of flowers, even surpassing the prosperous Tang Dynasty.
Tang poetry is indeed a dazzling and inspiring art treasure house, and it is the most brilliant highlight of China traditional culture. The Chinese nation has contributed such a beautiful treasure to human culture, which is always worthy of our pride.
Ci, as a special poetic genre, was formed in the early years of the prosperous Tang Dynasty. By the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, it had made considerable achievements, and famous poets such as Wen, Wei Zhuang and Li Yu appeared, but none of them could compete with the five-character and seven-character poems.
It is the words of the Song Dynasty that truly become the saints of a generation of literature, which is comparable to Tang poetry in the history of ancient poetry.
There were many famous poets and schools in Song Dynasty. Later generations often divide Song Ci into two schools: graceful school and bold school, but in fact, these two styles of Ci are not always equally divided in Song Dynasty.
Since the late Tang Dynasty, Ci has formed its own unique tradition in theme trend and style tendency, so it is called "Ke Yan". With the trend of this theme and gentle music, its style tendency is naturally graceful. Almost all the ci circles in the Northern Song Dynasty are graceful words. Of course, poets are still competing with each other in subject matter tendency and style tendency. Li Qingzhao, Jiang Kui and Wu Wenying, poets in the Southern Song Dynasty, also enriched the poetic style of graceful and restrained words with fresh, ethereal and heavy artistic styles respectively.
By the mid-Northern Song Dynasty, Su Shi first made great contributions to the innovation of ci style. He broke the field of ci as a colorful theme, added a high and majestic factor, and made the language style of ci appear a new factor of bold, implicit and elegant. After the Jingkang Rebellion, the social environment in which graceful and restrained words lived no longer existed, and Li Qingzhao, an outstanding poetess, vividly reflected the influence of the times. They inherited and carried forward the bold style of Su Shi's ci, and enriched and enriched the bold style with two tendencies: impassioned and depressed. From then on, bold words and graceful words stood side by side and were equally divided. This situation not only lasted until the death of the Song Dynasty, but also became the basic pattern of the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The generalized "Yuan Qu" of Yuan Qu includes Yuan Zaju and Yuan Sanqu, but Yuan Zaju can also be called "Yuan Qu" alone, which is the essence of Yuan Qu literature and has always been called the same as Tang Poetry and Song Poetry.
Yuan Zaju is a comprehensive art integrating singing, dancing, oral English, acrobatics and other artistic forms, and it is the first mature form of drama, a unique drama form in China. Yuan Zaju reflects the broad social life and is extremely rich in content. The main themes are: 1. Love drama. Representative works include Wang Shifu's The West Chamber and Bai Pu's Soon Is the Wall. Second, the case-solving drama. Representative works include Dou Eyuan by Guan Hanqing, Lu Zhailang, and Chen Zhou's Talk about Secrets by Anonymous. Third, the water margin play. , representative works include Kang's Li Kui jy is a shame, etc. Fourth, world drama. His representative works include Guan Hanqing's Save the Wind and Dust, Qian Nu, and Qin's Dong Tang Lao. Fifth, historical drama. His representative works are The Orphan of Zhao, Guan Hanqing's A Knife Meeting, and Ma Zhiyuan's Autumn in the Han Palace. Yuan Zaju has made brilliant achievements in art, and created a stage image with distinct images and different faces. Good at organizing contradictions and conflicts, the scene is compact and the climax is repeated. The language of Yuan Zaju is mostly simple and natural, full of rich flavor of life.
Yuan Zaju is of epoch-making significance in the history of China literature. Before this, the dominant position in the literary world was poetry with lyric as its main function, while Yuan Zaju was mainly narrative, which made literature closer to people's lives, more directly expressed people's joys and sorrows, and more widely reflected social reality. The success of Yuan Zaju declared that narrative literature such as drama novels began to become the mainstream of China literature. The authors of Yuan Zaju are mostly writers and actors with low social status, and their audiences are all over the society. Its prosperity means that literature is further moving towards the folk in both the author and the reader.
