| Abstract |
I In the “Qingru” (清儒) chapter of his work Qiushu (訄書), Zhang Taiyan (章太炎) claims that during the middle of the Qing dynasty, scholars formed into two distinctive and competing schools, the Wenshi (文士, literati) and the Jingru (經儒, Confucian scholars). While this point of view is reasonable up to a certain point, it suffers from two grave defects. First, Zhang depicts the two schools almost as if they were two rival gangs battling it out—but he provides very little evidence to support such a broad generalization. Second, Zhang claims that the Tongcheng School (桐城派), who were allied to the Confucian scholars, cited Cheng Yi (程頤) and Zhu Xi (朱熹) to bolster their views. Such an assertion cannot possibly be true, however, since the Tongcheng School did not begin citing Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi until much later, during the Daoguang (道光 1821-1850) and Xianfeng (咸豐 1851-1861) periods.
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| Keyword |
Zhang Taiyan, Qingru (清儒), Qiushu (訄書), Wenshi (文士, literati), Jingru (經儒, Confucian scholars), essay writing |
