A Passage to China (走近中国) - Prose

Prose recording historical events emerged along with the development of language. In the Zhou Dynasty, official historians recorded many historical facts about various kingdoms in simple and concise language. Later the historical recording were elaborated into historical literature. An example is Discourse of the States, a history of individual kingdoms. There are more speeches than actual events which are mostly spoken by some farsighted and liberal noblemen of the time.

Pre-Qin Historical Prose

Pre-Qin historical prose established the foundation for Chinese historical literature and exerted great influence on historians and writers of classical literature. Pre-Qin period was a time of great social changes at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period and the beginning of the Warring States Period. Many schools of thought contended with each other and their works further promoted the development of rational prose. For this period, there is Analects, an expounding of the ideas of humaneness of the Confucian school. It recorded the speeches and activities of Kong Qin and his disciples. Mencius recorded the speeches and of Meng Ke and his language is brisk and convincing. Other important works include Mozi, a representative of the Mohist school’s advocacy of loving all equally following a strict logic; Zhuangzi, a key work of the Taoist school that advanced on Zhuang Zhou’s claim of governing by doing nothing against nature; Hanfeizi, a legalist school’s assertion of act according to circumstances; and Xunzi, an outline of Xun Kuang’s doctrine, with clear prose in arguments and extensive in vocabulary.

Pre-Qin prose exerted great influence in terms of both content and form on the development of prose in later ages.

Prose since the Beginning of the Han Dynasty

At the beginning of the Han Dynasty prose made a lot of advances. Many writers wrote prose either commenting on the Qin Dynasty’s success and failure or putting forward their own assertions regarding the facts.

During the periods of the Wei, Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties pianwen prevailed and prose declined classical prose declined. Han Yu of the Tang Dynasty opposed the affected pianwen and advocated classical prose. Many writers followed Han’s call and began to create classical style prose. The success of the revival of classical prose established a new style of writing discarding the conventional pattern of pianwen, hence greatly promoting prose’s functions of expression and satire.

Under the influence of works created in the Northern Song Dynasty, writers produced a lot of excellent political prose putting forward the authors’ political views. The Tang and Song school opposed the classical revival movement and was joined by the Gong’ an school criticizing those scholars who slavishly imitated classical writings.

Under the influence of the Gong’ an Jingling schools, many short essays were created in late Ming Dynasty. Wang Youding and Wei Xi stood a mong the famous prose writers in the Mid-Qing Dynasty school. In contrast to this school was the Fu She Group advocating pianwen. Kang Youeri was one of the representative traditional literary forms and expressing views frankly. His essays were actually effective weapons in political struggles.

Along with criticism of feudal and classical style literature emerged new forms of literature which became the fountainhead of modern prose.

Modern Prose

In the early stages of modern literature, most influential writers of argumentation made the greatest achievements. Their works were written in the form of jotting and included a myriad of subject matters.

Early argumentation prose played an important role in the anti-feudalist struggles. Following argumentation came forth narrative prose and the sketches as modern prose entered a stage of vibrant development.

Prose created during this period had different forms and literary styles including narration, commentary and expression. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, essays with a strong militancy were created in great numbers. Prose that combined narration and lyrical expression made great achievements in Kuomintang-dominated areas.

In the early stages after new China was founded, professional and amateur writers from all walks of life created a vast amount of prose reflecting the new era. These works were in many artistic styles and on wide aspects of life. Prose during this period concentrated on two major subjects, socialist economic construction and the Korean War. Prose was also marked by diversified forms. Travelogues, sketches, jottings and essays gave full play to their function in new times and were welcomed extensively by readers.

Since1957, prose creation has received extensive attention from all circles and these works have far surpassed those of the previous period. Chinese prose creation entered a time of maturation during this period. Young and middle-aged writers formed their own artistic styles.

During the ”Cultural Revolution” culture was greatly impaired. The creation of prose ceased for the time being. After this “revolution’ people’s feelings burst forth. In the field of prose creation, a large number of articles of lament arose. The figures of these works were familiar to and respected by the people, but their deeds described had been rarely known to readers. The sentiments are not only moving but inspiring.

