Abstract: Ancient Chinese prose is not a stylistic concept like parallel prose or other popular essays. “Ancient”, equivalent to Chinese character gu, signifies classic elegance and standard correction. The purposes of ancient Chinese prose writing in Tang Dynasty contained the quest for elegant form by returning to the ancients on the one hand and standard correction by revealing truth thematically on the other hand. However, ancient Chinese prose had its own writing rules and principles, so writers in MidTang Dynasty were required not only to understand the differences between palaeoid Chinese and medieval Chinese, but also to obey the rules of pronunciation and grammar in palaeoid Chinese. Since writers failed to get away from the restrictions of their current ideologicalacademic traditions and social customs, they could only achieve breakthroughs in some styles but not all, thus hardly managing to challenge the popular essay styles of the times.

Key words: ancient Chinese prose, style, Han and Liu, parallel prose, rules