Gong Zizhen and Wei Yuan are outstanding representatives of writers who pay attention to the fate of modern countries and people's lives in the turning point of history and times before and after the Opium War. One is to extend the tentacles of prose to the ruling class, expose and attack the corruption and decline of the country; First, focus on the world, pay attention to all fields of society, and put forward the idea of "learning from foreigners to control foreigners". First, reflect on yesterday in the turbulent tide of the times and the changes in real life, and criticize today's "waves are hard to pull"; A person who does not return to yesterday today is thinking about tomorrow and describing the development of today when writing today. In their respective posts, in order to make their new life more beautiful and reasonable, they carried out persistent and tenacious artistic pursuit. From the pictures of life provided by the writer, we heard the echo of history and strongly felt the new rhythm of life. Their works reflect the fate of modern people, the progressive requirements, wishes and psychological emotions of writers at the turning point of history, and their thoughts and feelings of worrying about the country and the people, as if people heard the faint thunder of the modernization process of prose. This is the general theme and theme of the works of Gong Zizhen, Wei Yuan and other progressive writers, and it is also their contribution to modern prose.
Gong Zizhen and Wei Yuan's artistic personality and pursuit were born in a specific historical environment and rooted in the trees of the nation and people. History and reality, normal and abnormal, pure and ugly, interweave and merge into touching experience and profound thinking. Gong Zizhen's prose can be regarded as a writer's reflection and summary of disastrous history and self. Between the lines of Gong Zizhen's prose, there is a magnificent sense of history, the atmosphere of the times on the eve of China's great social change, the extremely ominous atmosphere of the world, the whimsy that fills people's hearts, and the superior's "seeing the urgency, not seeing it at hand", and so on. All these made him discover that his time turned out to be a "literary school". Based on this, Gong Zizhen's writing vividly expresses the most contemporary "worry" from three main perspectives: reason, potential and talent. His prose does not specifically talk about the gains and losses of current political measures, but appears in a high-profile manner of "governing the country" and cares about the integrity of the times. In Wei Yuan's works, there is always a thorough analysis of history and self. In order not to repeat yesterday's history today and tomorrow, he described today rationally and indifferently, but injected ideals and enthusiasm, full of reformers and creators' hopes and expectations for tomorrow. Only in this way can he feel and capture new life with valuable sensitivity, accuracy and profundity. The new trend of thought of prose, represented by Gong Zizhen and Wei Yuan, adapted to the objective requirements of the inherent artistic law of prose development at that time and appeared in the literary world of the late Qing Dynasty with incomparable vitality. It opened up a new life of prose from the dying edge, thus making Gong Zizhen and Wei Yuan's prose have a great historical role in rushing to the old times and marching towards a new era. As an artistic tool, prose has been revived in the hands of writers such as Gong Zizhen. Therefore, Gong and Wei's prose marks the highest achievement in the early stage of prose modernization, which is a powerful impact on Tongcheng ancient prose, which ruled the prose circle in Qing Dynasty for more than 100 years, and makes prose, the most practical style, show great vitality at the beginning of modern literature.
The artistic strengths of Gong Zizhen and Wei Yuan are sometimes reflected in their shortcomings. Gong Zizhen's works are powerful in criticizing the declining world, but there is a difficult and profound shortcoming in implicit and implicit borrowing. The article is elegant and noble, with one-sided emphasis on writing skills, which makes the article too "eccentric" and has a bad influence. Although Wei Yuan's article is "not following benevolence and righteousness, not socializing, voluminous and varied, in order to reach his opinion and delay his words", it lacks impassioned generosity and appears gentle.
Lin Zexu is also a prose writer who always pays attention to reflecting the situation of modern society. Look at the world with an open mind and March on the road of resisting foreign aggression with perseverance. Although he is not famous for literature, his political essays also occupy a place in the history of modern literature. Most of his prose was written for the emperor, which was basically a record of his political thoughts, policies and measures throughout his life. The content mainly includes two aspects: internal affairs reform and resistance to foreign aggression, expressing patriotic enthusiasm against aggression and surrender. In terms of expression, his prose has no abstruse words and allusions, and his writing style is unpretentious, detailed and detailed, and his reasoning is detailed and meticulous, which is different from Gong and Wei's style, but it is equally convincing. His articles had a great influence on later reformist current affairs.
