Analysis:
China's ancient literature has a long history, from the 7th century to the10th century to the most advanced and civilized Tang Dynasty in the world, showing unprecedented prosperity.
First of all, it is expressed in poetry. As a representative of Tang literature, Tang poetry has a wide range of themes, a huge number and a variety of styles, which are unmatched by any previous era. According to the statistics of Complete Tang Poetry, there are nearly 50,000 poems and more than 2,300 poets. Not only the number is more than two or three times that of the previous generation's poems, but also a large number of poetic artistic geniuses have emerged. Apart from Li Bai and Du Fu, two great poets rarely seen in history, others are Chen Ziang, Meng Haoran, Wang Wei, Gao Shi, Cen Can, Wang Changling, Wei, Yuan Zhen, Bai Juyi, Han Yu, Meng Jiao, Liu Zongyuan, Li He, Du Mu and Li Shangyin. , are famous people with certain original styles. With accomplished, distinctive and influential poets and high-quality, touching and popular works of art, * * * has created a grand view of the poetry circle in the Tang Dynasty. The achievements of Tang people in poetry are unprecedented and beyond the reach of future generations.
Secondly, in prose. The ancient prose movement advocated by Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan adapted to the needs of social development at that time. On the basis of inheriting the literary theory of the previous generation, they put forward a whole set of ancient Chinese theories, such as "the unity of literature and Taoism", and obtained the opinions of Li Guan, Fan Zongshi, Li Han, Li Ao and Huang Fu? , Shen Yazhi, and others responded in succession, and then formed a massive ancient prose movement in the Tang Dynasty, which opened a new era for the development of China's classical prose. In practice, they wrote many essays, fables, biographies and travel notes with high ideological and artistic value, completed the innovation of style and literary language, and created a new type of ancient prose that is natural, simple, fluent and clear, concise and informal. The ancient prose movement in Tang Dynasty not only expanded the lyric, descriptive, narrative and argumentative functions of prose, but also laid the system and direction for the development of prose in the future.
Thirdly, it is novel. In the prosperous literature garden of Tang Dynasty, legendary novels once exuded attractive fragrance. Lu Xun said in "A Brief History of Chinese Novels": "Novels are also like poems, which changed in the Tang Dynasty." Compared with the novels of the Six Dynasties, the legends of the Tang Dynasty have undergone fundamental changes. Content, from mainly describing ghosts and gods to describing social real life; In art, from the "rough outline" of the Six Dynasties and folk anecdotes, it has developed into a tortuous and complete story, vivid and concrete details and vivid characters. Li Wa Biography, Yingying Biography, Pillow Story, Conan Taishou Biography, Everlasting Sorrow Biography, Red Line Biography and Campus Guest Biography are all widely read works. The appearance of Tang legends not only indicates that China's novels have entered a mature stage, but also, like Tang poems, they are regarded as "the wonder of a generation" and have influenced future generations.
In addition, some new literary styles appeared in the Tang dynasty, which were not available in the previous generation. Bianwen, for example, is a popular style in the Tang Dynasty and the source of rap literature in later generations. Although Ci originated in Sui Dynasty, it was not widely spread until Tang Dynasty, and many folk songs and literati Ci appeared. The appearance of Bianwen and the wide spread of Ci not only opened up a new road for the development of literature after the Song Dynasty, but also made the literature of the Tang Dynasty show a prosperous scene of blooming flowers and competing for beauty.
As Lu Xun said in "Introduction to Modern New Literature": "All kinds of literature are produced in response to the environment." The Tang Dynasty was the heyday of feudal society in China, which created suitable conditions for the prosperity of Tang literature. Economic prosperity laid a solid material foundation for the prosperity and development of Tang literature, and political stability provided a good environment for the prosperity and development of Tang literature. The Tang Empire was established on the basis of the peasant uprising at the end of Sui Dynasty. The feudal rulers, represented by Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, learned the lesson of the death of Sui II, and realized that "water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it. People still care about water, and kings still care about boats", and formulated and adopted a series of measures to help stabilize people's lives, develop social production and promote the long-term stability of feudal countries. For example, the implementation of the land equalization system and the rent adjustment method will guide farmers to reclaim wasteland, appropriately reduce the burden, and make the economy recover and develop rapidly; The establishment of various political systems, the strengthening of centralization, the cautious use of punishment, and admonition and Ren Xian led to a stable period from Tang Taizong to Tang Xuanzong 120 years. Social stability paved the way for economic prosperity, which in turn promoted social stability, and finally formed the famous "rule of Kaiyuan" in history. Political stability and economic development make it possible for rulers to devote themselves to cultural rule and develop cultural undertakings, and at the same time create the necessary conditions for more literati to enter the literary world; The unification of feudal countries not only promoted the integration of North and South styles and the exchange of national cultures, but also created a good atmosphere for the prosperity of creation.
