It is of great benefit to reading, analyzing articles or guiding writing. So, lu xun said:
"Classification is good for reading articles."
Historically, genre classification has become more and more detailed with the increase of creation. Cao Pi's Canon Theory in the Three Kingdoms? In the thesis, the article is divided into four parts: commemoration, calligraphy, inscription and poetry. The classification is very rough, especially excluding a large number of narratives. In the Western Jin Dynasty, Lu Ji's Wen Fu divided the article into ten styles, which was more complete than the paper. The Selected Works compiled by Mingjun and Xiao Tong in the Southern Dynasties was later called Zhaoming Selected Works. The anthology does not choose articles from classics, philosophers and history books. Selected works
Using the popular theory of "distinguishing between writing and writing" at that time, only "writing" (literary articles) was selected, and the selected articles were divided into 38 categories with many details. Selected Works has a great influence, but its classification lacks logic and has different classification standards, but it is obviously a bit cumbersome. In the Qing Dynasty, Yao Nai compiled A Collection of Ancient Literary Words, which only focused on ancient Chinese, and divided the selected ancient Chinese works into four categories: argumentative writing, preface and postscript, recitation, calligraphy and giving answers.
Preface, imperial edict, biography (book) table, epitaph, miscellaneous notes, admonition, eulogy, ci fu, funeral sacrifice, etc. The classification of "Ancient Classics" still lacks logic, and the content and form are intertwined, which is not a scientific classification.
There are different ways to classify styles from different angles, and the details are different. When we classify ancient articles, we should not only consider the characteristics of the internal form and presentation techniques of the style itself, but also consider the scope of application of the articles, and also consider historical factors, such as the far-reaching influence of ancient classification methods, which we should take into account comprehensively. In ancient times, Wu Ne's Essay Discrimination and Xu Shizeng's Style Discrimination are the most complete works describing the differences of various styles. The article distinguishes fifty-nine styles and the style distinguishes one hundred and twenty-seven styles.
In view of the above situation, we advocate that classical Chinese should be divided into six categories first, and then details should be introduced into each category to merge popular ancient names.
The six categories of classical Chinese are: ancient prose, verse, parallel prose, verse, opera and novel. Ancient prose, rhyme and parallel prose are ancient orthodox chapters and sentences, while rhyme, drama and novel are not elegant in ancient times. Ancient orthodox literati despised popular literature such as operas, novels and rap works. In fact, popular literature such as operas, novels and rap works can not be ignored in ancient works.
The first category: ancient prose. Classical Chinese is an ordinary classical Chinese without rhyme or duality. The works of Jing, Shi, Zi and Ji are mostly ancient prose, and all kinds of narratives, expositions, lyric essays and practical writings are ancient prose. Argumentative writing, preface, postscript, recitation, calligraphy, preface, numerology, biography, epitaph, miscellaneous notes, etc. The classification in the Dictionary of Ancient Literature is all the details of classifying ancient Chinese in combination with application categories. These detailed works either focus on lyricism or narrative interpretation.
(a) focus on lyricism, including argument, preface and postscript, playing, writing, giving and answering, swamp preface, etc. "Debate" is an article that demonstrates or discriminates things, such as Jia Yi's.
On Qin and Liu Zongyuan's Differentiation of Tung Leaves. Playing Shu is an article explaining things to the monarch, such as Chao Cuo's On Gui Su Shu. "Preface", also called "narration", is used to summarize the significance of a book, and is usually placed in front of or behind the book. Such as Sima Qian's Historical Records? Preface to Taishi Gong, narrated by Xu Shen. The "postscript" is also in this order, but after a book, it is sometimes just a comment.
"Preface" evolved from the preface, which is a farewell article, such as Han Yu's "Preface to Dong Shaonan". Imperial edicts are orders issued by the emperor, such as the Luntai Marsh Order of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
Books are letters, such as Sima Qian's letter to Ren An and Bai Juyi's letter to Yuan Jiu.
"Say" is a kind of discussion, often expressing opinions on something, such as Liu Zongyuan's Talk about Snake Catcher.