The second change: the pioneering spirit of early reformers
People of insight in modern times who have experienced the historical catastrophe of foreign colonial aggression, after the artillery bombardment of the Opium War, what are they paying attention to, thinking about and how to meet the new challenges? They are exploring, and so are prose writers. The early reformists and the essayists of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom revolution were the products of yesterday's painful experience and the cultivators of reality and future hope. They gradually got rid of the shackles of traditional ancient prose, further expanded the content of prose, and used prose to express the ideological content of transforming society, resisting aggression and strengthening the country. Compared with Gong Zizhen and Wei Yuan, Feng Guifen, Wang Tao and Zheng took a big step in the reform of modern prose. Feng Guifen's political essays "School? Lu protested, where is Wang Tao? The publication of Zheng's essays, such as An External Edition of Garden Notes and A Dangerous Story in a Prosperous Age, provides new enlightenment for the modernization of prose: it is not enough to criticize the reform of prose only in theory, but also to express its opposition in practice, thus demonstrating the power of theory more. At the same time, we should always compare what happened in various countries with the social phenomenon in China, put the static and closed China in the world of "complicated events", make full use of newspapers and periodicals to establish modern public opinion consciousness, and through the exchange of public opinion between China and foreign countries, impact the old style and promote the reform of prose. Therefore, discussing current politics, condemning the invasion of foreign powers, safeguarding national sovereignty and national dignity, exploring Sino-foreign relations and exploring social and political reforms have become the main melody melody in the works of early reformist prose writers.
From "Wandering with Records" and "Discipline of Franco-Prussian War" to? The external compilation of Garden Records is a breakthrough in Wang Tao's prose creation. Wandering in Random Notes is China's earliest travel prose introducing modern European society and capitalist "civilization". It showed the people of China the face of modern western society for the first time, and provided valuable information for the people of China to understand the west. When the vast majority of intellectuals in China are still immersed in textual research and imperial examinations, Wang Tao can realize the importance of science and technology to the national economy and people's livelihood. It can be said that he is not only "wise and knowledgeable", but also a dreamer of an era. His introduction of western science and technology undoubtedly negates and criticizes China's traditional values of "essence is purpose" and "valuing righteousness over profit", and also shows that Wang Tao's world outlook has begun to undergo profound changes. Although Wang Tao's A Journey to Europe is superficial, he realizes that capitalism is superior to feudal society in all aspects by comparing the two systems. From the point of writing, the style is light and vivid, the language is simple and plain, and the style of writing is simple and natural. It is a travel prose that occupies an important position in the history of modern cultural exchanges between China and the West.
The History of the Franco-Prussian War was compiled by Wang Tao according to the foreign newspaper reports of the Franco-Prussian War that broke out in July 1870, combined with his own experience in Europe. This book was compiled only four months before the war. This is China's first prose work devoted to describing overseas wars, and it is also an important work of "seeing the world with your eyes open" in modern times. This has played an indispensable historical role for China people to know the history and present situation of foreign countries at that time, especially the situation in Europe. Therefore, "Popularizing Law and History of War" can be said to be an influential work in China's early modern times to seriously explore foreign situations. In writing, events are reflected very quickly and timely, and the narrative is accurate. The account of the cause, time, place, scale, course, ending and influence of the war is relatively complete and correct; At the same time, it also refers to the history, political situation and social customs of western countries, which can be said to have the embryonic form of "reportage"
Wang Tao's paper published in Circular Daily is clear in thinking, easy to understand, discusses fashion, criticizes current disadvantages, and runs through distinct "reform" ideas. The slogan of "reform and self-improvement" was first put forward by Wang Tao in 1875 Circulation Daily. Wang Tao later compiled the Selected Works of Political Theory published in the Circular Daily as "? The Biography of the Gardener Lu Wen systematically expounded Wang Tao's early bourgeois reform thoughts and political opinions. Commenting on Wang Tao's initiative to reform Circulation Daily, Ge said: "? The external compilation of Garden Records is the essence of the newspaper's discussion. He is knowledgeable and far-sighted. "The idea of Wang's paper is the continuous development of Wei Yuan and Feng Guifen's political thought. The so-called "continuous development" means that in his articles, he has basically got rid of looking for information on political reform from the library of ancient sages and kings in China, and more emphasized the need to "learn from western countries and brainstorm" for reform. It is worth noting that from the perspective of propagating bourgeois reform thoughts, Circular Daily was founded 22 years earlier than current events, which undoubtedly contributed to the rise of reform thoughts in the 1990s from 65438 to 2009. Just as Wang Tao's thought of reform and self-improvement paved the way for the reformists in the Reform Movement of 1898, and Circular Daily played a pioneering role in later generations, Wang Tao's political essays were also pioneering in the history of modern prose development. Wang Tao's "newspaper style" developed on the basis of the prose reform of Gong Zizhen, Feng Guifen and other predecessors is unique. His prose, without reference, is unconstrained and unconstrained, full of emotion and smooth as the Yangtze River according to the needs of the times, which sets a model for Liang Qichao's later article "Vertical Pen Out of Control". Liang Qichao's new style was initiated by Wang Tao. It can be seen that Wang Tao's role in the process of prose modernization.
