The concept of ancient prose was first put forward by Han Yu. He regarded the parallel prose that emphasized rhythm, rhetoric and parallelism since the Six Dynasties as popular prose, and thought that his prose inherited the tradition of articles in the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties, so it was called "ancient prose". Han Yu advocated ancient prose in order to restore the Confucian orthodoxy in ancient times and turn the reform of writing style and the revival of Confucianism into a complementary movement. When advocating ancient prose, we further emphasize the necessity of civilized Taoism. The ancient prose movement is an innovative movement that advocates ancient prose and opposes the style, style and literary language of parallel prose. Its content is mainly to revive Confucianism, and its form is to oppose parallel prose and advocate ancient prose. The so-called "ancient prose" is for parallel prose. Prose in the pre-Qin and Han dynasties is characterized by simplicity and freedom, concise lines and no format constraints, which is conducive to reflecting real life and expressing ideas. The so-called "parallel prose" refers to the style that pays attention to parallelism, rhetoric, melody and allusions since the Six Dynasties. Since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, parallel prose has prevailed in the literary world, starting from the Han Dynasty and prevailing in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Although parallel prose has excellent works, a large number of articles are rigid in form and empty in content. A mere formality, such as duality, temperament, allusions and rhetoric, is flashy and not suitable for use. Parallel prose, as a style, has become an obstacle to the development of literature. In the Western Wei Dynasty, Su Chuo once imitated Shangshu as a great height and advocated the reform of ancient prose in Shang and Zhou Dynasties, but it didn't work. Emperor Wendi of the Sui Dynasty issued a letter forbidding "expressing feelings by writing", and Li Huan wrote to ask Ge Wenhua to do so, but none of them reversed the trend. In the early Tang literary world, parallel prose still dominated. Emperor Taizong was still flashy about writing. Liu Zhiji, a historian, once put forward the view that "words must be close to the truth" and "no color carving" in Shi Tong. Wang Bo proposed to reform the shortcomings of writing, but his works still use parallel prose; Chen Ziang also unveiled the flag of retro. During the Tianbao period of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, Xiao, Li Hua, Jie Yuan, Du Fu, Liang Su and Liu Mian successively put forward the idea of "learning from the scriptures" and became pioneers of the ancient prose movement with prose. Han Yu and others raised the banner of "restoring ancient ways", advocated learning ancient prose and ancient roads, and publicized their political opinions and Confucianism. This thought has been strongly supported by Liu Zongyuan and others and widely reacted by the society, gradually forming a wave of mass struggle, overwhelming parallel prose and forming a far-reaching "movement". This movement has its development process. When parallel prose was popular, some people asked for reform. In the early Tang Dynasty, Chen Ziang advocated retro, and was a pioneer of stylistic innovation. Later, Xiao, Li Hua and others followed suit and put forward the idea of adopting the method of three generations and two Han dynasties, which made ideological preparations for the ancient prose movement in Han and Liu Dynasties. After the Anshi Rebellion in the middle Tang Dynasty, although the national strength of the Tang Dynasty was weak, after Zhenyuan, the society was temporarily stable and the economy developed, and there was hope of "revival". In this way, the time is ripe for Han Yu and others to advocate the ancient prose movement. They put forward the slogans of "Dao" and "Dao", which are the basic theories of the ancient prose movement. They attach importance to the writer's moral cultivation, write true feelings, and emphasize the original spirit of "saying things" (Han Yu answered Li Yishu) and "saying what you say will come out" (Han Yu's Epitaph of Nanyang Fan Shaoshu). On the one hand, they practiced, on the other hand, they trained many young writers, which made the momentum of the ancient prose movement stronger and stronger.
The poetry innovation movement in the Northern Song Dynasty is an important literary phenomenon in the literary history of the Song Dynasty. It was brewed, developed and completed in the Northern Song Dynasty. This is a large-scale literary retro movement that directly inherits the spirit of New Yuefu and the ancient prose movement in the middle Tang Dynasty. It is a comprehensive style innovation with retro as the banner and in line with the political reform situation in the Northern Song Dynasty. The emergence of the poetry innovation movement not only has theoretical guiding significance for the whole literature of the Song Dynasty, but also has creative demonstration significance, thus creating a new situation in the literary world of the Northern Song Dynasty. The achievements of the poetry innovation movement, with its theoretical achievements and creative practice, left a valuable legacy for future generations. Theoretically, on the basis of the reform of Wen Dao, writing style and language in the ancient prose movement in the Tang Dynasty, the relationship between Wen Dao and Wen Dao was correctly solved, and Yi Dao Xiao Yi's language style was affirmed. In particular, Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi made outstanding contributions to their poetic theories.
This is undoubtedly a great progress in the development of literary theory. In the creative practice, a number of prose masters such as Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, Ceng Gong and Su San emerged. Their essays have deep feelings, pay attention to secular merits, clearly embody the idea of combining literature and Taoism, and are excellent works reflecting reality. They swept the audience with diverse expression techniques and established natural, fluent and euphemistic styles, making odd sentences prose occupy a dominant position in the literary world, and finally completed the innovation of China ancient literature advocated by Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan in the Tang Dynasty. Their influence made later generations call them the Eight Masters of Tang and Song Dynasties. In poetry creation, writers represented by Wang Yucheng, Mei, Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi and Su Shi have also made great achievements. They inherited the fine tradition of coquettish writing style of the previous generation, and used the theoretical viewpoints of China ancient writers, such as putting practical things into practice, advocating simplicity, resisting elegance, wealth and difficulty, to run through their poetry creation. Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi and Su Shi had a far-reaching influence on the poetry circles in the Southern Song Dynasty, the Tang and Song Dynasties in the Ming Dynasty, the police school, the Jingling school and the Song School in the Qing Dynasty. Poetry and prose innovation movement also had a great influence on Ci and Fu. As far as its influence is concerned, Ci is different from the past in terms of subject matter, ideological content and diversity of expression methods, and a new style of Ci has emerged. In the creation of fu, it broke through the strict rhyme restriction of the Tang Dynasty's law fu, mixed with prose sentences and used more function words, making the law fu a literary fu. Parallel prose is also different from the style of rhetoric and allusions in the past, and it becomes readable after transformation.
The final completion of the poetic innovation in the Northern Song Dynasty means that the literary innovation movement, which is closely related to political innovation and requires a sweeping away of frivolous writing style, has come to an end and established a literary style with the characteristics of the Song Dynasty. Elegant view based on coquettish, advocating plain and ancient artistic standards, has since become the dominant thought in literary theory of Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties.