Preface In ancient times, there was another kind of preface that was a farewell message, called a "gift preface". The content was mostly words of approval, praise, or encouragement for relatives and friends to whom the gift was given. It was a style of farewell message. Postscript is a kind of literary style, written at the back of books, articles or calligraphy and painting works.
The preface and postscript are words that describe the intention of a book, and are also a style of writing. According to today's custom, what precedes a book is called a preface (or narrative), which can also be called a preface, preface, inscription, preface, introduction, etc.
What is placed at the end of the book is called "postscript", also called preface, postscript, title and postscript, postscript, etc. Generally speaking, the overall description of the purpose, purpose and writing motivation of a book is written in the preface, that is, the preface.
The words written in the postscript should be more flexible. They are mostly inspired by feelings, or lyrical, review, and discussion. They can be long or short, and they can be eclectic. However, in ancient times, the preface was not placed at the front of the book, but at the back.
Extended information
"Historical Records" has a total of one hundred and thirty volumes, and the last volume is "Tai Shi Gong's Preface". The change in the preface position is related to the evolution of ancient book carriers and binding forms. In the bamboo-media era of bamboo slips, most books were published in the form of single articles, bound in units of one article. Readers were not restricted by the order of the articles when reading, so the preface could be placed at the front or at the back.
Once a book enters album form, the order of the chapters has been fixed during binding, and it is impossible to read individual chapters, so the preface, which should be read first, is still placed at the end of the book. In this way, it is inconvenient for reading, so people changed the ancient practice and gradually placed the preface before the whole book.
This change probably occurred in the Northern Song Dynasty. Li Qingzhao's "Postscript to the Record of Jinshi" and Wen Tianxiang's "Postface to the Guide to the Record" were specially titled with the word "Postface", indicating that after the Southern Song Dynasty, the preface It is usually no longer placed at the back of the book. This change in books is also the product of the transition from the bamboo media era to the paper media era. ?
The "Lanting Preface" in the calligraphy classic has remained, and the poems from the Lanting Collection have become the occasion. Sun Guoting's "Book Book" is actually a preface, and the text has not been seen for thousands of years. Zhao Ji, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, once wrote "Preface to the Book Book of Sun Guoting of the Tang Dynasty" in thin gold style in front of the "Book Book". But this does not affect its historical status as the pioneer of Chinese calligraphy aesthetics.
Baidu Encyclopedia - Postscript
Baidu Encyclopedia - Preface