Child slips, letter of etiquette. A book is a letter, and the letters of the ancients are also called "chidiao" or "letters", which are a practical style of writing. However, China's practical literary style has never excluded aesthetic literary attributes, especially letters, which are integrated with many stories and expressions. Ancient Chinese lyric prose began with letters, and the combination of practicality and aesthetics in letters is perfect. The rulers and tablets of the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties focused on practicality, and most literati had no intention of writing them as aesthetic works. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, in the writings of some literati, the practical function of ruler-slips was obviously downplayed, and the aesthetic function was increasingly strengthened. Some ruler-slips were deliberately written as pure literary works (refer to the preface of "History of Chinese Ruler-Slip Literature", Zhan Furui). Extended information
The poem "Ancient Meaning" by Wang Jia of the Tang Dynasty: "A line of letters and a thousand lines of tears, is it so cold that you have no clothes at your side?"
"Six Chapters of a Floating Life·Boudoir" written by Shen Fu of the Qing Dynasty "Ji Yue": "Yu engraved the two seals of 'Wish to be husband and wife for all eternity'; Yu held the red inscriptions and Yun held the white inscriptions, which were used for correspondence."
Bing Xin's "Wan Qing Ji·Empty Nest": " Although I was in the central part and he was in the west, we kept writing letters.”
The abbreviation of letters as “letters” is something that only happened in modern times. In the long historical process, due to the evolution of writing materials and other reasons, letters have many aliases and good names. Here are a few of them.
Letters can also be divided into many types, such as official letters, private letters, personal letters, family letters, love letters, etc.
Reference materials_Baidu Encyclopedia