The Theoretical Contribution Of Classical Prose Movement Leaded By Han Yu And Liu Zongyuan

From Qin on, free prose is the main genre used to keep information and describe one's feelings. There is no exception for the involuted The Book of Documents as well as proses written by Confucius, Mencius and so on. After Han free prose still plays a dominant role although descriptive prose interspered with verse begins to develop. The typical example os so,a Qoam's The Historical Records as well as Ban Gu's The History of the Han Dynasty. Since Wei and Jin Dynasty, the most popular genre is that of prose whose chief aim is to entertain the aristocrats and the upper-class writers, and many famous writers and masterpieces appear. They emphasizes the beautiful ness of form-the ornate Language and rigid rhyme pattern, in order to express their vulnerable and dishonest feelings as well as their enjoyment of extravagant life. Besides they obey the rules of using allusions, metaphors and metrical-devices, which makes the prose become a kind of word game played by few people. After Western 5:0 and Eastern Sin because of the culture privilege controlled by some factions and he influence of court literature of Nan Dynasty, almost all the written discourses are prose with ornate form, and the pursuit of form reaches its summit, which makes literature develop in an abnormal way. Many wise people realize the bad influence of formalism and criticize it existing in literature, ideology and politics. The king of Sui Dynasty takes part in this movement himself and demands that literature should pursue practicality instead of ornate language. In the Middle of Tang Dynasty Chen Zi'ang, Xiao Yingshi, Li Hua, Gu Du and So on leaded by Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan take part in this movement. They reveals the influnce of the ornate style of prose, theoretically and practically, which gives the first blow to ornate prose. Thus they obtain glorious victory of classical prose movement. In this movement they put forward this kind of literary ideas that the prose style should be innovated and demand that literature should reflect social reality and serve the political reform and literature should becreated in a fluent and clear style. They creates many works guided by these theories, which is really innovation under the name of recovering the classical prose and changes the writing style of prose. In Cai Yuanpei's words, "Classical prose movement is a literary reformation joined by many writers." It contributes to the final establishment of new prose style in ancient China.UUnder the guidance of their theories, many genres such as political articals, epitaphs, legends and so on take the new style to criticize different aspects of life, discuss the government, express the unjustice, describe the natural scenery, shape the image of literary character, narrate historical events and so on. In a word all the things including national events, letters between friends, legendary story, geographical scenery as well as living beings in the world can be fully expressed in prose. The classical prose movement changes the approach of writing and becomes the model of later writing. Both their theoretical claim and writing practice contribute to the development and maturity of prose art. The most important is that it lays firm foundation for the reflourishing of prose in Song Dynasty. Owing to the continuing afford of Ou Yangxiu, Wang Anshi and so on, the Ornate prose ends up with failure.The classical prose movement leaded by Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan is "a landmark in the prose development in China." It has a profound influence on the innovation and development of other genres and the Chinese teaching.