Exaggeration

AnonymousBashu Publishing House · ChinaJun 2024

4.5

Word count: 746 words
Chapters: 2

Summary

What is above form is called the Way; what is below form is called things. The divine Way is hard to portray—even refined words cannot pursue it to its limit; things with form are easy to depict—bold diction can convey their truth. It is not a matter of talent being great or small; the principle itself is simply hard or easy. Thus, since heaven and earth came into being, whatever has entered into sound and appearance, wherever literary diction has reached, exaggeration has always been present.

Even in the elegant language of the Shi and Shu, which set a model for the age, when the matter requires breadth, the words likewise go beyond. Hence, when speaking of height, Mount Song reaches to the very sky; when discussing narrowness, the River cannot hold a small boat; when saying many, descendants are counted in the hundreds of billions; when saying few, of the people not a single survivor remains; for the flood that rose above the hills, the phrase “reaching to heaven” is used; for the troops that turned their spears, the claim is made that the pestles floated. The words are indeed extreme, but their meaning does no harm. Moreover, is the ugliness of the owl’s cry really made beautiful by the pond-side grove? Is the bitterness of the sowthistle really turned to syrup by the plains of Zhou? In both cases the intent is deep praise, and so the meaning takes the form of deliberate overstatement. What the great sage recorded was to hand down a model, as Mencius said: “One who explains the Shi does not let the wording harm the phrasing, nor let the phrasing harm the intent.”

Editor's review

Kua Shi is a piece of literary criticism published by Bashu Press in 2024 and attributed to an unnamed author. Its content centers on the rhetorical phenomenon of “exaggeration,” arguing from the premise that “what is above form is called the Way; what is below form is called things”: subtle principles are hard to exhaust in words, while concrete things can be depicted with bold diction so as to convey their truth—hence the inevitability of exaggeration. The text cites expressions from the Shi and Shu such as “Mount Song reaches to the very sky,” “the River cannot hold a small boat,” “descendants in the hundreds of billions,” “of the people not a single survivor remains,” “reaching to heaven,” and “floating pestles,” arguing that although the words are extreme, their meaning does no harm, and concludes with Mencius’s “do not let the wording harm the phrasing, nor the phrasing harm the intent.” Short in length but focused in argument, it is a typical piece for understanding the ancient view of hyperbolic rhetoric. It is suitable for use in contexts of selected readings in literary criticism, introductions to rhetoric, or appreciation of classical poetry and prose, helping readers distinguish literary exaggeration from factual statement and avoid judging poetry and prose by the standards of evidential scholarship. When reading, one should work through it sentence by sentence and grasp the core judgment: “The words are indeed extreme, but their meaning does no harm.”

Who it's for

A good fit for

Undergraduates studying ancient literary criticism and rhetoric
Chinese teachers who need examples of exaggeration for instruction
General readers interested in methods of appreciating classical poetry and prose
Learners preparing course materials for selected readings in literary criticism

Not a good fit for

Readers hoping for a complete monograph rather than a single essay
Beginners with major difficulty reading classical Chinese and no辅助
Specialist researchers seeking systematic modern rhetorical theory

Reading tips

First read the whole text through, mark the core sentence “The words are indeed extreme, but their meaning does no harm,” then review how each example supports it.
Restore examples such as “Mount Song reaches to the very sky” and “floating pestles” one by one to the context of the original poems and compare the difference between the literal wording and the poetic meaning.
After reading, try to give one or two examples of exaggeration from modern advertising or literature to test the explanatory power of the text’s view.
Read alongside relevant passages of Mencius on the Shi to understand the critical tradition of “not letting the phrasing harm the intent.”

About the publisher

Bashu Publishing House China · Founded in 1983

Bashu Publishing House is a publisher centered on collating and publishing classical Chinese cultural texts, with its main publishing areas covering classical literature, Eastern philosophy, ancient poetry, and educational classics. Its library currently holds 1,075 titles, including representative works such as Dream of the Red Chamber, the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering, Renjian Cihua, and Out to the Frontier, involving authors such as Cao Xueqin, Wang Xizhi, Wang Guowei, Wang Changling, Liu Xie, and Yan Yu. These reflect the publisher's focus on literary classics, poetry criticism, and philosophical readings. Its publishing character lies in working around ancient texts and canonical works, with attention to textual collation and presentation. Public information on its more detailed publishing background and series plans is limited; this introduction is based only on the library's book information.

版权信息
正文

FAQ

What does “exaggeration” refer to here?

It refers to hyperbolic embellishment in literary expression. The text holds that the abstract Way is hard to pursue with refined words, while concrete things can be described with bold diction so as to convey their truth; therefore exaggeration is not a distortion of reality but an expressive mode that is always present wherever literary diction reaches. The key lies in “the words are indeed extreme, but their meaning does no harm.”

What do examples such as “floating pestles” aim to show?

The author uses obviously extreme expressions such as “reaching to heaven,” “floating pestles,” and “Mount Song reaches to the very sky” to show that even the classics and elegant language contain exaggeration, and that such exaggeration does not harm the meaning. The purpose is to defend literary exaggeration and remind readers to distinguish between excessive wording and the substance of intent.

What is the relationship between this text and Mencius’s saying?

At the end, the text cites Mencius’s “one who explains the Shi does not let the wording harm the phrasing, nor the phrasing harm the intent,” grounding its view of exaggeration in a method of reading poetry: readers should not distort the phrasing because of exaggerated wording, nor misunderstand the author’s intent because of the surface wording. This is the critical endpoint of the whole text.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Anonymous Author

Anonymous is not a real personal name but a general Chinese designation for authors whose names are unknown, lost, or unsigned. Neither nationality nor dates of birth and death can be verified, and available public information is limited, so the works attributed to this name are the only basis for description. The collection holds 2,078 works under Anonymous, spanning medicine, classics, historical readings, ancient poetry, classical literature, and philosophy. Representative works include The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon: Lingshu, Mencius, The Book of Documents, Nineteen Old Poems, Complete Song Ci, and The Peacock Flies Southeast. Most of these works took shape through long transmission and editing, emerging either from collective folk creation or from authors whose names were lost over time. In ancient China, the Book of Songs, the Great Learning, and many popular storybooks and plays were signed Anonymous because their authors could not be traced. Anonymous works cross the classics, histories, philosophical writings, medical texts, and poetry; their subjects are broad, and their styles vary from archaic simplicity to clear naturalness, making them important and influential sources for understanding ancient Chinese thought, medicine, and literature.