Chapter 025: Breaking the Topic of Eight-part Essay
"No... sir... I..."
When Li Da heard that Li Tingxiu actually agreed, he immediately stood up and stammered, trying to explain.
As a result, the more anxious I was, the less I could express myself, and I could only speak haltingly and incoherently.
"Okay, no need to say more, take out your books and get ready to read along."
Li Tingxiu had no intention of listening to Li Da's explanation, because he had been seen laughing behind the scenes, and agreeing to Shen Yichen's request was just going with the flow.
Seeing Li Da's frustrated look, Shen Yichen instantly felt much better. They were indeed brothers in distress who had to endure the same pain for 20 feet . Their dark psychological sides were exactly the same, and they couldn't bear to see the other do well...
"Nature is destiny; following nature is the Way; cultivating the Way is teaching. Remember!"
As Li Tingxiu began to read, the students' attention shifted to the "Doctrine of the Mean" in their hands, and they began to recite along with the teacher.
The sound of reading aloud rose and fell. It actually didn't take long to read "The Doctrine of the Mean", which has more than 3,000 words. After reading the last sentence "The poem says: Virtue is like a hair, yet a hair has its own rules. The carriage of Heaven is soundless and odorless; it reaches its peak," the students quickly put away their pens, ink, paper and inkstone and started copying it from memory.
With Shen Yichen's current memory, reciting several thousand words was not difficult at all. He hurried to finish writing, and focused more on the eight-part essay assigned by Li Tingxiu.
"Who is better, you or Hui?"
Shen Yichen looked at the question written on the paper. To be honest, regardless of how to write it, this sentence alone is extremely difficult for modern people to read.
However, with two lifetimes of memories and a foundation in classical Chinese, Shen Yichen still knew that this title was taken from a conversation between Confucius and Zigong in "The Analects of Confucius".
Roughly translated, Confucius said to Zigong: "Who is better, you or Yan Hui?"
This ancient saying seems to be fine, and its meaning is easy to understand when translated. However, it seems like asking you to write an article of several hundred words based on this sentence, and to make it more fancy within a fixed format .
No wonder the eight-part essay was eliminated by the times. It really left no room for survival...
Shen Yichen couldn't help but secretly complain in his heart, but no matter how much he complained, in this era, if you couldn't write an eight-legged essay well, it meant you had no hope of passing the imperial examination, and by extension, it meant your future was almost ruined.
So Shen Yichen could only calm down, immerse himself in the thinking of the ancients, and think about how to write the article.
The reason why the eight-part essay is called eight-part is because the writing style has a fixed format, consisting of eight parts: breaking the topic, continuing the topic, starting the lecture, getting started, the beginning of the section, the middle section, the end of the section, and the conclusion.
The writing requirements also include the following four parts, each of which must have two parallel and antithetical texts, with emphasis on the level and antithetical tones, for a total of eight parts.
The first thing Shen Yichen needs to do is to break the topic. To put it in a modern way, it is to summarize the main idea of the topic at the beginning. If you don’t even know what the topic is, then there is no point in writing it later.
If you go off topic in the college entrance examination essay, you can still get more than 10 or 20 friendship points out of 60 points. But if it goes off topic in the imperial examination, you can just go home and prepare for the next session. The examiner will not even bother to read on.
Li Tingxiu must have had a deep meaning in assigning this topic. Why did Confucius suddenly ask Zigong who was better between him and Yan Hui?
Logically speaking, Zigong and Yan Hui were both students of Confucius. As a teacher and sage, he would not encourage this kind of comparison among students, so there must be other meanings!
Following this line of thought, Shen Yichen began to ponder, and suddenly an idea flashed in his mind, and he remembered the answer given by Zhu Xi of the Song Dynasty to this sentence in a book called "Commentaries on the Doctrine of the Mean".
The general meaning is not to compare the two students with each other, but that Confucius, as a teacher, knows Zigong's strengths and weaknesses, and uses this sentence to let Zigong examine his own shortcomings and then reflect on himself.
After the question was solved, Shen Yichen breathed a sigh of relief. Who could have thought that such a seemingly simple conversation could contain such philosophical truths that go far beyond self-reflection one had a little less knowledge, one would probably never have thought of it in his lifetime.
At the same time, Shen Yichen also understood the deep meaning of Li Tingxiu's question. It seemed that he had been too proud of himself when he thought the dictation was easy. So the teacher reminded him not to compare himself with his classmates and to learn to reflect on his own shortcomings.
Since the topic was solved successfully, the next step was to write. According to the format of eight-part essays, the topic could only be solved in two sentences, so Shen Yichen wrote on the manuscript paper, "Asking the wise man who is better, I want him to reflect on himself."
This sentence directly gets to the point. Translated, it : Asking you (Zigong) who is better than whom is teaching you to reflect on yourself.
With a good introduction, the following topics are relatively easier to solve, but it is still very difficult for Shen Yichen.
In addition to finding corresponding "words of the sages" to express yourself, you also have to consider parallelism. If you don't memorize the Four Books and Five Classics by heart, you basically have no chance of writing a good eight-part essay.
So Shen Yichen kept writing until the end of morning reading. When other students went to the private school cafeteria to eat lunch, Shen Yichen was left alone at his desk, racking his brains to write this eight-part essay.
Li Tingxiu looked at Shen Yichen's serious expression and did not urge or disturb him, but let him think slowly by himself.
To be honest, seeing Shen Yichen in this state, Li Tingxiu was very happy in his heart. What happened at the Chengguogong family banquet yesterday was not only known to Zhao Hongjie and other students, but also to Li Tingxiu, as a private school teacher in the Chengguogong Mansion.
"Linjiangxian" is indeed a masterpiece, and Li Tingxiu never thought that Shen Yichen could write such a good poem. However, he is more worried that as it spreads widely and is praised by many people, Shen Yichen will lose control of himself and get lost in the praise.
Every scholar knows the story of the death of Zhongyong. Shen Yichen's knowledge is probably not as good as Fang Zhongyong of the Northern Song Dynasty. So standing outside the lecture hall before the morning reading, listening to the students' discussions, Li Tingxiu was already thinking about how to give him a warning.
Now Shen Yichen can calm down and write so seriously, which means that he is not much affected by yesterday's family dinner. Li Tingxiu naturally feels relieved.
Just like that, time passed by minute by minute without anyone noticing. When Shen Yichen put down the last stroke and looked around, he found that the entire lecture hall was empty except for Li Tingxiu.
What's going on? Where are the people?
"Finished?"
While Shen Yichen was still a little confused, Li Tingxiu asked a question.
"Sir, I've finished writing."
After saying that, Shen Yichen stood up and handed the manuscript paper with the eight-part essay to Li Tingxiu.
After receiving the article, Li Tingxiu first saw the solution to the problem, and his eyes immediately lit up!
His question was not particularly unpopular or tricky, but for a student who couldn't even pass the examination to become a student, it was definitely very difficult.
Li Tingxiu had expected that Shen Yichen would take so long to write. He had even prepared himself mentally for the possibility that Shen Yichen would go off topic or simply not be able to write at all.
But Li Tingxiu never expected that Shen Yichen would solve the problem so accurately and analyze clearly what he wanted to express. It was really unbelievable!
