I. Political characteristics
China literature has a tradition of caring about politics, and it is a psychological stereotype for writers to express their concern about politics in their literary works. The political ideal of ancient literati is no less than that of politicians. Therefore, ancient literature paid special attention to the relationship between literature and the times, politics and religion, and emphasized the great social functions such as "expressing ambition with poetry", "conveying Tao with literature" and "educating Tao", and emphasized the perfect unity of politics and art, thus forming a fine tradition of "doing something for the future" and "doing something for the world". For example, Wang Chong once said: "For the world, a hundred articles are harmless; If you don't use it for the world, a chapter will not help. " Bai Juyi said: "Articles should be written in a timely manner, and poems should be written well." Write for the monarch, minister, people, things and things. Su Dongpo also proposed that literary creation should "do something" and "what was said at that time must be right".
On the one hand, literature is the cause of Qu Yuan, Sima Qian, Cao Zhi, Tao Yuanming, Li Bai, Meng Haoran, Lu You and other politically frustrated people, and on the other hand, it is the pastime of politically proud people, forming the official style, flower collection, Taige style, Kunxi chorus collection, Yulouchun, golden melody, Yushu back garden flower and so on in the history of literature.
Second, supplement the characteristics of history.
Every writer's works are mostly the records of the writer's personal biographical events and some kind of emotional course. This is determined by the utility of literature. In ancient China, there were no professional literary writers. People either regard literature as a tool and pastime to express their feelings, praise things and express their feelings, or as a tool of "hungry people sing about their food and laborers sing about their things". From Qu Yuan's works, we can see his birth, development, ideal and political experience. From Li Bai's works, we can see how arrogant he was when he was a teenager, and how he liked to travel "five mountains travel thousands of miles, according to my unchanging habit all my life"; How can he be politically courageous, confident and talented, and insist on "God-given talent, let it be used!" In his middle age, and his depression and melancholy after political frustration, and how he spent his old age in detachment and depression. Du Fu not only recorded his life events with his poems, but also recorded the wars and sufferings of that era, so his poems were called "the history of poetry".
Third, regional characteristics.
The style of classical literature is very regional. China's ancient literature has a long history, and its historical development shows obvious differences between North and South. In this regard, scholars of past dynasties have discussed it. The style difference of China ancient literature "Northern Xiongnan Xiunan" is closely related to the influence and infiltration of regional culture. The formation of northern literary and artistic style is due to the maternal education and edification of various cultural genes in this area, and this artistic style shows a trend of conservation and transformation in the complementarity of regional cultures. People who have experience in reading China's classical literature can often distinguish strong or weak regional folk customs from the works they read. As far as poetry is concerned, The Book of Songs and The Songs of Chu are the brilliant crystallization of the northern Central Plains culture and the southern Chu culture in the pre-Qin period respectively. Reading China's ancient classical Chinese novels, we can get a glimpse of the difference between the northern school and the southern school. The most famous northern style note novels are Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio and Yuewei Caotang Notes. Ji Xiaolan, the author of Notes on Yuewei Caotang, has moved to Xinjiang, so the story in the book takes place as far away as Yili and Urumqi. The characters in Yuan Mei's Yan Yu De and Zhu's Funeral Sorrow Collection often go to Wuxi, Hangzhou, Jiangyin, Wujiang, Yiwu and other places. Song Binsuo's Painting by Wang Tao, who works in Shanghai Mohai Library, is basically about Jiangnan, and the farthest one is about Fujian, Guangxi and Hunan. The collection of classical Chinese novels by these three authors can be regarded as the representative of southern school note novels.
Fourth, philosophical characteristics.
Heaven, earth, and people's hearts are divided into articles. The beauty of reason is the highest realm of classical literature. It is a great fusion and sublimation of emotional beauty, picture beauty and charm beauty. Its manifestations can be summarized as thinking about the Millennium and exploring common sense; Introspective appearance, revealing mystery; Freeze the moment and show eternity. The formation of this beauty of reason and interest stems from the author's overall perception of external things, his general revelation of the meaning of life and his philosophical thinking. But also closely related to the aesthetic characteristics of the scenery, events, objects and scenes displayed by the author to carry this kind of thinking. Zhouyi is the first of the Six Classics and the source of China traditional culture. Its influence on China's ancient literary thought is mainly manifested in his philosophical system. The Book of Changes tries to summarize and explain a wide range of issues, including the historical development of nature, society and mankind. The spirit of the Book of Changes, such as the universal mode of the unity of man and nature, the construction mode of the interaction between yin and yang, and the unchanging development concept, has had a far-reaching impact on ancient literary thoughts. In particular, it is pointed out that the philosophical characteristics of poetry in Song Dynasty are particularly obvious and reach the peak. For example, Su Shi's "Topic Xilin Wall" describes the changing face of Lushan Mountain, pointing out that the observation problem should be objective and comprehensive, and if it is subjective and one-sided, it will not reach a correct conclusion. Wang Anshi's prose travel notes "The Travel Notes of Baochan" recorded Baochan's trip to the back cave of the mountain. Because of the influence of "lazy people who want to go out", they "can't travel extremely happily" When they go back, they can't regret themselves, and they also understand the way of learning. Because of their compositions, people are advised to think deeply and choose carefully in their studies, but don't dabble.