(2) Biography, epitaph, miscellaneous notes, etc. Focus on narrative description. Biographies mainly describe characters, such as Sima Qian's Historical Records? Anecdotes of Lian Linchuan, Liu Zongyuan and Duan Taiwei. Some biographies are stories or fables, such as Li's Biography and Ma's Biography of Zhongshan Wolf. "Inscription" is a comment on the whole story of people or things, and most of them are engraved on monuments, such as Liu Zongyuan's Ji Zi Monument and Yongzhou Tielubu. Miscellaneous Notes can be used to write landscapes, take notes, or record feelings. For example, Liu Zongyuan's Little Stone Pond and Fan Zhongyan's Yueyang Tower are all landscapes, and most of the chapters in Shen Kuo's Meng Qian Bi Tan are notes or descriptions.
The second category: verse. Rhyme includes all kinds of rhyming poems and songs, as well as other rhymes and popular songs. Poetry is a common style. Poetry has different genres, which can be roughly divided into free verse and metrical verse.
Kindness
(1) Free verse: Ancient free verse refers to ancient verse in a broad sense, including all ancient poems that do not pay attention to the rules of word number, word number and word level. Classical poetry in a narrow sense only includes seven-character classical poetry and five-character classical poetry. The general idea of using generalized ancient poetry in this topic. Classical poetry in a broad sense includes: ① The Book of Songs and four-character poems and miscellaneous poems derived from the Book of Songs. For example, Cao Cao's Short Songs is a four-character poem that imitates the Book of Songs.
(2) Chu Ci. Chuci originated from Chu folk songs, marked by a prominent word "Xi" or a sentence or two marked by a word "Xi", and its content and techniques are romantic. Representative works include Qu Yuan's Li Sao and Nine Songs. (3) Ci-Fu originated from Chu Ci, and likes to elaborate and exaggerate. It is mainly composed of four sentences. Although it pays attention to rhyme, the sentence pattern is self-contained and can be mixed with prose sentences. In fact, it is a poem close to prose. For example, the autumn wind poem of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, Tao Qian's poem of returning home, Sima Xiangru's poem of forest, RoyceWong's poem of climbing a building, and Tu Mu's poem of Epang Palace, etc. ④ Yuefu poems. Yuefu poetry was popular in the Han, Wei, Southern and Northern Dynasties. For example, the 15-year conscription system in the Han Dynasty and Mulan Ci in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. ⑤ Classical poems in a narrow sense include five-character ancient poems and seven-character ancient poems. For example, nineteen ancient poems in the late Han Dynasty, Cai Wenji's Poems of Sorrow and Indignation, Cao Zhi's Seven Steps Poems, Tao Yuanming's Returning to the Garden and Du Fu's From Beijing to Fengxian are all famous five-character ancient poems. Bai Juyi's Song of Eternal Sorrow, Pipa Journey and Han Yu's Rock Breaking are all famous seven-character ancient poems.
(2) metrical poems. Metric poetry is an ancient poem that pays attention to the number of sentences, words and levels. Including: ① Modern poetry, which originated in the Southern Dynasties and matured in the Tang Dynasty. It was formed late, hence the name "near body". Four sentences are called quatrains, which should be even; More than eight sentences are called metrical poems (more than eight sentences are called "parallelism"), and the level and duality should be emphasized. For example, Wang Zhihuan's On the Heron Tower is a five-character quatrain, Li Bai's Looking at Lushan Waterfall is a seven-character quatrain, Wang Wei's Zhong Nanshan is a five-character poem, Li Shangyin's Jinse is a seven-character poem, and Du Fu's Sleeping Boat due to Wind Disease is an arrangement. Two words. Ci is a new poetic style, which was conceived in the late Sui and early Tang Dynasties, formed in the middle Tang Dynasty and flourished in the Song Dynasty. Such as: Su Shi, "Nian Nujiao?
red wall
Nostalgia "and" Xin Qiji "have never had fun? Gubeiting in Jingkou remembers the past. " 3 flexion. Including poems and sets of numbers. Poetry is a piece of music, and the number of sets is composed of many pieces with the same tune. Every tune is a short poem. Such as: According to legend, Ma Zhiyuan wrote a poem "Clear the sand? Is Qiu Si, Sui's Collection of Numbers a whistle? "Return to the week. As a stylistic name
Both "Ci" and "Qu" refer to the poetry genre influenced by modern poetry but different from modern poetry. Modern poetry has neat sentence patterns, and both "Ci" and "Qu" are derived from the lyrics of folk songs, mostly long and short sentences with irregular sentence patterns. Both "Ci" and "Qu" are closely related to music. Liu Xizai's "Art Outline" said: "Ci is the word that bends, and it is the song of Ci.
