小题究竟何时始入乡会试——兼论“侵犯”厉禁的形成

When Did the Small Topics Appear in Provincial and Metropolitan Examinations?——Concurrently on the Forming of the Severe Prohibition of “Qin-fan”

明清时期科举考试首场的经义科命题中有大题、小题之分,一般情况下,乡试、会试之经义命题必须是冠冕正大的大题,小题中的截题或搭题因其语义之不全而不能成为乡试、会试的经义题目。随着题库危机的出现,小题在明代宣德间即已出现于会试中。与截题、搭题的命题方式相呼应,制义修辞中出现了"题界"范畴和钓、渡、挽等写作技巧,并形成"侵上""犯下"的禁忌。乾隆帝以截搭题为乙丑会试命题,此后,"侵犯"成为厉禁,由此直接影响了乾、嘉之后制义的修辞形态。小题命题方式的出现,一方面促成了制义美学形态的丰富多变,另一方面则导致竞巧文风和虚夸士习的泛滥。

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties,the first imperial examination topics were divided into big topics and small ones.Generally,the proposition of provincial and metropolitan examinations must be grand and complete in semantic sense.Due to lack of semantic completeness,the cutting or merging topics in the small topics could not be the subjects of provincial or metropolitan examinations.However,with the crisis of topic-bank coming up,the small topics began to appear in examinations during the Xuande reign of the Ming Dynasty.In response to the propositional methods of cutting and merging topics,the category of"topic boundary"appeared in the rhetorical devices of eight-part essay,and the taboos of"occupying the above words"(qin-shang)and"offending the lower words"(fan-xia)were formed.Since Emperor Qianlong set the topics of"cutting off"as the proposition of the general examination in 1745,"qin-fan"had become a severe ban,which had a direct impact on the rhetoric of the eight-part essay after the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns.On the one hand,the small topic contributed to the variety of the aesthetic form of the eight-part essay;On the other hand,it also led to the grandiose essay style and the pompous fashion of literates.