The characteristics of verb (verb's abbreviation) education
China has a tradition of literature education, expressing ambition through poetry, expressing complexity, understanding, group and resentment through poetry, reasoning through hundred schools of thought's prose, and satirizing and remonstrating in Han Fu and political essays. Therefore, in ancient China, literature and art were always required to play the role of "persuading the good and punishing the evil", paying attention to satire and criticism, praising light and justice, criticizing darkness and decay, and demanding that literature and art have a distinct ideological tendency. In fact, it contains an educational tendency, that is, the humanistic knowledge embodied and put forward by writers in their text creation and literary critics in their theoretical propositions, persuading lifestyles, advising unhealthy lives, advocating morality and ethics, etc. , with educational orientation and significance, including [4] This is the result that writers and literary theorists, as scholars, are keen on and committed to implementing humanistic education in literature to express their political feelings and humanistic feelings, and to express their political ideals and humanistic care.
Sixth, emotional characteristics
China ancient classical literature has strong emotional characteristics. For the evaluation of poetry and prose, literati always like to focus on "temperament" or "spirit" first, and ask whether there is a strong lyrical brushwork as the primary symbol to measure literary value and distinguish literature from non-literature. This is the "Golden House" in Xiao Yi. It's very clear in Liyan. The emotional content expressed in concrete creation is closely related to the author's life concept, life experience and social status. For example, the most striking literary studies in the Liang Dynasty are palace poems and frontier poems. If measured by traditional ethical standards, it is easy to treat these two contents as diametrically opposed things and give completely different evaluations. But in fact, it is the result of contemporary literati's efforts to pursue literary beauty and lyricism. Because these two themes, in their view, have lyrical intensity that can arouse excitement and emotion, and meet the literary standard of "swinging the soul" (most palace poets also write frontier poems, and even write one article about the two contents, which is a direct proof). With the development of literature, the tendency of classical literature to pay more attention to lyricism has been strengthened. Poetry is a passionate lyric poem from The Book of Songs and Songs of the South (or "Sao Style"), and prose erected a well-defined monument for Han and Liu in the Tang Dynasty. Before that, literature was mediocre, pale and uninspiring. When I arrived in Han and Liu, my face changed greatly, and my thick body contained spiritual and emotional strength, showing an unusually distinctive lyrical feature.
Seven, moral characteristics
What is more valuable is that classical literature usually has a strong sense of morality. China culture is a culture full of humanistic spirit, and it pays special attention to the problems in the field of humanities. Ethics and realistic politics have become the two cores of China's cultural concern, which makes China culture show the characteristics of moral culture and political culture. In ancient China, it was particularly emphasized that literary creation should show progressive thoughts, just causes and lofty ideals, and sharply expose and criticize the darkness of reality, political decay, moral degeneration and unhealthy trends. As early as the pre-Qin period, Confucius said that "poetry can be complicated, can be observed, can be grouped, and can be resentful". On this basis, Sima of the Han Dynasty condemned the idea of "writing books with anger", and later Han Yu of the Tang Dynasty further put forward the famous idea of "speaking out when there is injustice", demanding that literature speak for those persecuted by feudal absolutism. For example, novels in Ming and Qing dynasties attach great importance to the moral integrity of characters and always praise those who are loyal, filial and righteous. The good and evil of the characters are as clear as water. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms praises Zhuge Liang and Guan Yu because they are honest and sincere. Zhuge Liang's "devote all his efforts to death" and Guan Yu's "strive to make friends and let future generations praise righteousness" are enough to make people understand the charm of this moral and cultural spirit.
