Page 175 - 2022(1) International Confusion Studies

168 C. Bei

System was important in the society of Ming and Qing dynasties was that it could
promote social mobility and mold a more open and free social order.
However, the fact remains that the Imperial Civil Examination System, after
all, helped only a select few to be admitted into the ruling class, whereas its more
profound influence on the evolution of Chinese institutions and ideology in history
has rarely received attention. From his “contextualized” perspective that focuses
on the interaction between social history and ideological history, Elman noted that
the Imperial Civil Examination System played an extremely important role in
value-molding, for the many candidates who failed the examinations as well as for
the few that succeeded. He said, “We realize that the Imperial Civil Examination
System was embodiments of Confucian cultural values and in the interests of the
empire” (Gillespie, 2008, p. 274).
Preparation for the Imperial Civil Examination System by the intellectuals of
the Ming and Qing dynasties required the extensive mirroring of imperial main-
stream culture, which, in the process, enhanced their self-identification with
Confucian culture and imperial state ideology before they were disciplined into an
obedient elite group sharing common values with the privileged ruling class.
There were three sessions of tests for the Imperial Civil Examination System
candidates during the Ming and Qing dynasties, but the most important session
was the first one, in which candidates were required to compose an “eight-legged”
essay (八股文). Since the end of the Qing, the “eight-legged” essay has been
denigrated as a crafted, stereotyped genre of writing and consequently has been
detested and feared by scholars for so long that few have attempted its study. It was
Elman who picked up the subject, taking it as important historical material for
inquiry into Ming–Qing the Imperial Civil Examination System. He has made a
systematic investigation on the semantic requirements and writing purport of the
“eight-legged” essay. Through minute analyses of paragon essays such as Wang
Ao’s(王鏊 1450–1524) in his “The Interpretation and the Meaning of Classics in
Ming and Qing dynasties (经典释传与明清经义)” of Classicism, politics, and
kinship: The Ch’ang–chou school of new text Confucianism in late imperial China”,
Elman finds that the model of crafting examination essays embodied a confirma-
tion of interpretation of the orthodox commentaries authorized by Ming and Qing
imperial ideology. The cultural elites, through composing seemingly “formalized”
essays, tacitly expressed their approval of Confucian values and enhanced their
self-identification with the imperial ideology. Elman thus came to the conclusion:
“The internalization of a literary culture that was in part defined by the civil
examination curriculum influenced the literatures’ public and private definition of
his moral character and social conscience (Elman, 2010, p. 227).
The Imperial Civil Examination System as a form of testing contemporary ideas
implies that an inquiry only from external perspectives of social and institutional