The Analects of Confucius, as a collection of speeches by Confucius and his disciples, focuses on memorizing words. Therefore, to understand the literary value and artistic achievements of The Analects, we should first start with its linguistic features. Lu Xun's Outline of the History of China Literature has insight into the language and artistic features of The Analects of Confucius from the ideological characteristics of "Confucianism worships reality". Jiang believes that the Analects of Confucius, as the "earliest written style", is characterized by "short chapters and concise words", and the formation of its "concise" language style is related to its writing style. The Analects of Confucius is a "direct record" of what Confucius disciples saw and heard, "to cover up its extravagance, polish it, or lose its truth, and keep its faithful record." Liu Cunren summarized the language features of The Analects as "long and concise" and "many implicit and deep meanings", and thought it was "a place to remember words" and "a person with rich words and emotions to describe". From the above discussion, it can be seen that in the 1930s and 1940s, researchers generally agreed with the language style characteristics of The Analects and its causes: First, it was decided by early Confucianism; The second is the writing method of "recording"; Third, limited by the material conditions of writing at that time. "About the time the Analects of Confucius was written, it was extremely difficult to obtain documents and record oral English.
Second, the study of characters
The Analects of Confucius is a vivid record of Confucius and his disciples exploring, studying and discussing the truth of social life. Its "writers" have no conscious consciousness of portraying characters and shaping characters, but because they are very familiar with all the characters they write, they can put themselves in the position of writing characters' activities, inadvertently express their characters and be active in vivid, plump and tangible images. The study of characters in The Analects of Confucius is one of the important achievements in the literary study of The Analects of Confucius in the 20th century, and it is also an important aspect to confirm its literary value. In the past hundred years, the research on the characters in The Analects of Confucius has mainly focused on two aspects: the image characteristics of Confucius and his main disciples and the methods of expressing characters.
Third, the study of stylistic features and overall style.
The Analects of Confucius, as a book that records Confucius' philosophical thoughts and political opinions, has obvious characteristics of "political theory" and advocating morality. It is inevitable to evaluate its literariness with the preconceived ideas of modern concepts and to evaluate its artistic characteristics with western discourse methods, because it has literary value and literary works are different after all. Therefore, revealing the characteristics and styles of the prose art of The Analects of Confucius realistically, rather than starting from the existing concepts and aiming at the reality of the research object, should be the inherent meaning of the prose art research of The Analects of Confucius.
Mencius' thought originated from Confucius. Mencius developed Confucius' "benevolence" into the theory of "benevolent government". He believes that to implement "benevolent government", it is necessary to "control the people's permanent production" so that every farmer can have a hundred acres of land, five acres of houses and the minimum means of production; "Don't rob the farming season" to ensure that farmers have time to work; "save punishment and light taxes" to give people the lowest material living conditions; Strengthen moral education to make people understand the truth of "filial piety and faith". Mencius saw that the people were being exploited and oppressed by the feudal landlord class, and tried to take these measures to ease class contradictions and consolidate the rule of the landlord class, but it was still conducive to the development of production. In connection with the theory of "benevolent government", Mencius also put forward the view that "the people are more valuable than the monarch", saying: "the people are more valuable, the country is second, and the monarch is lighter" (Mencius). He believes that only with the support of the people can the monarch achieve and maintain his dominant position. Therefore, he advocated that the monarch should mainly implement "benevolent government" and "have fun with the people." China people can kill the monarch who destroys the people. Shang Zhouwang is a famous tyrant in history. The king of Wu attacked Zhou. He thought it was right to kill him. He said, "I have heard of killing husbands, but I have never heard of killing kings" (Mencius Hui Liang Wang Xia). Although Mencius sympathized with the people and condemned the tyrant, his political thought still maintained the feudal system, so he preached: "The industrious rule the people, and the industrious rule the people." Treat people eat people, treat people eat people, which makes sense in the world "("Mencius Teng Wengong "). This view has long been the theoretical basis for defending the exploitation system.