The appearance of "Ci" and "Qu" is the product of the development and change of Chinese. Songs can set words, and language is more popular than words. There is a difference between "north bend" and "south bend" Beiqu originated from Beiqu in Yuan Dynasty, but it was popular in Yuan Dynasty, so it was called Yuanqu.
"Nanqu" is a kind of southern song lyrics, which originated in Yuan Dynasty and prevailed in Ming Dynasty.
(3) Other rhymes. For example, "proverbs" aimed at exhortation and admonition, and "Ming" aimed at self-warning all rhyme. Zuozhuan? The ancient Yu Zhen recorded in Four Years of "xianggong" and Liu Yuxi's "Humble Room Inscription" are both famous proverbs. The works of "praise", "inscription" and "mourning" classified in the Collection of Ancient Chinese Characters include some ancient Chinese and some rhymes. "Praise" is to praise others, "epitaph" is to comment on the achievements of the civil and military officials of the imperial court or the deceased, and "mourning sacrifice" is to mourn the hanged person.
(4) Pop songs. Melody is a kind of rhyming practical writing, and it is a knowledge reading material written for the convenience of learners' reading and memory. Such as: children's literacy and enlightenment textbooks
Money, hundreds of surnames, saints, introductory reading materials of traditional Chinese medicine, medical saints, medicinal fu and so on.
The third category: parallel prose. Parallel prose is a special style in ancient China, also known as "parallel prose" and "Liu Si prose". "parallel"
The original meaning of the word "two horses" is to line up a car. The original meaning of the word "two" is spouse, and their extended meaning is in pairs. The basic feature of parallel prose is that it pays attention to the whole antithesis, which is also reflected in three aspects: first, in sentence patterns, all sentences are opposite, mainly four or six sentences; Secondly, in phonology, it is required that the dual upper sentence (sentence) and the dual lower sentence (dual) are even and opposite; Third, in rhetoric, the pursuit of rhetoric and the use of allusions. For example, an article in Preface to Wang Teng Pavilion:
When Wei is in September, the sequence belongs to Sanqiu. The water is cold and the pool is clear, and the smoke is purple. Fly on the road, worship in the scenery. Near the Emperor Changzhou, it is the old fairy temple. Mountains and clouds are heavy; Feige is full of blood, and there is no land under it. Heting ancient bamboo, the haunt of poor islands; Gui Dian Lan Gong, the posture of mountains and hills. Embroidered, Yamahara full of vision, Kawasawa full of vision. Yan Lu, the hometown of Zhong Mingding's delicious food; Ge boat maze, green finch Huanglong axis. Rainbow sells raindrops, and the color wears clouds. Sunset and lonely Qi Fei, autumn waters and sky are the same color. Fishing boats sing late, knocking on the other side of poverty and ignorance; Yan Zhen was stunned by the cold, and his voice broke Hengyang's pu.
Chinese has the characteristics of syntactic flexibility, easy parallelism and duality. Writers use this feature of Chinese to develop parallelism and antithesis into parallel prose. Parallel prose originated in the Han and Wei Dynasties and prevailed in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. At that time, phonology in China rose. Therefore, parallel prose not only pays attention to the antithesis of sentences, but also pays attention to the harmony of phonology and parallelism, and pursues the use of gorgeous rhetoric and allusions. After the rise of ancient prose in the Tang Dynasty, the parallel prose of antithetical sentences and the ancient prose of one-line prose sentences formed a situation of mutual opposition.
