A Study On The Acceptability Of Wang Anshi’s Ancient Prose By Tongcheng School

Tongcheng Faction was the most influential ancient prose school in the Qing Dynasty.It was roughly formed in the prosperous Kangxi and Qianlong dynasties,and flourished in the Xianfeng dynasty,and finally withdrew from the historical stage in the old and new confrontations during the Republic of China.Although Tongcheng literary theory has been inherited,it has been enriched and developed in the academic relay of several generations of Tongcheng scholars.Tongcheng Faction takes the eight articles of Tang and Song Dynasties as the study of ancient literature,but the evolution of Tongcheng literary theory in different historical environments has always made the classic status of the eight masters in dynamic change.Among them,the acceptance of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose by Chinese scholars is the largest.Therefore,this paper will take the acceptance of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose by Tongcheng scholars as the starting point to explore the evolution process and innovation direction of Tongcheng Factionin the historical transformation.The full text is divided into four chapters:The first chapter mainly reviews the acceptance of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose before the Qing Dynasty.The Song Dynasty is the first stage of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose’s acceptance.People in the Song Dynasty have different evaluations of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose,which laid an open tone for the acceptance of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose in later generations.Scholars in the Yuan and Ming dynasties expressed their own opinions when evaluating Wang Anshi and his ancient prose,which made the acceptance of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose in the Yuan and Ming dynasties diversified.The critics represented by Mao Kun’s comments on Wang Anshi’s ancient prose pushed the acceptance of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose in the Ming Dynasty to a climax.The establishment of ’Eight Masters of Tang and Song Dynasties ’made Wang Anshi’s ancient prose’s acceptance enter a new stage.The second chapter discusses the changes in the acceptance of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose by the three ancestors of Tongcheng in the early period of Tongcheng faction.Anthology is the concrete carrier of literary claims of critics.The ancient prose theory of ’Tongcheng Sanzu’ has different emphasis,so they have different characteristics in the selection of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose.From Fang Bao’s Selection of Ancient Writings to Yao Nai’s Ancient lexicography,Wang Anshi’s classical status has been continuously improved,and the comments in the anthology have gradually tilted to grammar.To sum up,the acceptance of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose of ’Three Ancestors of Tongcheng’reflects the transformation trend of Tongcheng’s literary theory from’emphasizing Tao and neglecting Wen ’to’integrating Wen and Dao’.The third chapter analyzes the characteristics of the acceptance of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose.Fang Dongshu in’Yaomen Sijie’adopts the way of ’poetry and prose’to conduct a comprehensive study of Wang Anshi’s literary creation and broaden the acceptance dimension of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose.Zeng Guofan’s emphasis on Wang Anshi’s ancient prose triggered the style of learning Wang in Tongcheng Faction in the late Qing Dynasty.The ancient prose of Tongcheng gradually changed from’elegant and clean’to ’heroic’.Wu Dexuan and Wu Ting’s acceptance of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose still takes grammar as the breakthrough point,discusses the artistic characteristics of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose,and further enriches the acceptance content of Tongcheng Faction.The fourth chapter discusses the late Tongcheng Wu’s father and son and Lin Shu’s tendency to comment on Wang Anshi’s ancient prose.The internal differentiation of the late Tongcheng Faction also showed two trends in the acceptance of Wang Anshi’s ancient prose in the late Tongcheng Faction.Wu Rulun and Wu Kaisheng regarded Wang Anshi’s ancient prose as the doorway of the literature of the prosperous Han,Zhou and Qin Dynasties,so they vigorously promoted Wang Anshi’s classical status.Lin Shu’s return to the dilute style of writing of ’Tongcheng Sanzu’made Wang Anshi’s position in the anthology fall back.However,they all tried to connect with the times in the process of evaluating Wang Anshi’s ancient prose,consciously continuing the lifeblood of Tongcheng,reflecting the spirit of self-innovation of Tongcheng scholars.