The Study Of Linshu’s Ancient Prose

Lin Shu was an author of ancient prose in the late Qing Dynasty. With modern feature his prose combined the advantage of both Chinese and western culture. He can convey his deep emotion and feeling through simple words, at the same time, he concentrated on the creation of artistic conception with the unique writing style of implication. The reason of his writing style can be explained by researching the contradictory result of the new and old culture affecting his mind and literary creation. The thesis will research Lin Shu and his prose in two parts.The first part describes Lin Shu’s idea about the new and old culture by researching his contradictory attitude towards the new and old culture in his early and later life.At first Lin was a aggressive revolutionist, calling to learn from the western culture to seek the resource of the social disadvantages. In order to call people to change the current corrupt social condition, he broke the limitation of the traditional literary system and wrote modern poetry, translated the western literature and created many realistic novels within his own power, however he could not do much due to his identification and ability. In his later time, he thought over the reason of the social disturbance, and he concluded that people abandoned the traditional culture. The he became a conservative leader because of the political revolution and the shift of the right to speak. So he wrote many ancient proses, summed up the ancient prose theory, selected and edited some ancient prose to spread his idea and even confronted the new culture group. He held his belief to the end that the traditional culture and ancient prose could not be abandoned.The second part write about Lin Shu’s writing style..His ancient prose has both features of the old and new culture because of the special time he was in, his argumentation, biographical literature, epitaph and travel notes were great examples. The argumentation is methodic and implicative. The biographical literature takes the advantage of Chinese and western culture, writing the normal people and casual affairs in realistic style. The epitaph abandons its grave style but concentrated on conveying the real emotion so it had artistic character. Lin first wrote the multi-burial epitaph and expanded the theme of this literary form. The travel notes are brief and refreshing with vivid character, concentrating on the description of the natural scenery but decreasing the participation of the authorLin Shu had his own unique writing style with obvious artistic beauty in the times he was in. Researching his ancient prose is a method to research Lin Shu’s writing achievement and himself.