Classics of ancient Chinese prose

Author: Gu Yiran
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-01-01
Features: China is a kingdom of poetry, and also a kingdom of prose. The number of classic prose works is vast, almost as boundless as the sea. Chinese prose has a long history, nourishing generations of readers and writers. Even today, it remains full of vitality, offering valuable insights in both thought and art. Chinese prose took shape and matured during the pre-Qin period. The oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty and the bronze inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou dynasties were mostly brief, with only a few capable of expressing a clear central idea and lacking well-structured passages—this was the embryonic stage of prose. The emergence of the Book of Documents marked the formation of ancient prose, containing relatively complete argumentative and narrative texts. After the Book of Documents, prose developed in two directions: the argumentative prose of the philosophers and the narrative prose of historical texts.
Starting from the late Spring and Autumn period, slavery gradually gave way to feudalism, bringing about profound changes in politics, economy, and ideology. The decline of the royal authority and the disintegration of rituals led to a shift from "learning in the hands of officials" to "learning in the," giving rise to the active "scholar" class in society. These scholars represented the interests of different classes and, in response to the social transformations, offered various critiques and proposed their own viewpoints, resulting in the phenomenon of scholars debating freely and the Hundred Schools of Thought flourishing. Additionally, the rise of persuasive scholars further propelled the development of various types of writing, especially argumentative prose.
The philosophers of the Hundred Schools wrote extensively: Confucianism had the Analects, Mencius, and Xunzi; Daoism had the Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi; Mohism had the Mozi; Legalism had the Shangjun Shu and Han Feizi; and Syncretism had the Lüshi Chunqiu. The Analects was a collection of recorded sayings. By the mid-Zhou period, the dialogue-style prose remained popular, with parts of Mencius, Mozi, and Zhuangzi adopting this form. However, Mencius and others had evolved beyond the simple sayings of individuals, adopting dialogue as their primary form. For instance, Mencius often recorded debates, with each chapter centered around a central theme, exhibiting a nature of refutation. Certain chapters of Mozi and Zhuangzi were similar, using debates to elaborate on topics more thoroughly, thus advancing the development of prose forms. Zhuangzi and Mencius exemplified the transition from dialogue-style prose to specialized argumentative prose.
By the late Zhou period, works like Xunzi and Han Feizi completely abandoned the dialogue-style, becoming fully specialized argumentative texts. Most of their chapters were clearly focused, well-organized, logically rigorous, and persuasively argued, marking the complete maturity of pre-Qin argumentative prose.