The origin of prose

If the origin of drama is to imitate other people's behavior, and the origin of lyric poetry comes from people's singing instinct, then the origin of prose is people's instinct to observe life and think about its observation significance. Therefore, the roots of western prose can be traced back to proverbs and Ecclesiastes in the Bible, as well as speculative judgments in ancient Greek and Roman "wisdom" works. In the form of proverbs, aphorisms or aphorisms, the author writes down his thoughts on wisdom, wealth, marriage or father-son relationship in life. There are also many examples of the origin of oriental literary prose. We can read this kind of ancestors' aphoristic thinking and judgment on life from Confucius' Analects, Laozi's Laozi and Mencius. Moreover, this kind of epigram judgment seems to run through the whole process of prose development, appearing from time to time in diaries, magazines, letters, marginal notes, aphorisms and advice collections, and now newspaper comments. There is no literary form like prose, and its original expression can coexist and complement its most avant-garde and more complicated contemporary expression. Perhaps this is because it constantly reminds us that the spirit of prose lies in its observation and thinking.

It is said that in the west, the latest literary form of essays is named after the essays published by French writer Montaigne 1580. Bacon was impressed by Montaigne's example. 1597 He named some random thoughts he recorded as essays published, with ten articles * * *, which were later added one after another. 1625 There are 25 articles in the last edition, which marks the real birth of English prose. Montaigne and Bacon both used the original meaning of the word "essay" (French "assai"), that is, to try. Prose is a means by which they try to reflect and examine the topics they think and feel in a specific period and explore themselves. They found-and we have found since then-that if you write down an idea, it will become clearer and brighter.