Title

The Concluding Paragraph of the Zhiyi: A Study of Tang Xianzu’s Examination Essays for the 1583 Metropolitan Examination

Author

Tsz Wing Giovanna Wu

Genre

Article

Pages

307-346

DOI

10.6503/THJCS.202406_54(2).0003

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

Tang Xianzu 湯顯祖, metropolitan examinations, formulated exegesis, concluding paragraphs, the Wanli 萬曆 period

Abstract

Previous studies generally held that among the three examination essays written by Tang Xianzu 湯顯祖 (1550-1616) in 1583, two of them had long been lost. In the absence of these examination essays, some scholars, based on their impression of Tang’s zhiyi 制藝 (commonly known as “eight-legged essay”) writing style, think that Tang’s repeated failures at the exams were tied to the fact that his views on the eight-legged essay were contrary to orthodoxy. In this article, I attempt to discover the whereabouts of Tang’s three examination essays by examining numerous anthologies of eight-legged essays printed during the Ming and Qing dynasties. By comparing different versions of his examination essays, this article demonstrates that the writings collected in anthologies from the Ming and Qing dynasties are not identical. In order to correspond to the writing norms of the Qing dynasty, Qing compilers often shortened the “great conclusion” in the original texts. The abridgment in the concluding paragraphs of Tang’s examination essays not only weakens the structural beauty of his essays, but also conceals the ideological connotations found in the original texts. The rediscovery of Tang’s examination essays with their concluding paragraphs reveals that his eight-legged essays not only meet the examination specifications in their content and form, but also that they incorporate lyricism and irony.