Zheng also made some innovations in the form of prose. In order to adapt to being published in newspapers and periodicals, most of them are short in length, and the essays are clear and thorough by comparing Chinese and western, ancient and modern argumentation methods. In terms of language, Wang Tao said: "His writing is smooth but not complicated, and his meaning is obvious but not gloomy. Tell the truth, he is straightforward and has nothing to hide. " The author tries to use popular and fluent classical Chinese, which is easy to understand and easily accepted by readers. Moreover, the style of writing is fresh, lively, beautiful and smooth, which embodies the trend of socialization and popularization of modern prose, which is undoubtedly an impact on Tongcheng ancient prose and has a positive impact on later political writers and "new style" In the process of prose modernization, Zheng's prose is also innovative.
The third change: the style innovation of reformers.
After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, when a free, lively and exciting "new style" appeared in the literary world, people were excited-because a climax of prose modernization came.
"New Style" is a creation of bourgeois reformists in modern prose reform. It is produced to meet the historical requirements of advocating reform and change, and it is also the inevitable trend of the development of modern prose. The representative writers of the new style are Kang Youwei, Tan Sitong and Liang Qichao. Liang Qichao made a unique contribution to the establishment of this "new style", which also included the joint efforts of Liang Qichao's contemporaries and even predecessors. Kang Youwei is one of the key figures in the transformation from traditional ancient prose to new style, while Tan Sitong is the forerunner and the most active practitioner. Kang Youwei is an outstanding leader of the Reform Movement. Standing on a higher historical stage, he absorbed ideological vitality from the huge historical trend, calmly observed the backward ancient oriental countries, accepted the trouble from all sides, began to break through the barriers between feudal thought and feudal culture, and put the task of combining foreign thoughts with national reality on the historical agenda. At the same time, he combined literary activities with the mainstream of historical development, and finally came out of the traditional ancient prose and became a master of prose. In the literary world at that time, Kang Youwei's prose was bold and unconstrained, expressing his own opinions, not only showing full political enthusiasm in content, but also pursuing an artistic situation with unrestrained feelings in art, thus forming his own unique style. Therefore, Liang Qichao listed Kang Youwei as a "master of prose in the late Qing Dynasty" (Shanghai Edition "Academic Introduction to the Qing Dynasty", Zhonghua Book Company, 1954, 10, p. 57), which is the result of his examination of the development of China's prose from the perspective of China's literary evolution under the influence of evolution theory and western bourgeois literary theory, and his judgment of the historical position of Kang Youwei's prose from the overall consciousness. Throughout the development of modern prose, Kang Youwei is indeed a figure that cannot be ignored. He was a pioneer of the "literary revolution" in the late Qing Dynasty, and his prose creation played a positive role in the birth of a new style.
Tan Sitong's prose profoundly reflects the social reality of his time and the life path he experienced, records his ideals, enthusiasm, speculation and knowledge, and at the same time makes a beneficial exploration for the development of new style in theory and practice. Tan Sitong expressed great appreciation for the simple, attractive and inflammatory liberation style that appeared in the bourgeois reform movement. In his article "On the General Universe of Newspapers", he praised the world style of writing "no one is better than newspapers". He believes that the benefits of newspaper style are not limited to form, but more importantly, it can reflect people's voices more. He hailed the publication of Box. His political essay Benevolence is a typical "newspaper style". No wonder some people exclaim that this is a "shocking article". In a word, Tan Sitong's prose combines many thoughts in one furnace, taking its essence as my argumentation method, which makes the article show the characteristics of eloquent and Wang Yang's arrogance. The style of writing is parallel and scattered, and the ancient and modern are connected, striving to express the meaning smoothly. In particular, reasoning with the pen of emotion, emotion due to reason, emotion due to reason, and reason complement each other. Tan Sitong's brave spirit of breaking through all obstacles opened up a new path for Jing Ke Wild Forest.
