Throughout the history of China's classical literature, poetry and prose, like the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, cross the history of prose development. In fact, the development history of prose is also a history of constant change, differentiation and evolution. We can see that every creative peak or theoretical research climax is accompanied by the renewal of creative themes, creative techniques, creative styles, creative theories and creative concepts. Therefore, we should not only examine the static existence of prose in a certain historical environment, but also examine its dynamic formation and change in a certain period. Every division of it can be regarded as the expansion of the field it refers to, and every change can be regarded as a supplement to the past prose creation and theory. In this way, we can break through the research habit of defining the category of prose once and for all, enrich its text and theory in the process of continuous development, and finally form a flexible and good development trend, which not only provides us with many useful inspirations, but also leaves some questions that still need to be asked.

The development of essays in the 20th century, such as essays, in which "what people say, what people can't say and who dare not say" [1] is true, true and interesting. The rise and prosperity of essays are obviously related to English essays, that is, the development of essays in China is not only due to China's long history, but also due to foreign literature. 19 18 years, Hu Shi mentioned for the first time in the article "On the Literary Revolution of Construction" that there are many foreign prose styles worth learning, and there are many "genres that China never dreamed of" [2]. Since then, Fu Sinian put forward the concept of "prose" for the first time, and introduced the English prose guide to the China prose circle. In How to Make a Style of Vernacular Chinese, he put forward that prose is "limited to miscellaneous styles, and only English prose is first-class" [3]. However, these words did not attract people's attention. It was not until June 192 1 Zhou Zuoren specially introduced and advocated the publication of "Beautiful Essays" that it attracted the attention of prose writers. He clearly pointed out that "there is a so-called thesis in foreign literature, which can be roughly divided into two categories." First, criticism is academic, and second, it is narrative and artistic, which is called beautiful writing. Here, narrative and lyric can be separated, but there are also many mixtures. This kind of American writing seems to be the most developed among people in English-speaking countries, such as Addison, Lamb, Owen and Hawthorne, which are very famous in China. Recently, Gao Siwei, Ji Xin and chesterton are also good writers of American writing "[4]. Zhou Zuoren's introduction has opened the door to a treasure house of exotic prose and provided a new frame of reference for new literature writers who explore the creation of modern prose style. Since then, there has been an upsurge in the translation and introduction of French and Western prose in China. As some literary historians have said, "The translations of German Nietzsche, English essayist, Turgenev, Baudelaire, Tagore and Wilde were scattered in a large number of newspapers and magazines at that time. At that time, famous prose writers were familiar with foreign languages and could read and ponder foreign prose treasures directly without translation. In the translation and introduction of British and American essays, Japanese sketches, German aphorisms, Russian, French, German, Spanish and Indian essays and prose poems, modern China writers have enriched the artistic techniques of prose and improved their ability to express their lives. The introduction of foreign prose has effectively promoted the growth of China's modern prose "[5]. Indeed, there are obvious traces of western prose in the works of many writers in China's modern prose history.

1928, Zhu Ziqing wrote "On Modern China", pointing out that even Zhou Zuoren, who thought that modern prose originated from essays in the Ming Dynasty, was obviously influenced by foreign countries. "And the rest of the writers, sometimes more foreign influence, like Mr. Lu Xun and Mr. Xu Zhimo" [22]. Yu Dafu also said later: "The influence of English prose is a deep-rooted potential force in our intellectual class that will not be eliminated in another ten or twenty years." Like the late prose writer Mr. Liang Yuchun, some people call it Elijah of China. It is at this end that we can also imagine the great and profound influence of English prose on us [6]. On the other hand, foreign prose theory has also played an important role in the development of China's modern prose. Following Zhou Zuoren, Wang Tongzhao wrote the classification of prose and introduced the characteristics and functions of English prose according to the exposition of prose in Hande's monograph "An Introduction to Literature". Hu's Whispering Prose not only discusses the important features of Whispering Prose, but also summarizes the inheritance and transformation of this style since Montaigne and Bacon. Such a lengthy summary of the history of English prose is Mao Rusheng's Evolution and Art of English Prose in the 1930s. The most influential theoretical translation is the book Out of the Ivory Tower by Masaaki Shirakawa, a Japanese literary critic translated by Lu Xun. Among them, Essays and Essays and News Magazine introduce chapters of western prose, which have become classic expositions often cited by China prose writers and prose theorists.