Characteristics and classification of prose
The concept of prose has different meanings in different historical periods: in ancient China, it generally refers to all articles except verse and parallel prose, including literary works and non-literary works. In modern times, prose is a literary genre juxtaposed with poetry, novel and drama. In contemporary times, many people will improve news literature (including literary communication, feature, reportage, etc.). ) and history and literature (. The so-called prose in ancient times has a very wide meaning and is called prose in a broad sense. Contemporary prose, as a literary genre, is a narrow sense of prose. The prose we are talking about here is this kind of narrow prose, or more narrow prose, excluding news literature, historical literature, popular science literature and essays.
So, what are the characteristics of prose?
The basic feature of prose is "gathering form and gathering spirit". The so-called "scattered form" means that on the surface, the structure is relatively loose, there may be no complete plot and compact story, and the characters may not be full; But no matter how messy, excellent and miscellaneous materials must be strung together in a line, which is the theme, or the central idea, that is to say, scattered materials must serve the theme intensively, which is called gathering the gods. Accordingly, the general characteristics of prose can be divided into the following four points:
First, the range of general materials is wide, which can be large or small. From great events to folk trivia, the former, such as Ji Fang's "Between Waves", tells the touching scene that President Mao Zedong left Yan 'an and boarded a plane to negotiate with the Kuomintang, while the latter, such as Jason's "Digging a shepherd's shepherd's shepherd's shepherd's shepherd's shepherd's shepherd's sheep". Generally speaking, the writing materials of prose are easy to be curious, which can be found through rambling, delicate lovers' whispers, newspaper news, gossip, flowers, birds, fish and insects, Mi Dou Sui, future ideas, successful designs, anecdotes, fantasy stories, ancient and modern Chinese and foreign, north and south things, overseas anecdotes and celebrity stories. But remember, stick to the theme and never make a garden, which deviates from the main idea of the article.
Second, the genre is diverse and flexible. According to the materials and writing habits, the author can choose the specific style that is most convenient to express the theme within the broad genre concept of prose, which can be a scientific sketch combining knowledge and literature, such as Zhou's Spider and Tong Shangliang's Ocean and Life. It can also be landscape travel notes, such as Bi Ye's Scenery of Tianshan Mountain and Liu Zongyuan's Story of Little Stone Pond. It can also be a diary about words and deeds, such as Hao Jianxiu's Diary of Going to Beijing. It can also be a letter to pour out one's heart, such as Lin Juemin's book with his wife; Even those essays, interviews and interviews that are handy can be classified as prose. Besides being flexible in genre form, it is also eclectic in structure and composition, which is convenient for the author to give full play to his expertise in a certain field.
Third, the techniques are different and varied. In prose writing, narrative, argumentative, lyrical and explanatory texts can be used flexibly according to actual needs. Travel prose should naturally be narrative-oriented, with occasional lyricism and discussion; Knowledge sketch is often based on explanation and occasionally narrative; Letters, notes, etc. First of all, it is a statement, and it is inevitable to comment on people and things (that is, to discuss), and sometimes to express one's feelings (lyric). Generally speaking, in prose, although the application of these expressions focuses on different genre forms, it is more worth emphasizing the comprehensive application of these expressions. It is extremely rare to use a certain technique in works, so as a middle school student, we should practice the comprehensive application of several expressions in prose writing.
Fourth, the writing is meaningful and the washing is smooth. The diversity of prose genres and the variability of techniques determine the richness and disunity of writing. In other words, the language style of prose should not and cannot be a model, but should be determined according to the actual needs of specific genres. But no matter how it changes, it should have the basic characteristics of prose. Profound, meaningful and fluent. You can name a successful essay at will, and its language features should be like this first. Look at the first paragraph of Xiao Bo's Notes on Gardens:
Planting flowers is better than growing vegetables. The flowers are well planted, purplish red and full of fragrance, which can be appreciated; Well-planted vegetables, green stems and leaves, fat roots and fruits can all be eaten. As the saying goes: "melons and vegetables are half a year's grain."
It is catchy to read, beautiful to sound, profound in meaning and meaningful in every sentence, which is the characteristic of this passage and the language of the whole article. By extension, good prose should be so fluent. Interesting. The charm of prose, in addition to novel ideas and ingenious ideas, largely depends on the beauty of language, full of lyrical color, often casting poetry and philosophy in epigrams, and sometimes using the language of parallel prose to express ideas, such as the end of Xia Yan's "Bonded Labor" is written like this:
Night, as silent as death! However, the dawn is irresistible after all. Thoreau warned Americans to watch out for dead bodies under sleepers, and I also warned some people to watch out for ghosts on moaning spindles!
