On the Achievements in Fu and Prose before the Qin Dynasty

In terms of Fu (a descriptive prose interspersed with verse), Saoti Fu in the pre-Qin period (poetry in the style of Li Sao, a poem by the 4th century B. C. poet and statesman Qu Yuan) shares the same form with but differs in spirit from that in the Han Dynasty. Shiti fu (style of a verse, poem, etc.) is more or less the same as Fu in the Han Dynasty but different in terminology. Santi fu (a prose style free from parallelism, a direct prose style) has become the mainstay of literature after the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty. The pre-Qin period Ciling (a form of classical poetry) or shuxin (an epistolary style) already existed as independent styles. The pre-Qin period prose has its own distinctive features in the expressions of emotion and variant styles, the artistic achievements of which has exerted great influence on subsequent prose and even novels.