A Study On The Eight-part Essay From The Perspective Of Formal Aesthetics

The Eight-part Essay is a unique cultural phenomenon in the history of Chinese culture.In its 500 years of existence and 100 years after its abolition,it has been accompanied by huge controversies over its good and bad,merits and demerits,and its existence and abolition.However,the Four Books and the Five Classics argumentation-oriented contents,stylized way of writing and simplified talent selection path are especially criticized by posterity.According to the viewpoint of dialectical materialism and historical materialism,the birth and death of anything have their rationality and inevitability,and the Eight-part Essay is no exception.Whether as a relic for posterity to visit,ponder on and learn from;or as a heritage for posterity to inherit and take its essence,it is of great significance both theoretical and practical significance.Therefore,an objective,comprehensive,scientific,dialectical and historical investigation of the Eight-part Essay has become our work of must.That the Eight-part Essay flourished for a period has its historical inevitability,with a really tremendous negative impact on China’s politics and culture,but it is undeniable that it plays a nonnegligible role in traditional culture(especially Confucian culture)inheritance,logical thinking training,cultivation of witing ability,stylistic fusion promotion and other aspects.In particular,it is still of great value today in the construction of quality and form of beauty which embodies extremely all possibilities of the Chinese language and characters.This paper tries to establish a nested structure:The "controversies" introduces the "definition",the "definition" introduces the "logic of evolvement"(agent),and the"aesthetic threshold value" differentiates from the "logic of evolvement" and differentiates further into"the aesthetic connotation" and"aesthetic value" which are finally refined into three dimensions:"rhythm","structure" and "rhetoric",thus deducing the conclusion——The Eight-part Essay has a unique value in the aspect of form aesthetics.As shown in the figure below:RhythmThe aesthetic connotation Controversies→Definition→Logic of Evolvement→ Aesthetic threshold valve-Structure→Conclusion Aesthetic value Rhetoric Discussions in order:"Introduction" begins with the huge controversies of the Eight-part Essay,and makes a brief introduction to the three major controversies:"Cultivating talents and reviving the country" or "destroying talents and endangering the country","imprisoning the mind" or "broadening horizons",and"epitomizing the great achievements of poetry and proses"or "dead like a mummy".Why are there such huge and antagonistic controversies?They come mainly from the distinctive characteristics of the Eight-part Essay,which introduces the scientific definition of the Eight-part Essay.Based on the definitions of the nature,occurrence and function of the Eight-part Essay,this paper gives a comprehensive description of the Eight-part Essay,that is,a descriptive definition:The Eight-part Essay was a special literary style for the imperial competitive examination created by the Ming and Qing dynasties to select qualified talents with respect to Confucianism.Zhu Yuanzhang,Emperor Gaozu of the Ming Dynasty,referred to the examination question-setting way in the Song and Yuan Dynasties.As the examination subjects were all taken from the Four Books,they were also called the Four Books style;Because the examinees were required to interpret the argumentations in the Four Books and the Five Classics,it is also called the Argumentation of Classics;Because the examinees were required to "expound ideas of the sages in writing"(also interpreted as acting on the imperial edict to narrate thoroughly the Argumentation of Classics),it is also called the In-system Argumentations;Because the Eight-part Essay changes over time(also interpreted to be opposite to ancient writing styles),it is also called,the Contemporary Essay.Since the Chenghua years of the Ming Dynasty,it has gradually become a set form,which must be composed of theme interpretation,theme development,starting of narration,transitional sentences,starting antithesis sentences,middle antithesis sentences,rear antithesis sentences and ending antithesis sentences,and the main body is composed of totally 8 paragraphs with the form of contrast,parallelism and antithesis:the starting two sentences,middle two sentences,rear two sentences and ending two sentences,so it is also called the Eight-paragraph Essay or Eight-antithesis Essay;Or because of the Eight-part Essay’s literary expression form,it is also called the In-system Art,or Contemporary Art.Just because of the above characteristics,the first chapter discusses the logical agents for the existence and development of the Eight-part Essay:Although with a large number of long-standing disadvantages,it can still be regarded as "the Best Law among the Bad Ones",which is irreplaceable in maintaining the rule and unifying thoughts;Although it is impractical,it can still be regarded as "the Most Useful among the U seless",which has made nonnegligible contributions in promoting Confucian culture,cultivating officials’ qualities,and training logical thinking and writing ability;Although its literary style is heterogeneous,it can still be regarded as"A Complex of Broken Styles",which has much to recommend in integrating style techniques of all previous dynasties and making the merits of all styles compatible,including the second part of this chapter——"Aesthetic Threshold Value of the Eight-part Essay":its maximum value is that it makes the poetic function of Chinese language and characters widely well-known,and its minimum value is its free play within the language rules and stylistic rules,namely the so-called Serious Games or Dances with Shackles.The second chapter analyzes the development and aesthetic connotation of the form of the Eight-part Essay,focusing on the detailed analysis on the development process of the styles of the Eight-part Essay from the perspective of formation of the aesthetic characteristics of the Eight-part Essay.The process of gradually highlighting the elements of the styles of the Eight-part Essay,such as the beginning,development,transition and ending,parallelism and antithesis and so on,is also the gradual forming process of the aesthetic characteristics of the Eight-part Essay.In this process,the styles of Eight-part Essay have evolved into various forms with different aesthetic orientations.The Eight-part Essay itself contains various literary factors that have innumerable relations with classical literature and ancient art,all of which enrich the aesthetic connotation of the Eight-part Essay.ChapterⅢ,on the level of sound discusses the musicality contained in the Eight-part Essay as a kind of language art,which involves several important forms of rhythm in the Eight-part Essay such as the law of sound stop,law of level and oblique tones,and law of sound rhythm,analyses the coordination of the level and oblique tones,the use of stop and delay of sound,and the correlation between the use of alliteration&rhyme and musicality of the Eight-part Essay,as well as the sense of rhythm with alternation of light and heavy sounds brought about by the modal particles in the Eight-part Essay,thus unearthing the beauty in music embodied in the Eight-part Essay texts on each level of the linguistic unit.Chapter Ⅳ discusses the structural art of the Eight-part Essay from the style aspect.The beginning,development,transition and ending in the structure of the Eight-part Essay bring about a fixed kind of writing rhythm.The literary style combining coherence and looseness embodies the harmony of unity containing diversity;the balance and symmetry of the parallelism and antithesis make full use of the advantages of the Chinese language and can match with the aesthetic psychology of the Han.The interlaced use of opposing factors,such as long and short sentence patterns,positive and negative sentences and so on constitutes a unique beauty in irregularity.Chapter V discusses the issue of rhetoric in the Eight-part Essay.The expression of the Eight-part Essay requires the author to show his/her depth in understanding of the classics,profoundness in academic skills and ability to control words in a very short period.Therefore,it requires high rhetorical skills.On the one hand,the works of Eight-part Essay always make full use of various rhetoric techniques,especially some figures of speech with strong sense of form in the Chinese language,such as anadiplosis,antithesis,overlapping,interlacing and so on to create a unique aesthetic effect.On the other hand,the form of first-person narrator enables the writing of the Eight-part Essay to add in a certain degree of imaginary elements,which provides space for the author to exert his/her literary talent and emotions.Moreover,the dramatic rhetoric makes the Eight-part Essay have a certain relationship with the folk art forms such as drama and novel.The vast and profound cultural deposits and the fusion of classical and traditional literary styles have endowed the Eight-part Essay with unique artistic charm.To study the Eight-part Essay from the perspective of formal aesthetics can reveal the deep reason why the Eight-part Essay has been circulated for five hundred years and constantly arouses people’s attention until now.