Eight, religious characteristics
The influence of Buddhism and Taoism on writers' thoughts and its role in creation can not be ignored. Buddhism despises reality, respects nature, and maintains natural nature, while Taoism despises powerful people and is cynical, all of which have an effect on writers, as evidenced by great writers such as Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, Li Shangyin, Liu Zongyuan, Han Yu, Bai Juyi and Su Dongpo and their works. More famous poets and monks such as Jia Dao, Hanshan, Jiao Ran, Shi De, Guan Xiu, Miracle and Lingyi branded China ancient literature with their works. Influenced by Taoism and Buddhism's understanding of the relationship between words and meaning, classical literature creation pays attention to creating images outside the image and creating scenery outside the scene, which has the characteristics of literary creation outside the text, thus achieving "endless words and endless meanings" and making the works full of implicit charm. The beauty of literary works lies in the expression of words and meanings, which is a national traditional feature of China's ancient literary creation that is completely different from that of the West. Classical literature pursues rich aesthetic implications, displays a strong sense of the times and profound and unique human thinking, and pursues rich, novel and profound ideological connotations. This kind of concept consciousness has certain practical significance for adapting to the requirements of the times, prospering literary creation and promoting the vigorous development of classical literature.
Nine, the characteristics of ambition
Strange and unusual, it is also a remarkable feature of classical literature. Poetry in the Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties is represented by metaphysical poems and fairy poems, especially novels. From the day they came into being, they were either willing to use novels to fictionalize the innocence of ghosts and gods, or committed to using novels to describe people's strange words and deeds, such as Zhang Hua's Natural History in Wei and Jin Dynasties, Gan Bao's Search for Gods and Liu Yiqing's Shi Shuo Xin Yu. The Tang Dynasty is the conscious era of China's novels. A large number of legends have appeared, such as Biography of Ren, Biography of Liu Yi and Biography of Conan Taishou. The earliest collections of vernacular short stories are Sanyan (Yu Shiming's words, words, words) and Erpai (one surprised and two happy). [5]
X. aesthetic characteristics
For a long time, people have been paying attention to the aesthetic characteristics of literature. The Analects of Confucius? Yongye stresses "gentleness". Although it was originally about the personality cultivation of "gentlemen", it has always been regarded as an important literary theory. It means that while attaching importance to "quality", a simple and natural way of expressing content, it also attaches importance to "text", a gorgeous and literary form. In this sense, literature has really gained its own value. Various styles in ancient China, such as poetry, ci, qu, fu, prose, opera, novel, etc., all show unique aesthetic characteristics because of their own rhythm, melody, phonology, decoration, artistic conception and interest. Xiao Tong's Preface to Selected Works points out that literary works are meant to be pleasing to the ear and pleasing to the eye, while literary creation is meant to be "rich in China" and "intensified", and his selection criteria are "comprehensive choice of words" and "mistakes in comparison with Chinese language". Xiao Tong's literary theory represents one end of China's ancient literary thought. Although it is slightly exaggerated, it clearly expresses the special attention and pursuit of aesthetic effect in China's ancient literature.
China's classical literature is a literature with long span, wide coverage and profound tradition. In the history of China literature, Feng and Sao are often referred to as "Errenzhuan". Wind refers to the national wind, representing the Book of Songs, and Sao refers to Li Sao, representing Chu Ci. [6] Generally speaking, later scholars mainly accepted the influence of The Book of Songs or The Songs of the South, and developed into two different fine traditions-the tradition of "Feng" poetry, that is, the spirit of realism was passed down from generation to generation, and the tradition of "Sao" poetry, that is, the creative spirit of positive romanticism was passed down from generation to generation, that is, the realistic style and romantic style of western literary theory. The former is characterized by facing up to reality, describing reality, exposing reality and criticizing reality, which leads to literary phenomena and excellent writers such as folk songs in the two Han Dynasties, Jian 'an style, the new Yuefu movement in the Tang Dynasty, Wang Yucheng in the Song Dynasty, Yuan Haowen in the Jin Dynasty, Guan Hanqing in the Yuan Dynasty and Cao Xueqin in the Qing Dynasty. The latter is characterized by positive romanticism full of passion and fantasy, with outstanding writers such as Jia Yi, Cao Zhi, Ruan Ji, Zuo Si and Bao Zhao in the Jin and Southern Dynasties, Li Bai and Li He in the Tang Dynasty, Su Dongpo and Xin Qiji in the Song Dynasty, Wu Cheng'en in the Ming Dynasty and Pu Songling in the Qing Dynasty. Realism and romanticism are similar to the proposition of "Confucianism and Taoism complement each other" in a sense, so that the distinction between elegance and vulgarity has become an important proposition in the history of China's classical literature.