ShiCe

谥策 and

AiCe

哀策 are practical literary styles used in imperial funeral rituals. According to the “Great Funeral”礼仪志of

the Book of the Later Han

续汉书， both styles originated from ceremonies aimed at transforming the soul of the deceased emperor into a deified ancestor god. The distinction between these two styles lies in their ritual elements such as the timing， location， per

sonnel， orientation， and storage， and their final textual archival—thereby resulting in distinct stylistic functions， ideological implications， and formal structures. The imperial

ShiCe

originated from the conferring ceremony册命. Categorized under the structural genre of

ce

册， its unique stylistic form concluding with a prayer， embodied the concept that the deceased emperor， upon receiving this heavenly conferral of a posthumous title， ascended as an ancestor god endowed with divine power. Subsequently employed，

AiCe

was read to the ancestor god， consequently classified by Liu Xie刘勰 as “texts for addressing the spirits”文实告神—a genre strictly reserved for emperors and empresses eligible for ancestral temple enshrinement and deification.

AiCe

served to sooth the the soul， which shaped its formal characteristics of chronicling funeral proceedings and expressing profound grief. Liu Xie’s stylistic discourse on

AiCe

exemplifies the approach of “establishing styles through ritual” and the value of belief system in the stylistics of

the Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons

文心雕龙.