What is the history of China's ancient prose?

China's ancient prose creation also has a long history. From the perspective of literary history, oral literature originated from poetry, and written literature was initially regarded as a scattered record. From the literary form, these written chronicles are prose or historical prose. Shangshu is the earliest extant ancient history and the first prose classic with narrative and expository texts. During the great development of academic culture in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were also outstanding achievements in prose creation, that is, "essays of various schools of thought" and "historical essays" appeared. The Analects of Confucius, Mencius, Zhuangzi, Xunzi and Han Feizi published in this issue are all excellent prose classics of various schools. Historical masterpieces such as Zuo Zhuan, Mandarin and Warring States Policy belong to historical prose classics. Historical prose had an epoch-making development in the Han Dynasty, and its representative works were Sima Qian's Historical Records and Ban Gu's Hanshu. Political essays developed in the Han Dynasty. Jia Yi's New Book in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, Wang Fu's Theory of Latent Husband in the Eastern Han Dynasty and Zhong Changtong's Chang Yan are all typical classics of political essays. Hundred schools of thought's essays in Han Dynasty include Dong Zhongshu's Spring and Autumn Annals and Liu An's Huainanzi. Since Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, prose has gradually developed in a fresh and elegant direction. The prose of Cao Cao, Cao Pi and Cao Zhi in the Three Kingdoms period is very representative, which reflects the lyrical feature of prose in this period. Tao Yuanming's prose in Jin Dynasty further developed this style, combining lyricism with narration and scenery writing.

On the whole, the prose before Wei and Jin dynasties tends to be narrative, and the lyric prose after Wei and Jin dynasties gradually increases. Before Wei and Jin Dynasties, there were many personal essays by writers, and after Wei and Jin Dynasties, most of the prose works belonged to the general collection and the author's personal collection. After entering the Tang Dynasty, prose creation entered an important stage of development. In the mid-Tang Dynasty, Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan and others advocated the ancient prose movement and opposed the increasingly rigid parallel prose style since the Six Dynasties, which made the prose truly show its literariness in writing scenery, expressing emotion, expressing ambition, narration and argument. In the Song Dynasty, Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, Su Shi, Wen Tianxiang and others inherited and carried forward the achievements of the ancient prose movement in the Tang Dynasty and wrote a large number of excellent works. The prose of Yuan Dynasty has not made obvious achievements. Prose in Ming and Qing Dynasties developed continuously, among which Gui Youguang was good at lyric prose and made great achievements. In the late Ming Dynasty, the "Gong 'an School" represented by Yuan Hongdao, Yuan Zongdao and Yuan Zhongdao and the "Jingling School" represented by Zhong Xing and Tan advocated literary reformism. They are good at lyric sketches, advocating that articles are unique and unconventional, and their writing is fresh and smooth. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the prose works of Gu, Gui Zhuang and Qu Dajun were filled with patriotic enthusiasm and made their own achievements. In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, Tongcheng School literature, represented by Fang Bao, Liu Dakui and Yao Nai, appeared. They devoted themselves to the revival of ancient prose and advocated the "righteous method" of composition, which was popular for a while and monopolized the literary world in Qing Dynasty. Tongcheng School's early prose is rigorous in structure and refined in language, and has high skills in writing art.