I. Prose
In the prose of Han Dynasty, besides historical biographies such as Historical Records and Hanshu, the mainstream is political essays. Their style is simple and heavy, and their content is close to current events. At the beginning of Han Dynasty, Jia Yi had rich feelings and a legacy of counselors. In the middle and late period, Dong Zhongshu, Liu Xiang, etc. Quoting classics, with heavy style; At the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Wang Zhongxiao was plain and profound. Wang Fu and Zhong Changtong in the later period were both cynical and classic prose.
1. History
It is the first biographical general history in China, with 130 articles. As far as the style is concerned, Historical Records is divided into five parts, namely, the calendar year, which records the major events of emperors; Home, the matter of the princes; Biography, telling the story of people and ministers; Table, that is, memorabilia in tabular form; Books are the system of laws and regulations.
Through these five parts, Historical Records formed a complete historical system and became the basic form of China's history books. The so-called "twenty-four histories" are headed by historical records. Lu Xun called Records of the Historian "a masterpiece of historians, leaving Sao without rhyme" and deserved it.
As far as the literariness of Historical Records is concerned, it is first manifested in its narrative mode, and the objective narration with the third person is actually "including praise and criticism in the narrative". It tells a long history of 3,000 years and reproduces magnificent scenes and people's activities in history. Many biographies in Historical Records are based on a series of stories. For example, the Biography of Lian Po and Lin Xiangru contains stories such as Return to Zhao in Perfect Condition, Meet in Mianchi, and offer a humble apology. At the same time, many stories in Historical Records are full of drama. For example, the story of the famous "Hongmen Banquet" in Biography of Xiang Yu is like a wonderful drama performance. The appearance, exit, expression, movement, dialogue and even the orientation of the seats of the characters in the play are written as if they heard their voices and met their people. The climax of the plot is one after another, gripping and dramatic.
Secondly, he created many characters with distinct personalities: emperors and generals, wealthy businessmen, literati hermits, ranger assassins and ordinary people. Nearly a hundred people were impressed, including Xiang Yu, Liu Bang, Sean, Han Xin, Li Si, Qu Yuan, Sun Wu, Jing Ke, Lian Po and Lin Xiangru. For example, Xiang Yu is a failed hero, but Sima Qian did not talk about heroes by success or failure, but described and wrote the tragic fate of Xiang Yu in detail. The vivid characters depicted in Historical Records benefit from the artistic means of shaping the characters: the description of their appearance and expression, the description of life details, the use of dialogue between characters and the setting of drama scenes. All the above can be used freely in Sima Qian's works.
Thirdly, the language art of Historical Records is exquisite. Sima Qian rewrote the difficult sentences in historical materials into the popular language of Han Dynasty, which made the ancient prose simple and fluent. For example, concise narrative language, personalized character language and so on.
Sima Qian's personality and record spirit have deeply influenced the creative attitude and methods of later writers. It pioneered China's biographical literature; His brushwork directly influenced the ancient literati in the Tang and Song Dynasties and became the norm of their words. It also had a far-reaching impact on Tang legends and even novels and operas in Ming and Qing Dynasties.
2. Hanshu
Ban Gu (32-92) was born in Xianyang, Shaanxi. His father Ban Biao wrote 65 biographies of historical records. After his father's death, Ban Gu inherited his father's career, and compiled Han Shu based on the Hanshu part of Historical Records and Biography of Historical Records, which lasted for 20 years.
Hanshu is China's first biographical work of dynastic history (writing only one dynasty). Its style is basically inherited from the historical records, but it changed the book into records, created four records of criminal law, five elements, geography and art, abolished the aristocratic family background and merged with biographies, collectively called biographies, which made the Book of Han take on a new look. Hanshu has twelve chapters, eight tables, ten records and seventy biographies. *** 100. This dynastic history later became a model of official history books.
Hanshu is another historical masterpiece with the characteristics of prose literature after Shiji. There are many excellent biographies, such as Biography of Huo Guang, Biography of Zhu Maichen and Biography of Dong Fangshuo, which are all recognized masterpieces. Especially the Biography of Su Wu, which is no less than the historical records. Su Wu defected to the Huns and was detained for 19 years, but he persisted in the struggle, did not yield to the enemy's persecution, and was not tempted to surrender. The image of an epic patriot is vivid and touching. In addition, compared with historical records, the language style of Hanshu is in sharp contrast, elegant, ancient and difficult.
