On Chinese Ancient Essays

With a long and glorious history for thousands of years, Chinese literature outstands from the literary world brilliantly. Despite the fact that Tang and Song poems occupy a major part in Chinese literature, essays can't be placed out of such long literary history. They are formed into an unceasing stream, out of which water sprays from time to time. So, boundless vigor and vitality has ever been converged into Chinese literature. In their own development they experienced countless twists and turns, broke through blockings, "survived" from doubts and made great contributions to Chinese literature prosperity. Essays are concise, subtle and direct for they contain daily life events and, thanks to these little events, express human's emotions cordially and reveal profound philosophical ideas.Over the years academic research on essays doesn't reach a full understanding and also lack of in-depth studies. Researchers haven't achieved an agreement on such basic problems as the conceptualizations of essays, their styles and status. It goes as the saying "different people look at a thing in different way". Few involve these problems but take a detour, intentionally or unintentionally, to focus on the late Ming Dynasty essays. As far as research on ancient essays is concerned, little is related on a comprehensive and in-depth exploration of their historical developments, styles and uniqueness.Therefore this paper involves a comprehensive understanding of ancient essays, especially for pre-Qing Dynasty ones. They develop through four stages: infancy, consciousness, maturity, prosperity and declining. On the basis of this division, a profound and systematic study is carried out to illustrate such problems as the conceptualizations of essays, features, classifications and their relations with ancient prose and novels. This study consists of four parts as follows, which will lay a foundation for further study.A brief introduction is mainly related to research background, significance, content and approach. Generally speaking, since 1920's, through years of hard working, great attention has been aroused in academic research on ancient essays. And as time goes, the scope of study has been and, will be, broadened increasingly. However, as some obvious problems still exist, this study involves the historical developments of ancient essays, classifications, features and their relations with other stylistic literary works. Chapter one contains a brief historical development of ancient essays. An historical outline is carried out to discuss the unique features of ancient essays in each development.The period of Qin and Han Dynasties is regarded as the infancy of ancient essays. The essays in this period present in brief paragraph clips, without being formed into independent pieces, which can only be read in historical prose and prose of various scholars. These clips are simple, brief but meaningful. For example, they are closely related to a quality of ironies, a vigor of the authors' emotions and ambitions, and a host of serious life philosophy. With a simple style, fables can be viewed as a major role occupied. Also, words are concise and fluent, vivid and implicit.The period of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties is considered as a conscious era for Chinese literature, and also for ancient essays. In this era a number of independent pieces presents with simple structures. Some describe beautiful landscapes, others express human emotions. Some illustrate there really is good in the world, others say there really is departure with a feeling of sadness. With fresh and intriguing words, these essays mainly stress on sincere human emotions.Ancient essays reach the period of maturity in Tang and Song Dynasties just as Tang and Song poems do. They can't be neglected despite the fact Tang and Song poems occupy a major part in this period, for an increasing number of ancient essays present more complete creative approaches.Then, Ancient essays come to a period of prosperity in Ming Dynasty. They are unprecedented, flouring and fresh. In this period more writers are involved in, presenting a great number of outstanding works. Besides, theoretical research is also carried out in guidance of such creation. In turn, with a lot of new elements the essays in this period are colorful and diverse; writers also create their own uniqueness and more sincere emotions.However, the number of essays in Qing Dynasty decline rapidly even though they develop very well before, for literary creation is largely taken up by novels. So, at that time ancient essays show a decline in the number of creators and in the pieces of works as well.Chapter two is focused on the stylistic features of the ancient essays: diversity and uniqueness. It takes a long history for ancient essays to develop from clips to pieces and to obtain qualitative recognition and formal naming. In different periods they present themselves in different styles. And in Late Ming Dynasty they eventually come to a period of prosperity due to the fact that all the styles can be viewed and researched. This chapter highlights these essays' styles: bibliographies, travelogues, fables, prefaces and postscripts, letters, notes, inscriptions, mourning elegiac addresses, and proverbial style of Qing essays. They are unique for their dependence and independence as well. One the one hand, they are originated in the Pre-Qin; they are dependent on historical prose and prose of various scholars. Also, they are dependent on ancient novels and poetry, for they present themselves in different styles. On the other hand, ancient essays are attributed to an independent item, because they have their own identity even though they have experience downs and ups in development.Chapter three is involved in discussing language features of ancient essays in two aspects: form and content. In form they are brief but meaningful. In content they are closely related to a large scope of life events such as folk festivals, magnificent events, outstanding figures, and intellectuals' humor including their proper diet and living habits.Chapter four comes to a conclusion. It contains aesthetic features of ancient essays in four sets of convergence: lyrical and philosophical, knowledgeable and humorous, traditional and stylistic, full of images and metaphors.It can be seen that creators can draw a lot from men and from the infinite. Essays are then seen to present lyrical aesthetics, without time and space limited, once creators have response to the emotional objects. They can express their personal emotions artificially. Therefore, lyrics are viewed in convergence of philosophy. When essays are appreciated, there really is a vigor of emotions and a quality of wisdom.It is also seen that there is a wide scope of social events in ancient essays, such as politics, economics, culture, and history, folk and natural sceneries. Readers can obtain a wealth of knowledge and understand social developments as well. Therefore, knowledge is viewed in convergence of humor. When essays are appreciated, readers can feel interesting and humorous for there really is a quality of imagination.Ancient essays are nourishing from a long history of Chinese traditional culture and from ancient prose for years. Certainly they can come to a period of maturity and present themselves in unique style. There are two reasons why they can last for two thousands of years. One is that they are rooted in the fertile soil of national culture. The other is that they are seen, in their infancy, to attempt to break away from the fetters of prose and to establish their own identity.After a study of ancient essays in different periods, it can be found that a quality of imagination presents in ancient essays. In narration they contain a host of humorous, ironic and dramatic programs, from which readers can understand social life better and also feel funny, annoyed and thought- provoking as well. In performance they are attached to the combination of narrative, descriptive and argumentative techniques. Objects, natural sceneries are described in response to human emotions, and they are in perfect harmony with each other. In word diction they are seen concise and direct. Both similes and metaphors are made full use of to illustrate hidden ideas. Thus, from these three aspects the unique aesthetics are noticeable in ancient essays.