Early Han Political Thesis

The political essays at the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty(the same below) are the"special flower"in the"literary garden"during that era, and they play significant role in the history of the Chinese literature. However, the former experts and scholars paid more attention to the individual writers or their works, and they haven't done much research on the political essays as a whole. In fact, the features of the political essays are obvious. For example, with almost the same historical background, their literary form(mixture of parallel prose and Fu) and their language sincerity are hardly different, especially in Jiayi's and Chaocuo's works.Chapter One, introduction. This part gives the definition of the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty, the political essays as well as their range of research, explains the writers and their works in brief, meanwhile introduces the present research situation.Chapter Two, historical background. At the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty, the government faced a lot of problems. Firstly, it was the political difficulties at home and abroad. Inside the country, the feudal princes, especially the Liu's princes' rebellion was the threat to the government. Outside the country, Xiongnu's invasion made the situation worse. Secondly, it was the economic disorder. Agriculture and business turned upside down, the peasants were poverty-stricken and the businessmen were wealthy. The grain reserves were scarce. Meanwhile, because of the existence of minting coins among the people, monetary system was in disorder. Finally, it was the ideological belief of the emperor Huang and Lao Tzu. At the same time, the etiquette was violated. At the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty, people mainly believed in the emperor Huang and Lao Tzu, so they didn't attach much importance to Confucianism. Etiquette, the important part of Confucianism was in disorder.Chapter Three, the direction against. The complicated historical background caused the political essays to come into being. In order to hope the Western Han Dynasty to exist longer, the writers, especially Jiayi and Chaocuo wrote a lot of political essays aimed at politics, economics and ideology, either explaining and solving the political and economic problems, or strengthening the construction of etiquette and summing up the experiences of the downfall from Qin Dynasty.Chapter Four, literary features. We'll discuss the mixed literary forms, the structures, language features and different styles in this part. The political essays lie in the forming period of the parallel prose and the growing period of Fu, so they have the characteristics of the parallel prose(antithesis) and Fu(description at great length, the question-and-answer form between the host and guest). They will be discussed in greater detail from the history of the parallel prose and Fu. The structures of the political essays are better than those of the pre-Qin days. We can predict the main ideas of the essays from their topics respectively, their arguments are various and their demonstrations are more logical. Language features include emotion, frankness, extreme and vividness, they'll be discussed in detail too. Writers, especially Jiayi and Chaocuo, their styles are different. Jiayi's language is graceful, however, Chaocuo's language is simple. We will discuss the reasons of their difference.Chapter Five, the influences. The political essays have important influences on the literature for the later ages. When the difficult situation arises in the following dynasties, writers usually write a lot of political essays against it and sum up the historical experiences for their consideration. So the place of the political essays in literary history is self-evident.