Masters' prose centres on debate. Confucius, Mencius, Zhuangzi, Han Feizi and others argued with logic and made their points with parable, and so wrote expository prose.
At the end of the Spring and Autumn period, Confucius's sayings in the Analects opened the way for the prose of the masters. In the middle of the Warring States, Mencius's eloquence and Zhuangzi's parables flourished together, and the argumentative prose of the masters reached its height.
In the Tang, Han Yu led the Ancient Prose movement, taking the prose of the pre-Qin and Han as his model and reviving expository writing.
Masters' Prose is the class in the chapter on Letters on the argumentative prose of the pre-Qin thinkers, centred on the debates of Confucius, Mencius, Zhuangzi and Han Feizi and written with logic and parable. With the narrative of the Records of the Grand Historian it forms the two traditions of classical prose.