The details of parallel prose are the same as those of ancient prose. Narrative, argumentative, lyrical and practical essays can all be written as parallel prose. All kinds of articles, such as argumentative essays, prefaces and postscripts, recitation, calligraphy, donations, numerology, biographies, epitaphs, miscellaneous notes, etc. , can be written as a parallel prose. For example, dozens of argumentative essays in Liu Xie's Wen Xin Diao Long are all parallel essays. In particular, writing (denouncing and exposing the other party's style of writing) and mourning for sacrifice are often written as parallel prose. Such as: Biography of Beishan by Kong Zhijue, Pleading for a Pledge by Luo, Hanging the Ancient Battlefield by Li Hua and Sacrificing Qingwen by Ouyang Xiu.
The fourth category: rhyming and scattered in inclusions. Prose and verse are a combination of prose and verse. This style first comes from the translation of Buddhist scriptures, and then there is the "variation" of rap. Early "Bianwen" preached Buddhist stories. Later, there were also "Bianwen" telling folk stories and historical stories, such as "Meng Jiangnv changed"
Wen ","Wu Zixu Bianwen ". Bianwen directly gave birth to rap literature such as Zhugongdiao, Guci and Tanci, and also gave birth to opera and indirectly gave birth to novels. Traditional Chinese operas in China have both singing parts (verse) and oral parts (prose). Novels also often wear rhymes.
The fifth category: national drama. China's earliest dramas were probably "joining the army" in the Tang Dynasty and "Southern Opera" in the Song Dynasty. China's classical drama matured in Yuan Dynasty. China's classical dramas are mostly musical dramas, with both rhymes and sketches. The verse part is called "Qu" (lyrics), which is a kind of classical poetry and belongs to the category of classical Chinese. The prose part is called "Bai" (speaking and talking in plain English), which basically belongs to the category of vernacular Chinese. The popular operas in the Yuan Dynasty are called Zaju, and the lyrics of each play are "Beiqu". The popular operas in Ming and Qing Dynasties are called "Legends", and the lyrics of each play are "Nanqu". For example, The West Chamber by Wang Shifu in Yuan Dynasty, Dou Eyuan by Guan Hanqing, Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianqiu in Ming Dynasty, Fairy Palace by Hong Sheng in Qing Dynasty and Peach Blossom Fan by Kong. Beijing Opera and various local operas that emerged in the middle of Qing Dynasty are mostly musicals with four basic skills: singing and acting (dance movements, expressions, etc.). ), reading (monologues and dialogues) and fighting (martial arts movements). Classical drama emphasizes "qu", so it is called "traditional opera" drama, which is a variety introduced from the west.
The sixth category: novels. There are two kinds of ancient novels: classical Chinese novels and vernacular novels. China's classical novels include tales of the Six Dynasties and legends of the Tang and Song Dynasties. Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio has a comprehensive position. Vernacular novels include Song Yuan edition, Ming Qing edition and Zhang Hui edition.
The above classification takes care of today's concepts, as well as ancient established names and writing habits, which is convenient for reference when reading classical Chinese. However, there are two things to be clear: first, a style is constantly changing, and we must not stick to classification. For example, Fu has it.
In the four stages of development, Han Fu (also known as ancient Fu and Ci Fu) was mixed with metrical poems (mainly rhyming); Parallel prose in the Six Dynasties is very binary, between ancient prose and parallel prose. Tang law
Fu rhymes completely; After the ancient prose movement, the prose has irregular sentence patterns and random rhymes, which are close to prose. Today, some people write vernacular Chinese called "Fu" (such as "Camellia Fu" and "Pearl Fu"), which doesn't even rhyme at all, so it is not "Fu" in the ancient general sense. Second, all kinds of literary styles permeate and connect with each other, even among the three categories of ancient prose, verse and parallel prose, there is no absolute boundary. As far as a certain style is concerned, such as Epitaph, the front "inscription" is prose, and the back "inscription" is verse. Another example is "Sacrifice to Shi Man", which can be a verse, such as Ouyang Xiu's "Sacrifice to Qingwen"; But it can also be ancient Chinese, such as Han Yu's Sacrifice to Twelve Lang. As far as a single piece is concerned, for example, The Story of Yueyang Tower is a famous piece of ancient Chinese literature, but it uses a large number of four-character words, pays attention to antithesis, and often rhymes, obviously mixed with parallel prose and rhyme (fu).