Abstract: For a long time, the concept of prose is vague. Today, people's understanding of its function is still confusing. One is that it can't be distinguished from non-literary prose, and the other is that it can't be distinguished from novels and poems. To truly understand prose, we must re-examine, sort out and define it from the basic and specific functions of prose on the basis of understanding the work of predecessors.
Prose is a very vague concept for a long time. The vague understanding of the concept of prose directly leads to people's vague understanding of literature. The author thinks it is necessary to re-examine and sort out this popular and seemingly simple concept and make a clearer definition.
First, the definition of European and American prose
In ancient Greece, people divided written works into two categories: verse and prose. The beauty of rhyme is often called poetry (epic, lyric, tragedy, comedy) in rhyme and literary talent; Prose is a literary work (historical, philosophical, scientific and other academic works) that lacks the above characteristics. In the Oxford English Dictionary, prose means a style different from verse. For a long time, "prose" in English means: (1) prose and prose, for example, newspapers are written in prose (news is prose); (2) Ordinary, monotonous and boring, such as: essays that escape from existence; (3) Boring words and comments, such as: He published a long essay, (he published a long and boring speech). Prose obviously refers to a straightforward, ordinary, monotonous and unimaginative style. Ancient Europeans seem to have little affection for this boring style. Many scholars use verse to write academic works. The most famous, such as Lucretius's Theory of Nature, turned out to be a long poem written in six steps. When analyzing this phenomenon, Pei Wei Kerr pointed out: "Ignorant people have a natural aversion to listening to any continuous story without narration. A lot of boring encyclopedias with rhyming poetry, science, history and moral textbooks are enough to prove that people are unwilling to accept prose to do that kind of ordinary and boring work. " Nevertheless, a number of immortal prose works were produced in the ancient west, such as the historical works of Herodotus, Thucydides and Tacitus, the philosophical and theological works of Plato, Aristotle and Saint Augustine, and the Bible was basically written in prose. Of course, the prose referred to here is only one kind of "prose", not the literary prose discussed in this paper. In the west, the ancients' understanding of prose is actually the understanding of prose, and there is no distinction between prose and literary prose.
During the Renaissance, a branch of prose began to enter the field of literature, that is, novels, such as Boccaccio's decameron and Cervantes' Don Quixote. Of course, this is not literary prose, but literary prose.
The French have taken a gratifying step in literary prose. 1580, Montaigne published "Trial Pen" (also translated as "Essay"), which broke through the boring traditional prose style and created the first attempt of a new literary prose style. Its main features are: it does not require grand structure, rigorous weather and meticulous logic of essays on philosophy and history, abandons abstract and obscure arguments and tedious reasoning, and endows the article with images, wisdom and interest, with lively and natural writing, cordial and beautiful artistic conception and rich poetry. "Trial writing" has become a milestone, marking the formal birth of a new style-literary prose in Europe. Soon, the test pen was translated and introduced to Britain, where it blossomed immediately, and Bacon's essays were the most dazzling pearl. Under the influence of Montaigne and Bacon, literary prose became popular in Europe, and a large number of famous literary essays were born.
However, the paper is only one of several papers, often drifting away from the edge of academic papers. Therefore, it is not regarded as an independent literary style in western literary theory, and even whether it belongs to literature is uncertain. In the west, literature is divided into narrative, lyric and drama. There seems to be no clear positioning of literary prose, let alone a clear definition of literary prose. Taking Encyclopedia Britannica (2007 edition) as an example, the book points out: "It is a very challenging task to define non-fiction prose", "Its definition can only be broad, and it is not expressed as poetry, novel or drama", and there is no clear definition of prose, only "prose poetry": "Short works can have literature-related prose in Italy:" Native literature " Guido Faber, the founder of Italian artistic prose style and a rhetoric professor in Polonia, used Latin adaptation as a classroom example. Guido Faber's most famous followers, Guiot En and Aliro, tend to adopt a gorgeous style full of figures of speech. Different from Ottern's style, Storrow and Aliro's clear scientific essays on the world (1282) and stories with simple narrative style (written at the end of 13 and published at 1525). /kloc-The masterpiece of prose in the 3rd century is Danti's Vitanhova. Although Danti didn't use native prose completely freely, he integrated simple style into extremely exquisite and poetic prose. The power of this kind of poetry comes from the mysterious depth outside some key words. "It can be seen that Europe and America do not have a clear definition in literary prose.