Liang Qichao is a writer who has made outstanding contributions to the modernization of prose. He not only put forward the slogan of "literary revolution" in theory, but also personally wrote many inspiring new-style prose in his creative practice, which greatly promoted the reform of prose. Liang Qichao called the articles from The Times to Xinmin Cong Bao (1896 ~ 1904) a "new style", which was different from the "old style" of Tongcheng ancient prose, parallel prose, modern prose and stereotyped writing. This new style of prose is also different from the early modern reformist style, especially in language innovation. Liang Qichao's new school of newspaper prose is based on social change and national enlightenment, which expands the creation of new school prose from his reading to the whole society, and forms his creative thought-"Xinmin" thought, which has a decisive influence on the creation of new school prose. He founded Qing Yi Bao in Japan in June 1898 1 1, and defined the nature of "being the eyes and ears of the people and the mouthpiece of reform" as the interpretation of this thought. The result not only fundamentally changed the social function of prose, improved the status of prose, but also greatly changed the face of prose itself, making his new style prose show distinctive characteristics. Throughout Liang Qichao's prose, especially during the Reform Movement of 1898, his achievements and influence are enormous. His prose shows the characteristics of bourgeois culture in ideological content, showing its inclusive mind and tolerance; Great changes have taken place in the art form, and the socialization of prose has been realized for the first time in the true sense. The "new style" he initiated ended the unification of Tongcheng School prose and created a new style of writing.
The fourth change: the language innovation of the democratic revolutionaries.
Language is the basic material of articles and the tool of human expression. However, the disconnection between written language and oral language, and the separation between modern language and ancient language have caused many artificial obstacles for human beings to exchange ideas and pour out their feelings. Language and literature are not only the main carriers of a national culture, but also the carriers of a national literature. This carrier itself has two aspects: content and form. Language problem "At first glance, this is all about' text form', and this aspect is not important." But I don't know that form and content are closely related. Formal constraints hinder the free development of spirit and the full expression of good content. To have new content and new spirit, we must first break the shackles of the spirit "(Hu Shi: Talking about New Poetry, China's Theory Collection of New Literature Series Construction, Liangyou Bookstore, 1935 Edition, p. 295). With the entry of world literature into China, writers are more aware that the popularization of literary language is a trend. Especially with the development of the bourgeois national salvation movement, the vernacular movement may rise. Therefore, after the bourgeois "new style", the bourgeois democratic revolutionaries made further efforts to make the prose language more popular on the basis of the reformist prose reform. Language modernization, which is more important than narrative mode, is also a new aesthetic principle emerging in the field of modern prose. The significance of Qiu Jin, Zou Rong, Chen Tianhua, Liu Yazi, Sun Yat-sen, Zhu Zhixin, Li Dazhao, Huang Xiaopei and Huang Yuansheng to modern prose lies in establishing a truly modern "writing posture", refreshing the language of modern prose and providing an aesthetic information different from the traditional "beautiful prose". Judging from their prose creation, the language of prose is not the language of general rhetoric, that is, it is not a "beautiful essay" characterized by accuracy, vividness and image, but the mutual infiltration of subject and object, that is, this and that, with both content and form; Not only literature, but also the language of life. It is a language, which not only contains the writer's talent, wisdom, thoughts, personality and other factors, but also contains intriguing charm, interest and color. On this waving language banner, four Chinese characters are more prominently presented to readers: stylistic innovation. Therefore, only when vernacular prose gradually becomes the language carrier of modern prose, can China's modern prose truly take a step of its own fundamental change.
