"Parallelism and Antithesis"and Stylistic Features of Zhiyi in the Ming and Qing Dynasties
"Zhiyi"officially refers to the styles of imperial examination essays on classics in the Ming and Qing dynasties,commonly known as the Eight-section Essay(Bagu Wen).However,the term Eight-section Essay was never used in the official Ming documents to refer to the examination essays,nor were collections of essays on classics named after it.Therefore,this term fails to accurately and comprehensively describe the stylistic features of Ming-Qing essays on classics.According to the Annals of the Selection and Appointment of Officials in The History of Ming,the main Zhiyi styles are"parallelism and antithesis".The parallelistic essays encompass two-part,four-paragraph,six-,eight-,ten-,twelve-,or sixteen-section essays.The antithet-ic essays include three-,five-,seven-,or nine-section essays,referred to as"odd-section essay",which is noteworthy and thereupon a re-evaluation of the features of Zhiyi is needed.It was found that the styles of"parallelism and antithesis"were determined by the features of the syntactic and semantic structures of the topic.Additionally,the author's rhetorical choices and personal interests play a significant role.Since the Chenghua period of Ming,the Eight-section Essay dominated over other styles,which aligned with tradi-tional literary concepts and the standardization of the imperial examinations.
Zhiyiparallelism and antithesisodd-section essayEight-section Essayimperial examinations in the Ming and Qing dynasties
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