Second, China's definition of prose.
The concept of "prose" was first used by ancient Chinese, which was quoted by Luo Dajing in He Lu in the Southern Song Dynasty: "Being confined to the ear, its conception and wording are rich and delicious, which is different from prose." This is the concept corresponding to "parallel prose", that is, prose. Luo Rongrong, a Qing Dynasty man, clearly combed the development and changes of China's ancient prose: "Since prose started, why should it be scattered?" Before the Western Han Dynasty, he was simple and elegant, had no worries about chores, and was neither ill nor wild. ""Qin Zhou was arrested in the early Han Dynasty, and Pian San was divided into generations; The Western Han Dynasty began in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the generation of Pian San contended. Parallel prose was the most prosperous generation from Wei Jin to Tang Dynasty. Ancient prose stood up in the middle Tang Dynasty, but Zhao and Song lost their strategy. Prose flourished and parallel prose took its place; Song Liu Si, the aftermath of parallel prose; Parallel prose was better than parallel prose in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and prose poetry flourished in the late Ming Dynasty, but parallel prose was not as good as prose poetry. Kong Guangsen's Answer to Zhu Cangmei also said: "The prose of the Six Dynasties is nothing more than a parallel style, but it is vertical and horizontal, which is the same as prose. "It can be seen that all the prose in ancient China can be called" prose "as opposed to verse and parallel prose. There is no difference between literary prose and non-literary prose. Although there is the concept of "prose", it is not today's literary prose.
Around the May 4th Movement, people began to redefine prose from the perspective of function. 192 1 Zhou Zuoren clearly defined and established the position of literary prose in China literature for the first time with the concept of "beautiful prose": "There is a so-called essay in foreign literature, which can be roughly divided into two categories, one is critical and the other is academic. Second, it describes art, which is also called beautiful writing. There can be narration and lyricism, but there are also many two kinds of inclusions ... The preface, narration and narration in China's ancient prose can also be said to be a kind of American literature, but there is no such article in China literature at present. Why don't people who are engaged in new literature try it ... There are many ideas that can neither be novels nor poems (this is only from the genre, but American literature is also novels in nature). His conditions are the same as all literary works, only true and concise. "
As an accomplished essayist, Zhu Ziqing gave a clear definition of prose from two aspects of style and function: "According to the classification of poetry and prose, novels, dramas (except a few poetic dramas and rhymes in a few dramas) and' prose' in new literature are all prose. Needless to say, documents, statements, etc. It is also prose, but it is usually not included in literary works. Here we are going to use quotation marks to explain this essay. It is an independent department of new literature, combined with poetry, novels and dramas, or vernacular prose, or lyric prose, or essays. This essay is very narrow, as can be seen from the names of' lyric essay' and' essay'. Prose is the abbreviation of famous works, but now it also contains the meaning of "trivial things around us" or "homely style", so it has the purpose of "knickknack". This style has been popular for some time in recent years. We usually say prose, but in fact we only mean this. In my opinion, the trend of this kind of prose is humor, travel notes, autobiography and book club. "
Later, Yu Dafu further clarified four characteristics of literary prose in the introduction of China New Literature Series Two Proses:
The greatest feature of modern prose is that every writer's personality expressed in every prose is stronger than any previous prose.