Zou Rong's political essay Revolutionary Army, with the revolutionary enthusiasm and thunderous momentum of volcanic eruption, urges the language rhythm of the three armed forces to persevere and take the lead, showing a free and unrestrained style. Revolutionary Army can be said to be a representative new style prose expressing revolutionary content. Language is more popular than "new style". Qiu Jin, a female revolutionary, strongly advocated vernacular Chinese. Her prose is easy to understand and tends to be vernacular. Liu Yazi's vernacular prose written before the May 4th Movement 10 also promoted the liberalization, popularization and socialization of modern prose. Huang Xiaopei's "Five Days Wind" made a pioneering attempt in the field of reportage by means of newspaper news reports. Get rid of the shackles of tradition in language. Huang Yuansheng's prose created a new situation in the literary world with the style of news reporting. The article of this "newspaper wizard" is easy to understand and interesting. His communication reports also have the characteristics of reportage. For example, his "Cook of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs" and? Diary, etc. , reflecting the literariness of his communication reports. He used the method of sketching to abstract and summarize the people and things he heard and saw, and chose the details that best represented people or things. His prose can be said to be the forerunner of the literary revolution and plays a decisive role in the transition from modern prose to modernization.
Chorus 1: two "special" emotional chords
One is the prose of Yan Fu, a famous translator and bourgeois enlightenment thinker, which echoes the quaint mood of pre-Qin prose. He translated and introduced a large number of western academic works in ancient Chinese, systematically introduced and disseminated western bourgeois culture, and influenced China's ideological and literary circles, which was unprecedented and made new contributions to the application of ancient Chinese. However, Yan Fu's overemphasis on prose style and language and his pursuit of literary talent will easily lead to the difficulty of writing, which will inevitably weaken the role and influence of the article in real life. Writing and translating with quaint style and refined tone is indeed Yan Fu's shortcoming. At the same time, Yan Fu also despises ordinary "newspaper articles". Nevertheless, some of Yan Fu's essays are undergoing subtle changes. Zhang Taiyan's criticism of Yan Fu in Social Interpretation of Business Exchange illustrates this change from another angle. It can be seen that the expressive techniques in Yan Fu's prose, such as repeated representations, lack of implication, lack of conciseness and excessive exclamations, are precisely the performance of the author's unconscious challenge to some frames of Tongcheng ancient prose, because that ancient prose program is no longer suitable for exerting rich new ideas and patriotic passion, which may be unexpected by Yan Fu.
The other is the prose of Zhang Taiyan, a bourgeois democratic revolutionary writer. Zhang Taiyan is a "master of articles" in modern literary circles. He wrote political, commentary and other articles, criticized all kinds of wrong ideas and publicized the bourgeois democratic revolution, which aroused strong repercussions in the ideological and intellectual circles. The content of Zhang Taiyan's prose is very extensive, involving history, language and literature, medicine, education, economy, philosophy and so on. His prose, in the 20 years before and after 19 16, has a very sharp contrast: the creation in the first 20 years was full of vigor and vitality, sharp-edged, profound in thought and strong in fighting, which touched many readers and played a huge role in promoting the revolution; In the past twenty years, Zhang Taiyan failed to keep pace with the times, and his prose gradually lost its former glory. This is the reflection of Zhang Taiyan's changeable, advanced and complicated life path in his prose. However, Zhang Taiyan's prose can adopt different genres or even different languages according to different objective needs, and has achieved certain results. Throughout his prose creation, there are not only articles with simple words and quotations, but also lively vernacular Chinese. Most of the leading styles of Zhang Taiyan's prose are quaint. His prose is deeply influenced by the literary style of Wei and Jin Dynasties, which embodies Wei and Jin demeanor and elegant language, and shows his strong academic ability. Coupled with his ancient style of writing, it is difficult to find a solution, even if he has some reasonable opinions on literature, it is not easy for people to understand. This determines that Zhang Taiyan can't open up a road for new literature.
Chorus 2: Two Classical Notes with Tone sandhi
A bunch of essays of Tongcheng Xiangxiang School headed by Zeng Guofan. As a leading figure of Tongcheng Xiangxiang School of Literature, Zeng Guofan extended "righteousness" to political affairs, emphasizing "ceremony" as the basis and "classics" as the key link, and tried to reform the ideological banner of Tongcheng School of Literature. His literary style of Tongcheng School has also changed, and he has not followed suit. Zeng Guofan's revival of Tongcheng School literature is essentially to transform Tongcheng School with Xiangxiang School. With the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the rise of new thoughts, Tongcheng School and Xiangxiang School were abandoned and replaced by "new style" and later vernacular Chinese. Of course, there are also some kings in Tongcheng School of Literature? Writers such as Yun, Xue Fucheng, Guo Songtao broke through the shackles of traditional ancient prose and created some essays with practical significance, which shows that the reform and development of prose has become an irreversible historical trend.