Since 1978 when China began to practice reform and opening up, the new exuberance of social life was first reflected in prose. Prose recollecting the writers’ experiences and feelings or revealing a philosophy of life also gained great momentum.

Travelogues also flourished during this period. They mainly continued the traditional expressive techniques of suing scenery to express the author’s feelings. Those taking up exotic scenery and landscapes as the subject are original in style and written with great craftsmanship.

Major Writers and Their Works

Sima Qian(145 BC-87BC?) and Records of the History

Records of the History plays an important role in linking the past and the future in the development of Chinese prose. It has 103 articles with more than 500,00 Chinese characters. It embodies progressive concept of history and judicial criticism of social reality. It is not only a faithful documentation of history but possesses high literary values, with a skillful characterization of many distinctive characters based on true historical materials. The narration is concise and vivid. The descriptive dramatic scenes further enhance the work’s appeal.

Ban Gu(32-92) and Chronicles of the Han Dynasty

Chronicles of the Han Dynasty has 100 articles recounting a history of 229 years. Though it can’t match Records of the History in terms of literary merit, it does include many accomplished biographical works. The language is formal and groomed, adopting lavish parallelism and ancient words. The flowery language and elegant style forms a sharp forms a sharp contrast to Records of the History.

Han Yu’s (768-824) Prose

Han Yu’s prose is rich in content and varied in form.. His novel and language made a fine model for revival of classical prose. His style is powerful, unrestrained and flexible.

Han Yu’s prose falls into 4 categories, argumentation, essay, biography and lyrical prose. He was highly committed to learning from his predecessors and made great efforts in refining current colloquial expressions. He created many new words and sayings, which became widely circulated and are still used by people today.

Liu Zongyuan’s (773-819) Prose

Liu Zongyuan’s prose is natural and fluent. A prolific writer, he created many biographies, fables and travel notes. His arguments and penetrating with strict logic and his fables contain rich imagination and profound morality in biting languages. Travelogues have been the most popular. It was from Liu Zongyuan’s writings that travelogues were developed into an independent literary genre. In simple and lively style, his prose is interesting and charming. By using a lot of short sentences his writing read like lively rhymes and are full of variation which is the result of learning from pianwen.

Wang Anshi’s (1021-1086) Prose

Wang Anshi’s prose focuses on the problems of society, politics and life and became a weapon in political struggles.

Most of his proses are writings in argument form. He appealed to readers not by resorting to sentiment, but through incisive analysis of current social ills and unequivocal assertions. So the prose is forceful and logical, expressed in a simple, concise and profoundly conceived language.

Ouyang Xiu’s (1007-1072) Prose

Ouyang Xiu’s works contain both narrative and lyrical qualities that best illustrate his achievements in prose creation. Most of his works described the daily scenery of the four seasons.

The general style of Ouyang Xiu’s prose is characterized with concise narration and fluid argumentation in diversified, light and lively language.

Su Shi’s Prose

Su Shi is a prominent writer in Chinese literature, highly accomplished in poetry and prose. His works are regarded as the height of literary achievement of the Northern Song Dynasty. He also left behind a lot of correspondence, miscellaneous writings and fragmentary argumentation. They express the writer’s views and love of life and art. His prose seamlessly blends rationality thinking and imagery.

Lu Xun’s Prose

Lu Xun’s essays reflected his image as an committed revolutionary. They cover a wide range of topics with two major points. First, they reflect Chinese society with considerable depth and breadth. Second, his essays look hard at the question of reforming the weakness in Chinese character.

His essays are intensely figurative. The logic is embodied through distinctive images and his writings are of strong artistic appeal. The style is free and diverse, and short commentary is the most frequently used form.

He is also the important founder of modern prose poems. His works fall into two categories; satire of everyday life and attack on corrupted politics; his own depression and struggles to find a way out.

Wild Grass is a fine work of symbolism. The various images created by way of symbolic metaphors have great artistic appeal.

His reminiscent prose was compiled in Dawn Blossoms Collected at Dusk.Some works follow the traditions of classical prose- simple narration imbued with profound though. His retrospection on past days is accompanied by criticism of social reality.

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