3. Political papers
Writers in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, born at the beginning of the establishment of the new dynasty, were ambitious and closely linked their writing with real politics, with strong characteristics of the times. The central topic of such political papers is nothing more than summing up the experience and lessons of the Qin Dynasty and providing good strategies for the new dynasty to govern the country and maintain peace.
Among them, Jia Yi is the most outstanding writer. During his ten years as a doctor for Emperor Taichung of China, he wrote a series of political papers, the most famous of which was about the Qin Dynasty. This paper is divided into three parts: upper, middle and lower. The first part describes the process of Qin's prosperity and decline by exaggeration and exaggeration. At that time, the governors of the six countries concentrated huge military forces and the best talents to destroy Qin, and the result was self-destruction. Qin was invincible in the world, but it was "benevolent" and was finally destroyed by the peasant rebels against Qin, with great contrast. The second part and the second part point out that Qin Ershi and Zi Ying went their own way, were cruel and heartless, and lost the hearts of the people. In fact, they provided lessons for the Western Han Dynasty.
Chao Cuo is another important political commentator after Jia Yi. His famous book "On the Turtle Speed Book" gives a more concentrated and detailed play to Jia Yi's viewpoint of attaching importance to agriculture and restraining business, which has practical significance.
Second, Han Fu
Fu is the most representative style in Han Dynasty. Its style is that big Fu, small Fu and Sao Fu complement each other. It is characterized by the combination of rhyme and prose, which embraces various styles and forms a new system. It draws lessons from the questions and answers between subject and object in the Songs of the South and the Warring States, with extravagant style and narrative techniques of absorbing pre-Qin historical biography literature and integrating it into poetry.
There are traditional four characters and new five characters and seven characters. Its stylistic sources are extensive, and it is a comprehensive style. Meicheng's Seven Hair marks the formation of a new style of Fu.
Sima Xiangru's works represent the highest achievement of Han Fu. He is the greatest fu writer in the heyday of Han Fu, and his Zi Xufu and Shang are the most famous. "Zi Xu Fu" assumes that Zi Xu of Chu started a dialogue with Mr. Wu of Qi State, and Zi Xu boasted about the greatness of Yun Mengze of Chu State and the grand occasion of hunting by the king of Chu. Mr. Wu praised Qi for its magnificent mountains and rivers and rich products. In the dialogue between the two characters, the author made a detailed and exaggerated description with gorgeous words, which was magnificent and dazzling, making people feel as if they were there. The fictional words in Shang praise the royal gardens, which overwhelm Qi and Chu. The praise of imperial power in Fu lies in the description of mountains and rivers. Sima Xiangru's Fu is rich in imagination, exquisite in description, flowery in rhetoric and rigorous in structure, which laid a fixed pattern of Han Fu, especially in Han Dynasty.
Yang Xiong was the main writer of New Style Fu at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, and Ban Gu's Two DuDu Fu and Zhang Heng's Two DuDu Fu were two representative works of New Style Fu in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Zhang Heng's "Returning to Tianfu" created a precedent of lyrical small fu.
Thirdly, the poetry of Han Dynasty.
Four-character poems continued to be used in the Han dynasty, but they no longer dominated, and five-character poems appeared in the Han dynasty. Five-character poems are mostly found in ballads and Yuefu poems in the Western Han Dynasty, while a large number of literati five-character poems appeared in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Five-character poems in the Eastern Han Dynasty have matured. Narrative poems include Peacock Flying Southeast, and the model of five-character lyric poetry is Nineteen Ancient Poems. A large number of seven-character poems have appeared in the Western Han Dynasty, and the seven-character poems attached to Han Fu usually use rhyme to enter sentences, which embodies the characteristics of the early seven-character poems.