The second feature of modern prose lies in the expansion of its scope. In the past, prose was limited to respecting the monarch, defending morality and filial piety. Modern prose, the universe is big and flies are small, and both are indispensable. The third feature of modern prose is humanism, sociality and harmony with nature. The author has never forgotten himself, nor nature and society. Even the purest lyric prose of the poet always emphasizes the relationship between people or between people and society when it comes to romance. Holding a book in your arms, you can see the world in a grain of sand and talk about human feelings in a half-braided flower.
Finally, it is necessary to explain the humorous taste of prose that has only recently become strong, which is of course one of the characteristics of modern prose and an extremely important point.
1930s, China literary circles used to call essays, and pushed their origins to the classical and the west. Zhou Zuoren said: "I think the origin of China's new prose is the combination of the public security school and English essays." Hu called the essay "prose in prose", and its main feature is that the author's personality is integrated into it: "Its characteristics are personal, and everything comes from personal subjectivity, which is completely different from those impersonal objective criticisms, arguments, narratives and scenery descriptions. Because it is written casually, trivial and casually, its characteristics are irregular and informal. However, there are amazing whimsy, ingenious writing, specious irony, paradox of right and wrong, cynicism, ingenuity, epigrams, and the most touching thing is enthusiasm and humor. " There was a heated debate about the function of essays at that time. Lin Yutang proposed that essays should be "self-centered, with leisure as the style"; Lu Xun, on the other hand, is tit for tat. He thinks: "The essay of survival must be a dagger, something that can throw a gun and fight our way out with readers." Since then, there has been little new progress in the definition of prose in academic and creative circles.
Third, the redefinition of prose.
Investigate the development history of the concept and characteristics of prose, and then define prose from the following aspects:
(A) the stylistic features and functional features of prose
Today people realize that prose is mainly used as a literary concept, and the function of literary prose is aesthetic rather than practical, which is the most basic and important function of prose. Then, in order to clarify the main works of the concept of literary prose, we should first start with the functional staff, not from the arrangement of language and words and the rhythm of phonology.
If the function of prose is divided into two categories: practicality and aesthetics, then the numerous ancient prose, such as philosophy, history, science and academic works, belongs to the former, while the landscape travel notes, personal letters and random thoughts that express personal feelings and have artistic appeal belong to the latter. The function of literary prose is to convey emotion, infect readers and embody aesthetic value; The function of non-literary prose is to spread knowledge, promote truth and solve specific affairs in work and life.
Of course, we should also see that there are a number of excellent essays, which were produced in ancient times without literary prose, and most of them are practical essays. However, with the passage of time, their basic functions gradually changed, the initial practical functions faded or even disappeared, and the aesthetic function of literature became prominent and gradually became the main function. In this way, they lose the basic characteristics of practical style and become popular literary prose. For example, Chen Qingbiao, written by Li Mi in Jin Dynasty, was originally written as a recitation, and it was a report for instructions in official document writing, which was highly targeted, purposeful and practical. However, today, it is a rare beautiful article with sincere and graceful aesthetic characteristics.
Therefore, we can draw a preliminary conclusion: the primary characteristics of literary prose are emotion and aesthetics.
Stylistic Compatibility of Prose and Its Measure
The definition of literary prose should also be examined from the performance characteristics. There are novels, poems, plays, etc. Both perceptual and aesthetic, they are obviously different.
Read the novel first. Stylistically, novels and essays are quite close. But the aesthetic function of the novel is realized through fictional characters, plots and scenes. Although it is fictional, it provides readers with a very safe illusory space where they can enter, watch and participate, with characters, their life experiences and inner experiences as the basic and main description objects. Prose is not. First, the basic writing of prose is realistic: real people, real scenes and true feelings. Second, prose does not take characters, plots and scenes as essential elements. Third, prose can show readers illusory pictures, but it does not provide readers with illusory living space like novels. The difference between Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Garden and Cao Xueqin's Dream of Red Mansions is as great as the difference between prose and novel.
