Chen Duxiu has a close personal relationship with Jiang Menglin. They are all scholars before the Qing Dynasty. On this day, the two brothers chatted, and Jiang Menglin said, "I took the exam as a scholar of strategic theory." Chen Duxiu smiled and said, "I am an stereotyped scholar." Jiang Menglin smell speech hurriedly bowed to Chen Duxiu to express his admiration.
It needs to be explained here: at the end of Qing Dynasty 190 1 year, the examination form was changed from stereotyped writing to strategy, and the imperial examination system was completely abolished in 1906. The so-called strategy theory is similar to the argumentative essays written by our students now. Although written in classical Chinese, they are all articles expressing opinions and suggestions on policies, current affairs and social phenomena, and the content and form are very similar to modern articles. It is such a change that the "eight-part essay" and "strategic essay" mentioned in the last article have appeared.
Although this is only a small anecdote, it reflects that stereotyped writing not only has a great influence on ancient intellectuals, but also its examination difficulty is recognized. Otherwise, there will be no phenomenon that Chen Duxiu can be complacent about his status as an stereotyped scholar.
What is the difficulty of stereotyped writing, so that the president of Tang Tang Peking University is also impressed by the stereotyped writing scholars who are "close to it"? We must start from scratch:
First, stereotyped writing has a long history.
The origin of stereotyped writing can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty, when scholars annotated ancient documents in a style called "Tiekuo". This style of writing was neat, concise and poetic, which was not only admired by the literati at that time, but also favored by the rulers of the Song Dynasty.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi abandoned poetry and fu, took "Jing Yi" as the criterion for selecting scholars, and defined the scope of the imperial examination as Confucian classics, but did not standardize the style too much. The textual research form of the Southern Song Dynasty draws lessons from Tiekuo, which requires that it be written in accordance with standardized rules, and should follow the fixed pattern of breaking the topic, taking the topic, making it short, making it big, paying attention and ending. Although it is not fixed as stereotyped writing, it can basically be considered as the embryonic form of stereotyped writing.
In the Yuan Dynasty, on the basis of the imperial examination in the Song Dynasty, the scope of examination questions was further standardized, and the examination questions could only be found in the Analects of Confucius, Mencius, Daxue and the Doctrine of the Mean (I deeply doubt that this standard is because the reading ability of Mongolians and Semu people is not as good as that of Han people), so it can be said that the basic elements for the formation of stereotyped writing are all available.
It is said that the maturity of stereotyped writing was in the Ming Dynasty. With the great promotion of Zhu Yuanzhang, the scope and form of the examination were greatly improved and matured. With the popularization of the imperial examination, stereotyped writing was widely recognized by the people, and it has been followed for 500 years, becoming one of the systems with the most far-reaching influence on China's examination system and humanistic thought. So we should talk about stereotyped writing and not leave the Ming Dynasty.
Second, how to test Daming stereotyped writing?
"Ming history, the electoral system" contains:
Take the four books and five propositions of the Book of Changes, Book, Poetry, Spring and Autumn Annals and Book of Rites for example. Gai Taizu and Liu Ji Its writing is slightly imitated by the Song people, but the ancient tune is called stereotyped writing.
Explanation: Besides the four books, the scope of the examination also includes the Five Classics, which was agreed by Zhu Yuanzhang and Ming Taizu Liu Bowen. The writing form of the examination article imitates the Confucian classics of the Song Dynasty, and the writing style uses parallelism and duality. However, it needs to be added that Zhu Yuanzhang did not strictly stipulate the format of the eight-part essay, and the format was finally determined during the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming Dynasty.
The frozen eight-part essay consists of eight parts: breaking the topic, accepting the topic, starting lectures, entering the topic, starting stocks, mid-term stocks, late stocks and bundled stocks. The climax of the article is the last four parts. These four parts must not be written casually, but must be in a dual way, combining melody and rhythm, and it is in line with the law, and generally speaking, the eight-part essay will not exceed 500 words.
To tell the truth, this kind of writing is really old-fashioned, but it is also a difficult requirement. Not only a word can't pass, but also a complete central idea needs to be expressed. To have this level, it is really impossible without several years of intensive training. Moreover, the actual situation of candidates is that it is difficult for many people to meet the first standard, which is not difficult to explain why some people will not be "scholars" after taking the exam all their lives.
Although writing is difficult, it is still a matter of skill in the final analysis. The big deal is that the article is not so smooth and beautiful. What is more fatal is the intention of the article. According to the Ming Dynasty, stereotyped imperial examination composition must imitate the sage's words, that is, it must be written according to the sage's way of thinking, and you can't mix your own thoughts at all. If you dare to do something unconventional, then I'm sorry, just wait for your name to fall into Sun Shan. Maybe you have offended the emperor, and you will have to set up a literary inquisition. Therefore, in those days, if you want to gain fame, you have to dilute your self-awareness, give up your personal thoughts and throw yourself into the arms of saints.
But the sage here is not Confucius and Mencius, but Zhu. Zhu Fuzi once wrote comments on Confucian works according to his own understanding, which was very suitable for the rulers of the Ming Dynasty (perhaps the emperor of the Ming Dynasty thought that Zhu should belong to their family from Zhu Yuanzhang), so scholars all over the world can only think about the Four Books and Five Classics according to the thinking mode of the Zhu family and standardize etiquette behavior according to the moral standards of the Zhu family.
It should be said that living as someone else is a very painful thing. At that time, it was really difficult for a scholar to write a good article, not only to suffer from hard study, but also to be bound by ethics. But there is no way, who let the examination standard be like this? I can only admit that pain is painful in order to become famous and realize the highest ideal of literati.
3. Which is better?
Eight-part essay can dominate China imperial examination for 500 years, which should be said to be advanced at that time. To sum up, there are mainly the following aspects:
1, standardized examination
Before Wang Anshi in the Northern Song Dynasty, the selection of scholars in the imperial examination was difficult to define and subjective factors were too heavy, which easily led to corruption in the imperial examination. Because stereotyped writing has strict format regulations and defines the scope of the examination, examiners can quickly make relatively objective and fair judgments according to the format and content when marking papers, thus making the examination results relatively fair. From this perspective, stereotyped writing can be regarded as China's contribution to the standardization of ancient examinations.
2. The popularity and standardization of teaching materials are high, which is convenient for the popularization of basic education.
As the content of stereotyped examination is Confucian classics, four books and five classics which have been handed down for thousands of years in ancient China, it is very suitable for the national conditions of ancient China and facilitates the popularization of basic education, especially for the bottom people to have the opportunity to change their destiny through education, so that "serving Tian Shelang and becoming the palace of the emperor at dusk" has become the dream of many poor people.