With the change of history and the evolution of spoken language, the difference between classical Chinese and spoken language has gradually expanded, and "classical Chinese" has become the exclusive language of scholars.
Classical Chinese is relative to the vernacular Chinese after the New Culture Movement, and there was no such thing as classical Chinese in ancient times. It is characterized by paying attention to the use of allusions, parallel prose and neat melody, including strategies, poems, words, songs, stereotyped writing, parallel prose and other styles.
After the modification of literati in past dynasties, it became more and more flashy. Han Yu, a great writer in the Tang Dynasty, initiated the "ancient prose movement" and advocated returning to popular ancient prose. The classical Chinese in modern books are generally marked with punctuation marks in order to facilitate reading and understanding.
The characteristics of classical Chinese are: separation of speech and writing, concise writing.
Classic example
classical poetry
There are 300 Tang poems, 300 Song poems, 300 Yuan songs and 1000 Book of Songs.
ancient Chinese literature
The Book of Filial Piety, The Analects of Confucius, The Book of Rites, Shangshu, Spring and Autumn Annals, Warring States Policy, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Everything is done wrong, Mencius, Mozi, Xunzi, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Thirty-six Strategies and Guiguzi. Enlightenment of Melody, Six Towers and Three Strategies, Hundred Wars, Long Essays on English, Groans, You Meng Win, Biography, Think Tank, Letters from Zeng Guofan, Shi Shuo Xin Yu, Couplets, Random Thoughts and Meng Qian.
History lesson
Historical Records, History of the Three Kingdoms, History of Han Dynasty, History of Later Han Dynasty, Book of Old Tang Dynasty, Draft of Qing Dynasty, etc.