Ma Shuo is an essay by Han Yu, a writer in the Tang Dynasty, which is an argumentative essay. It was originally the fourth essay written by Han Yu, and the title "Ma Shuo" was added by later generations.
This article was written in the 11th year of Zhenyuan (795) to the 16th year (800). "Shuo" means "talking" and is an ancient argumentative genre. This article takes the horse as a metaphor, talking about the talent problem, revealing the author's cynicism and his feelings and resentment. It expresses the author's strong indignation at the feudal rulers' failure to identify, reuse and bury talents.
Extended data:
The central idea of Ma Shuo: The author takes a swift horse as an example and compares it to a wise man who can't meet a wise master. It shows that the author hopes that the rulers can identify and reuse talents so that they can give full play to their talents. The full text reposes the author's sense of resentment and poverty, satirizes, criticizes and accuses the rulers of burying and destroying talents.
Ma Shuo is an argumentative essay, which is like an allegory rather than an allegory. Using metaphor to debate can't clearly express opinions, nor can it impose personal opinions on readers.
The author describes the experience of Maxima with image thinking, presents facts, saves pen and ink to tell the truth, and uses function words (auxiliary words, exclamations and conjunctions) in ancient Chinese, which embodies the interest and artistic conception of singing and sighing. Bole's allusions have been quoted by Han Yu many times (see Preface to Letter of Recommendation, Sending Wen He Yang), which shows that Han Yu's fate is bumpy.