Liu Zongyuan's Prose

The prose of Liu Zongyuan (AD 773-819) is natural and fluent. He was a prolific writer and created many excellent biographies, fables and travel notes.

Liu Zongyuan's written arguments are penetrating, with strict logic,as best seen "On Feudalism." His fables, written to satirize socialills, contain rich imagination and profound morality using biting language."Three Cautions" is one of his famous satirical sketches. Liu'sbiographical prose was mainly based on actual persons and eventswith slight exaggerations and invention, with major works including "The Snake Catchers,""The Story of the Boy Ou Ji," and "Episodes in the Life of Marshal Duan."

Among Liu Zongyuanis works, travelogues on scenic landscapes havebeen the most popular. Since it was from his writings that travelogueswere developed into an independent literary genre, Liu has been regardedas the "father of the travelogue." The most famous are "Eight Sketches ofYongzhou." The "eight sketches," instead of being purely landscapedescription, are filled with profound meaning. Liu Zongyuan's prose is written in simple and lively language,consistently interesting and charming. By using a lot of short sentences,his writings read like lively rhymes and are full of variation, which is theresult of learning from pian wen.