Five-character poetry sprouted from folk songs, and its formation was influenced by northern minority music and military music. The development of five-character poems in Yuefu folk songs influenced the writing of literati at that time, so five-character poems came into being. Ban Gu's Ode to History is regarded by many literary historians as the earliest extant five-character poem of literati. Of course, this poem is still immature, but it is a milestone in the history of China's poetry. Since then, many writers in the Eastern Han Dynasty have had five-character poems handed down from generation to generation, such as Zhang Heng's Simultaneous Song, Qin Jia's Poem of Giving a Wife and Xin Yannian's Jade. "Lin Yulang" describes the story of wine girl Hu Ji who is not afraid of rape and dares to refuse the molestation of aristocratic slaves. The girl in the poem, Hu Ji, is beautiful, loyal and pure; Haonu Fengzi is bullying others. This poem is similar to the Yuefu folk songs sung by Shang Mo, and reflects the creative achievements of the literati under the influence of Yuefu folk songs.
Nineteen Ancient Poems is the most outstanding representative of literati's five-character poems. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, a large number of five-character poems of literati emerged, the author of which was unknown, and later generations generally called them "ancient poems". Nineteen of these works were selected by Xiao Tong as Selected Works of Liang Dynasty, which was later called Nineteen Ancient Poems. Most scholars believe that this group of poems was not written by one person, but originated in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. The most impressive thing he expressed was his poems expressing the feelings of lovesickness and telling the pain of parting. For example, the poem "Travel Again" is about a woman who misses her lover who has traveled far away. First, I said goodbye at the beginning, then I said that it was a long way to go in Xiu Yuan, then I said the pain of lovesickness, and finally I ended with comforting words. Another example is the poem "The Distant Altair", which describes the sadness that the Weaver Girl misses Altair across the Milky Way and expresses the pain when love is tortured. In addition, there are also works that show the shortness of life and lament the impermanence of life. For example, "born less than one hundred" and so on. Other descriptions, such as poor fame, frustrated official career, poor life, indifferent world, weak human feelings, and difficult to meet bosom friends, can also be found in the poems.
Nineteen Ancient Poems has made great artistic achievements, marking the maturity of China literati's five-character poems. His artistic achievements are first manifested in the poet's frank and unpretentious expression of his true feelings, setting off the feelings of the characters with specific scenery, and achieving the realm of mutual development and natural interest. Secondly, its language is simple, vivid, concise, chewy and highly generalized. It had a far-reaching influence on the creation of five-character poems in later generations, and then five-character poems began to gain unprecedented development.
In addition, there is another period of literary works with distinctive characteristics, which is worth mentioning, and that is Jian 'an literature.
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the society was in turmoil. Cao Cao, a native of Guo Pei (now Bozhou) in Han Dynasty, set up Qingzhou soldiers, supported the Han Emperor, unified the north, and the society had a relatively stable environment. Both Cao Cao and his son have high literary accomplishment, and because of their advocacy, once-declining literature has a new vitality. In Yecheng, the capital city at that time (so the address is now Linzhang County, Hebei Province), a large number of literati gathered. New breakthroughs have been made in poetry, prose and prose creation. Poetry, in particular, absorbs the advantages of folk songs in the Han Dynasty, is full of love and words, has a generous and sad artistic style, and truly reflects the social reality and the thoughts and feelings of literati in the late Han Dynasty. Because it happened during the Jian 'an period of Emperor Xian of Han Dynasty, later generations called the literature of this period Jian 'an literature.
The representative figures of Jian 'an literature are "Three Cao" and "Seven Zi". The core is three Cao Cao, namely Cao Cao, Cao Pi and Cao Zhi.
Cao Cao is the leader and pioneer of Jian 'an literature, and there are more than 20 Yuefu poems. Hao, his masterpiece, describes the tragic scene of the warlord's scuffle, and Short Songs is a well-known masterpiece. Cao Pi is the second son of Cao Cao. His poems are euphemistic and implicit, and he writes more about love and sadness. Ge Yanxing is the earliest existing seven-character poem. Essays on Canon is an important work in the history of China's literary criticism. Cao Zhi is the most famous writer in this period. More than 65,438+000 poems and essays have been handed down, such as Fu Liangxing on Mount Tai, Beauty and Luo Shenfu, which describe people's painful lives. Cao Zhi wrote the story of the seven-step poem, which is a household name.
Li Bai has a saying that "the bones of great writers are all your brushes, and they are in the school of heaven", which shows the far-reaching influence of Jian 'an literature on later generations.