The Stylistic Significance of the Compilation Format of
The Classified Compilation of Ancient Articles
Wu Chengxue, He Shihai
Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Abstract
：The table of contents of The Classified Compilation of Ancient Articles 《古文辞类纂》), for the first time in the history of Chinese literature, had the preface, titles and contents incorporated into one body, which introduced the compilation format, listed the contents, and made literary criticism. This not only established a new form for book compilation, but also established a new mode of literary criticism. The characteristic of this kind of stylistic classification took the stylistic function as the major link and the concrete style as the minor link, thus having the effect of changing from complexity to simplicity. Although this format of classified compilation had its advantages of simplicity and limpidity, it could not completely include and embody the style genealogy in ancient China. There were some disputes in the practice of selecting and classifying articles, reflecting the problems generally existing in the stylistic classification in ancient China. The selected articles of this book did not include historical biography, which was the mainstream academic tradition of stylistics after the publication of The Selected Works 《文选》) compiled by Xiao Tong南朝萧统) , and especially after the Ming and Qing Dynasties, to strictly distinguish the contents between the section of history and the section of verse and prose anthology.
Key words
：
The Classified Compilation of Ancient Articles
table of contents
classified compilation
historical biography
stylistics
academic tradition
