TERMBASES
Chen Zi’ang (659-700), the early Tang Dynasty writer believed that concise and clear wording makes writings shine, and he strongly opposed excessive exposition and repeated ornamentation. He held that this would drown out the purpose of the article and that if an article’s main theme is not manifest, it would lose its appeal. This is in line with his advocacy of the prevailing literary style in the Jian’an era at the end of the Han Dynasty and the Zhengshi literary style of the final years of the State of Wei in the Three Kingdoms period. He put emphasis on expressing the theme and character of an article and he calls for a writing style whose beauty lies in its strength and clarity, as opposed to a style that was flamboyant and weak. This idea became the precursor to the literary innovation movement in the Tang Dynasty.