| Issue No. |
Issue 44 |
| Title |
A Study on the Meaning of Zhou Jin Graded Fan Jin’s Eight Legged Essay, Selected from Rulin Waishi |
| Author |
Ho, Mei-chen |
| Page |
155～185 |
| Abstract |
One of the chapters within Rulin Waishi describes a condition as Zhou Jin grading Fan Jin’s eight legged essay. It is said, the first time Zhou Jin read Fan’s essay and blasted it was nonsense. The second time, Zhou Jin read the essay and said it was interesting. At the third time, he thought it was the best essay ever. Due to the wide gap among the comments at the same essay, most of the scholars in nowadays think the author of Rulin Waishi meant to cast the sarcasm by the chapter to express Zhou Jin neither a good exam official nor a fair grader, lacking grading standard and scrupulous attitude while grading on the essays. The scholars also interpreted the chapter as Chou Jin sympathized Fan Jin failing on exams several times and gave him a rank on the exam even though his essay couldn’t meet the standard. They consider that the author would like to make a comment on Ming-Qing imperial examination and to state that it had no standards on grading eight-legged essays and only relied on examiners’ favor. I think the scholars’ habitual interpretation is not really correct. This study will be conducted on the basis of the eight legged essay and Ming-Qing imperial examination system to recognize the scholars’ views whether appropriate or not and redefine the meaning of Wu Jin-zi’s description in Rulin Waishi.
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| Keyword |
Ming-Qing imperial examination, eight legged essay, Rulin Waishi, Wu Jin-zi, Zhou Jin, Fan Jin |
| Attached File |
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