The Ancient Prose Theory And Criticism Of Wu Kaisheng

Ancient Chinese prose theory and criticism, as an important part of Chinese literary criticism, has considerable research significance with its distinctive national features and unique discourse system. The Tongcheng School in the Qing dynasty, famous in the world, is a master of ancient prose creation and criticism. Wu Kaisheng, as one of the representatives of Tongcheng School, further promotes the development of the theory of Tongcheng prose and expands its influence. This paper is divided into five parts to study ancient Chinese prose theory and criticism of Wu Kaisheng respectively.The first chapter discusses Wu’s pursuit of heroic style. It briefly introduces his life and analyzes its critical principles from his different attitudes towards the eight Tang-song prose masters. Meanwhile, Wu particularly concerns the essays of Han Feizi because of its preferences to heroic style, which becomes one of the features of his ancient prose criticism.The second chapter analyzes the heroic style revealed in criticism and shows his pursuit of such art style from the perspective of ancient prose writing style, trying to restore the classical prose criticism discourse system. It mainly introduces the connotation and classification of "Nibi", "Duncuo" and "Zhuanbi" writing styles.The third chapter introduces Wu’s higher pursuit of ancient prose, which called the Shenwen Quzhi, and the literary ideas behind it. Though Wu advocates the heroic style, he doesn’t regard it as the perfect state of essays.Yet Shenwen Quzhi stands for his higher pursuit. This chapter mainly discusses the connotation, manifestation form and writing styles of Quzhi. At the same time, it also roughly describes the ancient prose concept of Wu’s Wenzong Sandai. Whether advocating heroic style or pursuing Shenwen Quzhi, Wu always deems the ancient Sandai’s essays as the highest sample.The fourth chapter attempts to trace the roots of Tongcheng literary theory in order to analyze Wu’s inheritance and development of Tongcheng literary theory. It mainly studies Wu’s elaboration and development for the Theories of "Shenqi Yinjie", "Yinyang Gangrou" and "Qibu Gushen".The last chapter talks about the value and status of Wu’s ancient Chinese prose theory and criticism on the basis of the previous discussion. Although his literary achievement may be inferior to that of Zeng Guofan and Wu Rulun, his contribution to refining Tongcheng’s comments and expanding the effects is meaningfull.