The other is the translator Lin Shu's prose imitating the Tang and Song Dynasties. Lin Shu's works follow North Korea, Liu, Europe and the Soviet Union. Therefore, although he is engaged in the translation of western classics, he has played a pioneering role in opening up modern literature and absorbing western literature. However, in style, he built a car behind closed doors, adhered to his family style, and presented the "elegance" of Tongcheng ancient prose to the literary school. His Essays on Chunjue Zhai is the embodiment of the theory of justice and law in Tongcheng ancient prose. Of course, Lin Shu's so-called learning from the ancients does not mean imitating the ancients step by step. He believes that learning ancient times is not limited to the ancients, and the trick lies in learning its laws and changing its appearance. It can also be seen that the rapid changes in modern society have caused subtle changes in Lin Shu's prose creation.
Throughout the creation of modern prose, although writers have hurried through 80 years of hard work, they have entered a new cultural era with underdeveloped prose embryos. However, the achievements of modern prose show the profound changes in China's prose, that is, prose is closer to the times, soul, life and life itself. This change of prose is the result of the change of times and life, and also the result of the essayist's updating of prose concept. On the one hand, it shows the consciousness of prose, on the other hand, it also improves the depth and breadth of prose expression life, making prose play a greater role and be more easily accepted by readers.
An obvious sign that modern 80-year prose surpasses ancient prose is that prose is becoming more and more atmospheric. There are fewer and fewer "small scenery" essays expressing personal joys and sorrows. Prose in this period has a common feature: first, it is long; Second, these authors tend to think about various big topics (time, country, nationality, opening up, reform, system, etc.). Of course, this atmosphere is not an external form, but an internal presentation. Atmosphere is a rational spirit, a broad feeling and a flash of personality wisdom. The prose in this period is different from the previous "scholar prose". Writers are no longer limited to textual research, exegesis and verification, and no longer indulge in the memories of the past tense or take the leisurely "hermit state of mind" as the highest goal. It is to observe life, think about history, grasp the times with the eyes and feelings of modern people, and pour personality and "self" color.
The promotion of rational spirit not only pushes modern prose to a new height, but also connects modern prose with world excellent prose. Because the excellent essays in the world, whether essays (Bacon), Montaigne, Thought (Pascal), Confessions (Rousseau), Lake of Dreams (Thoreau), and battlefield essays (Tambeck), tend to be lyrical; One of their important traditions or characteristics is to emphasize rationality. They pay attention to the times, think about life, explore history, and have a good exposition and unique analysis. Therefore, European prose started a generation of writing style and promoted historical progress. Today, we promote China's modern prose to be among the masterpieces of modern prose in the world. One of the most important points is to look at the historical journey of modern prose from the perspective of world literature.
Stylistic innovation of modern prose is also a very noticeable change. Style should not only be understood as a literary genre. The style is rich in connotation. According to belinsky, style is the ability itself, the liberation of thoughts and the display of the whole person. In other words, style is a writer's main personality and spirit, and it is also a writer's way of grasping life and expressing and presenting language. With the great changes in modern history and the exchange of Chinese and western cultures, writers have a new understanding of prose, an ancient style. At the same time, because the narrative experience and writing skills of any other style are used to transform and combine prose, prose has changed unconsciously in this grafting. Narrative has got rid of the closed and stereotyped mode, and the language has become more and more flexible. All these show the openness of prose art form. In the chorus of the change of narrative form in China's prose, narrative has become a new trend of "style revolution" in modern prose.
On the other hand, the content of stylistic innovation is the modernization of language, which is an extremely important theme revolution in the development of modern prose and a reform principle in the field of modern prose. Judging from the prose in the 1980s, language has indeed made a big step forward compared with ancient prose: the language is more and more abundant and straightforward. Language is a philosophy and a state of life. Modern prose writers strive to develop prose language towards the integration of language and writing, making modern vernacular Chinese a dynamic language form.
Modern prose reform is an important link in the history of China's prose development, and it is also a prosperous period of China's ancient prose development. Of course, behind the prosperity of prose, there is indeed some pallor and regret. One is the weakness of the class, which leads to incomplete change; Second, the complexity of modern society leads to the changeable thoughts of prose writers and the diversity of prose development. However, the achievements and shortcomings of China's ancient prose in the process of modernization provide historical reference and beneficial enlightenment for the development of modern vernacular prose after the May 4th Movement.