Looking at poetry again, on the surface, the difference between poetry and prose is simple and clear in form, but in fact, the style of prose is more loose, flexible and free than poetry, and it does not pay attention to the structure and form of language like poetry. Typical prose has no meter and is closer to the language of daily life than poetry. Both poetry and prose pay attention to artistic conception, but they are different in creating artistic conception: the main secret of creating artistic conception by poetry is to arrange some psychological gaps for readers, so that readers' thinking can gallop freely in this information enclave; The way of creating artistic conception in prose is to induce readers' life experience by showing the complete and true impression of foreign objects, so that readers' experience and cognition of foreign objects can be summarized as those other than foreign objects. Taking the paper assignment assigned by a professional teacher in a writer's workshop in a university as an example, this paper explains two sentences in Wei's Xixi Chuzhou: "The spring tide is late and the rain is in a hurry, and no one is crossing the boat in the wild." Students rewrite it into "prose" according to the teacher's requirements;
In the evening, the spring rain is like a note, the spring tide is lapping on the shore, and the ferry in the wilderness is deserted. Only one boat is washed ashore by the river alone.
The teacher pointed out that this passage can't be called real prose, but it just scatters the poem and is still a "translation" of the original poem. Students rewrite it:
In the evening, the spring rain fell more tightly. In the rustling rain, there was a faint sound of the rising tide of the river, and the air was filled with the mixed smell of rain, river water and soil, grass roots and leaves peculiar to the wilderness. Further on, it's the ferry. The river is rising, and in the shallow water on the shore, green weeds stick out of the water and struggle wearily. The misty rain curtain thickened the twilight, and the mountains and banks on the other side became distant, illusory and looming. The boat is like a leaf falling into the water, lying on the shore, fluctuating with the river …
This passage is not a masterpiece, but it shows the prospect, background and details, and it is a real prose. Compared with the original poem, it is mainly not different in style, but provides a more specific situation, conveys richer information, shortens the psychological distance between readers and the specified situation, and is essentially different from poetry.
Relatively speaking, there are obvious differences in form and function between prose and script, which will not be expanded here.
From this, we can see the stylistic characteristics of literary prose by investigating the connections and differences between contemporary literary prose and other literary forms. But the problem is that while grasping the "prose style compatibility", we should also pay attention to the difference scale. Since prose is a member of the literary family, it must have the same blood and gene functions as novels and poems-aesthetic and enjoyment functions, the same expression symbols-vivid, vivid and touching language, the same expression means-vivid description and rich lyric atmosphere, and the same rhetoric method. The difference between them is not the difference of overall function, but the difference of specific function; It is not the difference of spiritual images, but the difference of specific forms of expression, thus forming the difference of different literary categories.
(C) the essay view of this article
To sum up, this article's understanding of prose is:
First, prose is a literary form as opposed to verse, which does not need neat sentence structure, beautiful rhyme and rhyme like poetry.
Secondly, prose can be divided into literary prose and non-literary prose. Non-literary prose refers to prose that has nothing to do with literature: expository prose, practical prose, philosophy, history, science and other academic works. Literary prose (prose for short in this paper) is a literary genre juxtaposed with poetry, novels and plays. Its emotion and aesthetics show the author's understanding, feeling and interest in nature, society and life. Different from other literary forms, prose is random in materials and flexible in system. It usually does not take fiction as the basic or main means, but often takes real people, events, objects and scenes as the creative objects, from which human feelings, reason, interest and rhyme are excavated or noted, and a beautiful artistic conception is constructed, paying attention to the beauty of expression, spirit, wisdom and emotion.
Thirdly, prose is a dynamic style. To deeply understand literary prose, we should not be limited to the literal meaning of prose, but also pay attention to the continuous development and changes of this literary form. For example, "graceful prose" in 1960s+0920s, "essays" in 1960s+091930s, "cultural prose" in 1960s+0990s, and "blog prose" in 20th century are all obvious examples of dynamic representation of prose. Prose family has been in the process of continuous development and enrichment.