英文摘要
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This paper aims to discuss Tan Xian's attitudes towards parallel prose and prose and reveal his viewpoints hidden in these attitudes. During the late Qing periods, it was the mainstream argument not to distinguish parallel prose from prose when talking about articles, just as to mingle Han learning with Song learning when discussing academics, and at the same time, it was actually a general opinion, whose nuanced distinctions should be differentiated and analyzed through great efforts. On the one hand, Tan Xian constructed a new pedigree of Han learning so as to compete for academic orthodox with those scholars belonging to Han learning. On the other, he didn’t distinguish parallel prose from prose when making reference to articles, intending to compete for literature orthodox with ancient prose writers. Tan's attitudes towards articles was close to those of ancient prose writers, and he insisted that articles should have the function of spreading Confucian principles and instructions. However, as for these principles and instructions, Tan preferred the basic rites and institutions and the great manufactures and works remained with Confucian classics during the Western Han Dynasty, rather than the ethical preaching and moral lecturing given by the Neo-Confucians in the Song and Ming Dynasties, and in the same breath, the articles in his mind were referred to those written by Western Han authors, which combined parallel prose and prose, not to those written by the authors after Han Yu in the middle Tang Dynasty, which had just a single style of prose. Tan believed that articles and Confucian academics were connected closely with each other, and the quality of articles was equivalent with the quality of a certain academics. Based on this standpoint, Tan made various comments on the articles since the Western Han Dynasty.
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