A relatively free, active and relaxed political and ideological environment is a necessary prerequisite for the prosperity of Tang literature. Generally speaking, the Tang people dare to face up to reality and call a spade a spade. Therefore, in the Tang Dynasty, there were many poems and articles that criticized current politics and exposed the disadvantages of the times. All these are based on a relatively relaxed political and ideological environment. The second article of Rong Zhai's Continued Writing by Hong Mai, a Song Dynasty poet, can be said to be an explanation of this situation: "The poems of the Tang Dynasty, written in the past and then, are straightforward." When it comes to the Forbidden Palace, people who don't know the outside world have to say it repeatedly, and those who go up don't think it's a crime. "Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism go hand in hand, but the rulers of the Tang Dynasty adopted a compromise attitude towards their contradictions and conflicts without intervention. In this way, even though the traditional Confucian dogma greatly weakened the bondage to people, the thoughts of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism became active and developed. People's minds have been liberated to a certain extent, coupled with the translation and dissemination of Buddhist scriptures and the absorption of foreign cultures in the Tang Dynasty, which is not only very conducive to enlightening people's minds, broadening people's horizons, activating people's hearts and stimulating people's creativity, but also very conducive to the development and prosperity of literature.
On the basis of the artistic achievements of the previous generation, the Tang Dynasty successfully summarized, inherited and innovated, which also contributed to unprecedented prosperity. We know that the development of literature has its own development law, and obvious inheritance is the most important performance. The development of literature in any era should take the end point reached by the previous generation as the starting point for our continued development. Undoubtedly, the prosperity of Tang literature was restricted by this law. The Tang Dynasty was the age of poetry. However, it is the accumulation of the long experience of poetry creation from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty that finally contributed to the maturity and formation of Tang poetry. The creation, exploration and accumulation of predecessors prepared conditions for the maturity and prosperity of Tang poetry. Yuan Zhen's summary of Du Fu's poetic art in the Epitaph of Du Yun, the minister of the Ministry of Industry in the Tang Dynasty is a good example: "Cover the so-called thin style and coquettish, go down to Shen, Song, Gusu, Li, seize Cao and Liu, hide your face and thank the orphans." It shows that it is on the basis of fully inheriting the achievements of predecessors that the Tang people made new creations and innovations according to the reality, and pushed poetry to * * *. Similarly, without the rich accumulation and long-term exploration of the writing experience of parallel prose and ancient prose in the Six Dynasties, there would be no great development of ancient prose in the Tang Dynasty, as Liu Xizai's "A Brief Introduction to Art" said: "Chinese prose began to decline in the eight generations, but it was actually a collection of eight generations. Cover only those who make good use of the ancient, can become ancient and all-encompassing, so they can sweep everything. " This shows that Han Yu's ancient prose sublates parallel prose. As the heyday of feudal society, the Tang Dynasty not only created suitable conditions for the inheritance and innovation of literature, but also produced a large number of outstanding talents who could undertake the heavy responsibility of inheritance and innovation, thus pushing the development of literature in the Tang Dynasty to the peak.
In the Tang Dynasty, the imperial examination was used to select scholars, which broke the monopoly of aristocratic families on political power. Intellectuals from all walks of life can climb to high positions and display their ambitions through examinations. Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, witnessed the grand occasion of taking part in the imperial examination, and when he was proud, he lamented that "the heroes of the world were trapped", which also showed that some small and medium-sized landlords were encouraged, made meritorious deeds and made positive progress, and took part in the imperial examination one after another, striving to be among the rulers with practical actions; In order to adapt to the current situation, candidates had to pay attention to poetry and fu, which led to the general atmosphere of scholars learning and writing poetry, and this social atmosphere also promoted the prosperity of literature in the Tang Dynasty. Su Zhe's sentence "Scholars in the Tang Dynasty can learn from poems" illustrates the relationship between selecting scholars by poems and literature in the Tang Dynasty.