Understanding these characteristics of prose will play a certain role in your prose appreciation and prose writing. As for the classification of prose, mainly according to its expression and content, it can be divided into:
First, narrative prose. Its forms of expression are mainly narrative, which can be divided into writing people, narrating, describing scenery and writing things, such as Burning at the stake, Background, Fan Ainong and Entrustment to Premier Zhou. , are centered on one or several people, with people's deeds as clues, called "writing people's prose", and then "prison essays" and "land" you can also write a few things. This kind of prose is called narrative prose, and some prose mainly focuses on scenery, such as Moonlight on the Lotus Pond, Midsummer Night by the Sea, Winter in Jinan, etc. There is another kind about things, such as Yunfu, sparrows and cats. It is worth mentioning here that the two methods of describing people and narrating are often used together, because to describe people, they always write through what they have done, that is, narrating, but they always write about people, because things are done by people, and then scenery and things are often mixed together, such as Tianshan Scenery, which has both scenery and objects, so it is difficult to distinguish. When writing, people should be written according to the actual situation, and narrative, scenery and objects may not be completely separated.
Second, lyric prose. This kind of prose mainly expresses the author's subjective feelings, such as Jun Qing's Xiongguan Fu and Zong Pu's West Lake. However, it is absolutely necessary to write people's narrative and scenery in lyric prose, because any feelings come from the feelings of individual characters and scenery, otherwise they will become passive water and trees without roots. For example, "Praise of Poplar" mainly expresses the author's admiration for the soldiers and civilians in the northern anti-Japanese war, which can never be produced out of thin air. It is the author's admiration for the soldiers and civilians in the Anti-Japanese War through his praise of poplars.
Third, discussion prose, focusing on the discussion of things, thus showing the author's views and attitudes, such as Gorky's The Clock, Tao Zhu's The Glow of the Sun, Zou Taofen's The Dull Gas, etc. This kind of composition is also argumentative, so it also has three elements of argumentative, including arguments and arguments, and it is necessary to use arguments to demonstrate arguments. However, this kind of argumentative essay has the characteristics of elegant writing and vivid language. Unlike ordinary argumentative essays, it does not stick to a rigid set of questions-analyzing problems-solving problems (that is, introduction, theory and conclusion), but adopts flexible brushwork. In a word: On Prose is an argumentative essay with strong literary color.
Although we divide prose into three categories: narrative, lyric and argumentative, it must be clear that there is no obvious boundary between these three categories. In fact, in the process of writing, in order to achieve the best expression effect, narrative, lyric, discussion, explanation and other expressions are always used, without emphasizing which expression should be used, that is, the usual methods and forms are all for the content.
The theme of any literary work should come from life. So first of all, love life. What life gives you is beautiful, and your works are full of love for life and the world. It also gives people beauty. If you hate life or the world, what you write will tear up the beautiful things for the world to see.
Prose writing should pay attention to at least two points:
The first is the structure. The structure of prose should be what you see, hear, think and feel. In other words, there must be "seeing" or "smelling" at the beginning of writing prose, and then associations and feelings will be generated from it. This is reflected in Ba Jin's Lamp and Zhu Ziqing's Moonlight on the Lotus Pond, which can be used for reference.
The second is language. Generally speaking, people say that the language of prose should be beautiful, but what is beauty? I don't think beautiful language is necessarily gorgeous. Its beauty should be reflected in that it can not only accurately express its thoughts and feelings, but also inspire people and arouse readers' thinking. At this point, I have always insisted on one point: the language of prose must have philosophy, and if there is no "famous saying", don't write prose.
The difference between narrative and prose;
Narrative focuses on writing characters' notes, asking them to write who they are, what they have done and what kind of personality characteristics they show; Or something, how it happened, how it developed, what's the point.
Prose focuses on expressing some thoughts and feelings about a thing, a scene or a scene. I call it what I see, smell, think and feel.
In short, narrative pays attention to memory and prose pays attention to lyricism.
Writing prose is like Yang Shuo, who said, "Good prose is poetry"; "When I write every article, I always write it as a poem ... I often ask for the artistic conception of poetry." "When I started writing, I didn't think I could write freely because I wrote prose. I always have to cut out the materials, arrange the layout, scrutinize the text, and then write an article like a poem. " This is his brave declaration in the field of prose art! Prose has always been "speak frankly". The so-called "talking directly about Chen Qi" and "expressing one's mind directly" only pay attention to "full of love and writing"; Although Zhu Ziqing, a master of modern prose, wrote many excellent works with mixed situations, paid considerable attention to refining ideas and tempering sentences, and began to make prose poetic, he did not put forward a clear artistic proposition, nor did he make such an inquiry in all his works. Yang Shuo, on the other hand, made great efforts to innovate, boldly went his own way, unveiled the banner of "writing with poetry", and proved its feasibility and success with his rich artistic practice-this is where he is smarter and more innovative than his predecessors.