A Study Of Historical Essays Of Eight Great Men Of The Tang And Song Dynasties

From the saying “when talk about history,it's similar with Can and Zan” in wenxindiaolong,we can know that there is a genre named Historical Essay which has an important position in literary form of Essay.Wenxuan even makes it an independent literary form and takes it as important as literary form of Essay.With the standard of author,Historical Essay is divided into two parts,including Historian's Essay and Literateur's Essay.Literateur's Essay is the futher development of Historian's Essay.Eight Great Men's Historical Essay which represents the top level of Historical Essay belongs to the Literature's Essay.And Historical Essay is very useful in guiding and inspiring today's life.According to an uncompleted statistic,the number of Eight Great Men's Historical Essay is 164.With the standard of discussion objects,the Eight Great Men's Historical Essay is divided into three categories,including Human Category,Dynasty Category and Regulation Category.Human Category contains three parts,which is the advisement to the Emperor,the judgement of ministers and the acceptance and criticism to the scholars.Dynasty Category mainly talks about the strategies of getting and ruling the country.Regulation Category which summarizes historical books and regulations of the previous dynasty has a great help with fighting against superstition.And it also emphasizes the influence of rules and music to the governance.As a literary group,the Eight Great Men have something in common,but they also have their own characteristics.Fighting against showy literary style,the Eight Great Men highly regard simply manner in writing.With their appeals for classical Chinese,specification for writing had been funded which is learned by the students preparing for Imperial Examination.Hanyv and Liu Zongyuan's historical essays are in high and vigorous spirits;Suxun's historical essays swing but useful;Ouyang Xiu's historical essays are elegant and peaceful;Zenggong's historical essays are graceful and beautiful;Wang Anshi's historical essays are strict and rigid;Sushi's historical essays are enthusiasm and unexpected;Suzhe's historical essays are leisure and widely expansive.