The Development And Changes Of Dunhuang Bianwen's Style

Since one century ago, there have been divergences on the understanding of the characteristics of Dunhuang Bianwen's style. This paper attempts to offer a comparatively scientific dimension for researchers' reference.It is divided into 6 chapters. First, it presents the present situation of the research and people's divergences on Bianwen's style. Then ,it goes further to analyze reasons leading to these divergences. There are three reasons: Much emphasis was put on static and synchronic analysis instead of dynamic and diachronic examination; The notion that literature is in motion has been neglected; The features of prosimetric literature are ignored. Then, it demonstrates the development and changes of Bianwen's style from three aspects: the influence of change in content on the development of form; three major features of Bianwen and their evolving tendency; the transitive stylistic feature of Bianwen. Finally, it summarizes briefly the reason for the changes of Bianwen's style.It believes that the stylistic feature of Dunhuang Bianwen is a transitive one in constant change. Bianwen is not a kind of mature style. Instead, it is a transitive one. Every stylistic feature in early works of Bianwen, isn't in accord with the one in later works in terms of degree. Generally speaking, the development tendency of Bianwen goes as follows. In terms of proportion of prose and verse, emphasis on verse has been shifted to emphasis on prose. The feature of speaking and singing together with illustrations has become less and less salient. The number of rhyming phrase has become less and less.