Confucian Classics And Ancient Learning,Literature Environment And Parallel Prose In The Academies In The 19th Century

About the popularity of Confucian classics,history and literature writing in academies in nineteenth century,I will give five reasons.First,In Qianlong dynasty,the imperial examination was always changed.It seemed that the court was paying more attention to Confucian classics and other ancient learning.Secondly,the examiners would give questions according their academic interests.Many questions about Five Classics,history and literature appeared in the examinations.The way of checking the examination papers was also important.The marking men sometimes checked the eliminated papers to find the scholars who were not good at the Stereotyped Writing of the first exam.Occasionally,they even violated the prescribed scoring procedures.For example,in 1799,Zhu Gui and Ruan Yuan read the second and the third exam papers to chose the qualified scholars at the first.As a result,many famous scholars appeared in the list among which were some writers skilled in the parallel prose.Thirdly,the provincial educational commissioners would hold two exams in every county of the province in three years,but before every exam there was a external exam to find people talented in Confucian Classics and literature writing.Fourthly,scholars in charge of private schools,as well as examiners,educational officials,were also key persons to guide studying.Such officials as Ruan Yuan would collect outstanding people from this kind of exams and send them to the academies special in classics,history and literature.Some famous scholars in charge of the academies were also important force in the spread of Classics and the art of writing.At last,Economic incentives are also one of the factors that attract scholars to come to the Ancient Academy of classical learning.In the first half of nineteenth century,Ruan Yuan was one of people leading the academic fashion.The founding of Gu-Jing Academy and Hsueh-Hai-Tang Academy was his great contribution to education.As the two earliest academies in Qing dynasty to study Han learning and art of writing,Gu-Jing and Hsueh-Hai-Tang affected the academic outlook in 19th Century.Ruan always paid attention to the connection of textual research,exegesis and literature and embodied his thought in the question topics of Gu-Jing.Employing Wang Chang and Sun Xingyan as the teachers of Gu-Jing was also a part of his efforts to seed the balance between academic and literature.At the same time,the scholars of Gu-Jing were good at either Confucian classics or literature writing including parallel prose or both of them.From then on,Ancient Learning composed of potrey,Fu and all kinds of articles different from eight-episode essay was accepted by official education system.Yu Yue was in charge of Gu-Jing Academy form 1868.He attached more importance to literature writing.Modeling the famous works of the ancients,expressing personal feelings and humorous article topics was all training methods.On the other side,His academic subjects of Fu fused research and literature together and so did the academic articles in parallel style by scholars.When his followers came to teach in different academies,Confucian Classics and other ancient learning was spreader farther.The special view of Ruan Yuan that the parallel prose was more authentic than prose had come into being before Hsueh-Hai-Tang Academy was set up in 1820.He edited Hsueh-Hai-Tang Collected Works in a different way from Gujing Jingshe Collected Works and prefaced it in parallel style.He also made scholars write imitative parallel prose.Hsueh-Hai-Tang,which was open to all scholars in Guangdong province at first without selection and restriction of quota,had connection with the traditional literature activities in Guangdong.Ruan Yuan attracted scholars to study Confucian classics,histories and literature by Gaohuo which means government stipend.It was found that there were many scholars skilled in parallel prose and a lot of parallel prose in Collected Hsueh-Hai-Tang Works.Some scholars would teach in academies,and others may teacher hundreds of students in their personal space.They all contributed a lot to Guangdong's academic atmosphere and literary style.Hsueh-Hai-Tang brought two changes;one was that the philosophy of mind was replaced by Han-learning to a certain extent.The other was the rise of parallel prose writing.Following Gujing Jingshe and Hsueh-Hai-Tang,Jupo Jingshe and Guangya Academy were founded successively where parallel prose was studied also.Under the influence of Gujing Jingshe and Xuehai Academy,academies focusing on ancient learning were gradually founded,which might put different emphasis on classics,history,poetry and prose.Xiyin academy in Jiangyin is one of academies which lay stress on poetry and prose.Academies focusing on imperial examination also set up small class for ancient learning one after another.No matter specific class or small class,parallel prose took a place in them.After changing itself from traditional academy to academy focusing on ancient learning,Zhengyi academy in Suzhou increased the number of test topics about ancient learning.Besides,the proportion of miscellaneous works,especially parallel prose,got elevated a lot and there existed some interaction relations between parallel prose and ancient learning.Questions which are related to parallel prose in academies' test papers can be divided into these kinds:archaistic writing,parallel prose writing and writing about genre,writers,styles and evolvements of parallel prose.With the rising status of historiography,historical review became common topic in academies and showed an couplet-polished tendency evidently.In some academies,the category of historical review was changed from scholars to the scope of poetry and prose,which to some extent returned to the collection standard of Wenxuan.Humorous writings embody the playful and satiric function of articles.Test topics referring to the category of humorous writing in some academies illustrated the reinforcement of literary practice and the expression of intellectual taste to some extent.By the way,parallel-style writings enjoyed important status in humorous writing.After the reign of Emperor Xianfeng and Tongzhi,the reconciliation of Han-Song study became the mainstream,therewith demand for studying Neo-Confucianism appears in academies which focus on ancient learning.Besides,suffered from internal and external problems,the society called for talents,pragmatism and modern science,which further accelerated the division of disciplines in academies.As a result of this,during the reign of Emperor Guangxu,there appeared academies which were divided into different departments for scholars.Though different in name and number,among these academies,poetry and prose more often than not enjoyed a place.With the new education system issued in the twenty-ninth year under the reign of Emperor Guangxu(1903),domestic academies changed themselves into new-style schools.While the study of poetry and prose didn't vanished in the new discipline system,its weakening tendency motivated the establishment of Cungu Academy which aimed in protecting the quintessence of Chinese culture.Gezhi Academy in Shanghai is representative of western learning academies,in which the study of poetry and prose left a trace.When going over examination papers,the poetry and prose still serve as a common evaluation perspective for Principle Wangtao and other officials who set the paper.Remarks about genre,spirit of writing,style of writing,structure,art of composition and vigour of style in composition by them are common to see,what's more,sometimes they wrote their expectations for those students to become great writers in the remarks,which reflects strong impacts of literary traditions which were embodied in the aesthetic taste and thinking habit of Chinese traditional intellectuals.