Language is a tool that we use to convey information and express feelings. Using a language effectively requires continuous learning, especially about its rhetorical elegance. There are four major artistic aspects that determine the beauty of a language: form, connotation, rhythm and rhetoric. Lu Xun (1881–1936), a famous author, pointed out different aspects in his Han wenxueshi gangyao (Essentials of the history of Han dynasty literature). He said that the beauty of a language has three major factors: meaning that moves the heart, sound that moves the ears, and form that moves the eyes. In other words, the beauty of language touches people’s hearts, ears, and eyes with its meaning, melody, and image. These three factors are also the criteria for a well-written essay—accuracy, clarity, and vividness.

The charm of classical Chinese mainly refers to the stylistic beauty of its poems, song-lyrics, couplets, and palindromic verses. Poems and lyrics are strictly regulated; they can only have a certain number of lines and a certain number of characters per line; furthermore, parallelism is required of some couplets to make them symmetrical and balanced. 

Parallel couplets are concise, profound, and well-structured. Palindromic verse takes advantage of the flexible word order in Chinese. The lines are deliberately composed to be read forwards and backwards; some readers find a certain beauty in this.

Language is a combination of sounds and meaning. The meaning of a language is conveyed by different sounds that can be described by pitch, volume, length, and quality. Paying attention to the harmony, rhythm, and melody of word choices is necessary to create beautiful-sounding writing.

When people in ancient times wrote poems, they emphasized the importance of word choice. In Du Fu’s (712–770) “A Drunken Song” (Zui ge xing), there are lines that read, “My words make the water from the Three Gorges flow back, / My single brush sweeps away thousands of enemies.” Both “flow” and “sweep” are common words, but they bring momentum to these two lines. Therefore, readers think that these two words reflect momentum.

In pre-modern Chinese literature, conciseness was prized. Chinese literati said, “ideas should express much in few words,” and “when the word is simple, the meaning is complete.” The Song dynasty writer Ouyang Xiu (1007­–1072) also emphasized conciseness. To practice writing concisely, he tasked himself with recording small events in his life in the briefest possible way. ­­­­­­­

From ancient times, Chinese literati advocated that the meaning should define the form, and the form has to serve the meaning. Old sayings like “poems express intent” and “writings reflect a person’s intent” all support this point of view. The Tang dynasty scholar Han Yu (768–824) wrote, “literature conveys the Way,” meaning that prose is a tool we use to express thought.

Language can also create visual beauty by using vivid words to describe people and scenery. When portraying literary figures, the main goal is to show vibrantly their personalities and feelings. The Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi (772–846) wrote the “Song of Everlasting Regret” (Chang hen ge), using rhetorical skills such as analogy and hyperbole to depict the beauty of the Grand Consort Yang. “Turning her head, her smile is extremely coquettish, / All the powdered faces from the six palaces paled in comparison.” The line describes the charm of the Grand Consort Yang when she was turning around, gazing and smiling.

When Ouyang Xiu wrote about the Pavilion of the Old Drunken Man, his narrative moved forward step by step, from the large picture to the small details. In this way, Ouyang Xiu gradually draws the reader’s attention to the old drunken man’s pavilion. “An Account of the Pavilion of the Drunken Old Man” introduces the mountains around Chuzhou first, and then describes the Langya Mountain in the southwest, followed by a description of Brewer’s Spring located within the mountain, and then, finally, focuses on the pavilion. The whole piece is well organized and the priorities are carefully established.

Appropriate rhetorical devices bring with them with more vivid and touching effects. For example, a famous modern writer, Feng Zikai (1898–1975), liberated his imagination and made the famous metaphor—“the true, the good, and the beautiful are the three feet of a tripod cauldron. Only with all three feet can the cauldron be stable.” This metaphor grasps the essential feature shared between a person’s moral quality and the tripod cauldron; people should pursue the true, the good, and the beautiful in their lives.