A Study On Lv Zuqian's Ancient Prose Key

Lv Zuqian, a great Chinese classic philosopher in the Southern Song Dynasty, compiled a guidance book Ancient Prose Key for the imperial examination candidates. In this book, he made commentaries on 60 prose selected from the works produced in the Tang and Song Dynasty. He expounded on prose writing and criticism comprehensively and systematically. Thus it is said that he broke new ground and created the Chinese annotation literature. After studying this book (complete library of the four treasuers of knowledge) this thesis is to generalize Lv Zuqian's ideology and analyze his prose theory.This thesis follows the following outline:Introduction generalizes Lv Zuqian's important influences on academic thought and literature, expounds the nature and characteristic of Ancient Prose Key and introduces the current status of the research in this field.Chapter one:Lv Zuqian's main view on prose writing in Ancient Prose Key can be conclude as "laying equal stress on contents and skills" (combining "contents" and "skills"). In Ancient Prose Key, Lv Zuqian selected the prose which laid particular stress on discussion, which expressed his pragmatic view.Chapter two:The theory of Lv Zuqian in Ancient Prose Key mainly can be concluded:in the aspect of writing techniques, Lv Zuqian emphasized the conception and the internal details of a prose, that is, composition, syntax and diction. In the aspect of style criticism, it involves style annotation and style classifications. Lv Zuqian analysed the writing style of ancient prose writers of Tang and Song Dynasty and expounded his views on writing styles after commenting on the selected prose. According to the contents of each work and writing intention, he also classified the literary styles of prose.Epilogue summarizes the important influence of Ancient Prose Key in the literary history.