China's novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties experienced three stages of development, namely, pre-Tang note novels, Tang legendary novels and Song and Yuan vernacular novels. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, six famous novels had appeared, including Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, The Journey to the West, Jin Ping Mei, The Scholars and A Dream of Red Mansions. The first four books are called the "Four Wonder Books" of the Ming Dynasty, and the last two are the best novels of the Qing Dynasty.
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, based on a period of history in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and the dispute between Wei, Shu and Wu, provided a panoramic historical picture for that turbulent era, created hundreds of vivid character galleries, and became a visualized political and military textbook with very profound cultural connotations.
Outlaws of the Marsh profoundly reveals the truth of "officials forcing the people to revolt", severely criticizes the decay and evil of the feudal ruling class, enthusiastically praises the heroes of the uprising, and shapes typical figures with different personalities, such as Song Jiang, Lin Chong, Lu and jy. The rebellion described in Water Margin is a limited rebellion based on "loyalty and righteousness". Therefore, in Water Margin, praise and resistance go hand in hand with loyalty, which is the embodiment of the duality of traditional cultural spirit.
The Journey to the West is a mythical novel that appeared in the Ming Dynasty. On the one hand, it affirmed the Monkey King's disturbing heaven, and embodied the rebellious spirit of despising the authority of rulers and opposing unreasonable social order; On the other hand, it affirmed that the Monkey King and others learned from Buddhism and embodied the concept of maintaining the established order, which, like the Water Margin, embodied the duality of traditional cultural spirit.
Jin Ping Mei is a novel about the world, which appeared in the late Ming Dynasty and was independently created by literati. The book aims to expose the world and human feelings, and all its main characters are worthy of recognition. Jin Ping Mei is unique in the history of China's novels, with the theme of real society and family daily life. However, Jin Ping Mei reveals the evil of Ximen Qing and others' crazy pursuit of wealth and lust, but it lacks serious critical spirit. There are many explicit and obscene descriptions in the book, and the style is low. Jin Ping Mei profoundly reflects people's confusion when the moral norms completely collapsed at the end of feudal society, and is an artistic embodiment of the disordered society on the eve of cultural transformation.
Wu Jingyang's "Qing Dynasty Scholars" mainly criticizes the imperial examination system, satirizes the ugly behavior of the imperial examination system poisoning scholars, and profoundly exposes the corruption of official administration, social darkness and the hypocrisy and cruelty of feudal morality. The Scholars reveals the ugly essence hidden behind characters' words and deeds and social phenomena with a serious and fair attitude, highly generalized techniques and vivid and cold language, and its satirical art has reached an unprecedented height in the history of China literature.
A Dream of Red Mansions is the best realistic masterpiece in China's ancient literature, and it is also an incisive summary of ancient literature, and it can be called an encyclopedia of the end of feudalism. A Dream of Red Mansions boldly denies and criticizes the political system, patriarchal clan system, imperial examination system, marriage system and the ethics and values attached to these systems, and successfully shapes the images of Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, rebels of feudal bureaucratic families. On the one hand, A Dream of Red Mansions embodies the essence of traditional culture, promotes the spirit of advocating rationality and pursuing truth, goodness and beauty, and sublimates family daily life into the artistic conception of poetry from the aesthetic point of view; On the other hand, it reflects a profound reflection on traditional culture, especially on the value orientation of valuing groups over individuals.
Both Wu and Cao Xueqin came from feudal bureaucratic families and were deeply influenced by traditional culture. They have a keen insight into the drawbacks of the feudal system with the unique keen eyes of artists and exposed its inevitable historical fate. However, they look at this historical trend with sadness and regret. The Scholars is their elegy for the feudal system and its cultural tradition. The success of the two novels mainly lies in the profound reflection on the feudal system and traditional culture, but only the vague hope for new social forces and new cultural types. However, this sense of self-reflection from within the traditional culture is the first step towards the modernization of China culture and the first light to announce the imminent transformation of China culture.