Zhu Ziqing's Prose Collection Recommendation

Zhu Ziqing's early prose can be divided into two categories: realistic discussion and narrative lyricism. The former, such as The Cost of Life-Seventy cents, Civilization on a Sailing Boat, White Man Blessed by God, Ah He, Mourning for Wei Jie San, Travel Miscellanies, etc., are representative works that directly draw materials from real life and attack the dark society by narrative and discussion. The latter, such as The Back, Lights Shading Qinhuai River, Green, Moonlight on the Lotus Pond, Moonlight on the Moon, Clouds, Red Crabapple Curtain, Baishuikuang, etc., are famous works that combine scenes, poems and paintings, representing the highest achievement of his prose art.

Zhu Ziqing's prose creation, from beautiful and meaningful to simple and heavy to radical and profound, has a distinct imprint of the times, showing his unique artistic style and aesthetic purport. Yu Dafu said in Introduction to Modern Prose, "Although Zhu Ziqing is a poet, his prose can still be full of that kind of poetry." It should be said that this is a very accurate evaluation of Zhu Ziqing's prose art.

As a great prose writer, Zhu Ziqing, with his unique artistic style of prose beauty, added gorgeous colors to China's modern prose and set a "model of vernacular prose beauty" for establishing the brand-new aesthetic characteristics of China's modern prose. Zhu Ziqing is a cultural generalist, and he left a literary legacy of nearly 2 million words to future generations. However, his outstanding contribution to China's modern new literature is undoubtedly his essays. He inherited the excellent tradition of China's classical literature and created a prose system and style with China's national characteristics under the background of cultural exchange between China and the West.