The article is introduced as follows:
Essays are the earliest literary papers put forward by literary theorist Liu Xie, which generally refer to other styles besides poetry, ode, praise and praise. Essay is a kind of literary paper that directly and quickly reflects social events or trends. Its characteristics are "miscellaneous and literary", short and pithy, meaningful, rich in the color of literary and art workers and the language of poetry, and unique artistic appeal.
In the fierce social struggle, essays are sharp weapons for fighting. For example, Lu Xun's essays, like "daggers" and "spears", stab all dark hearts. In the era of peaceful construction, it can also play the role of a megaphone, praising the truth, goodness and beauty, and lashing the false, evil and ugly. For example, articles such as "Zhuang Zhou buys water" and "Shaving your head" are like this.
Liu Xie, a literary theorist in the Southern Dynasties (Liang Dynasty), was the first person in the history of China literature to put forward the concept of "essays" as an independent style. He wrote a chapter "Essays" in Wen Xin Diao Long.
On the one hand, he summed up the creation of previous essays and named it "Essays". On the other hand, he listed three types of prose since Qin and Han Dynasties, among which Song Yu's Answer to the King of Chu, Mei Cheng's Seven Hair and Yang Xiong's Julian are the earliest representative works. But in fact, as early as the rise of pre-Qin prose, essays have also appeared. Qin Baijia's articles are actually essays.
Later, the essay had a new development. Han Yu's essays in the Tang Dynasty, Liu Zongyuan's essays on tung leaves, Pi Rixiu's essays in the late Tang Dynasty, Lu Guimeng's essays in Luo Yin's essays, and Liu Ji's Poems on Orange Juice in the Ming Dynasty are all famous masterpieces.
Essays not only have the earliest origin, but also have a high status from the beginning. As Ban Gu said: "The sage flows, and it is built from the official. He is both Confucianism and Mohism, and he has the same name and the same law. He knows that the country has this, and it is not contrary to the king, and it is better than it. " It can be seen that essays played a great role in the society at that time.