Liu Zongyuan
In terms of prose, Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan were stylistic innovators. Responding against the florid and tightly restricted pianwen prose form, which had become de rigueur since the Han dynasty, they promoted and wrote essays in a more direct, colloquial style which harkened back to more ancient Chinese prose; as a result, this literary movement was known as the Classical Prose Movement. While the movement would wane in the late Tang, Ouyang Xiu became another proponent in the Song Dynasty, revitalising a thread of Chinese prose writing that would exist until the late Qing.