As an advocate of the vigorous ancient prose movement in the Tang Dynasty, Han Yu was motivated to get rid of the shortcomings of the flashy writing style at that time, which only pursued gorgeous rhetoric and neat dialogues and paid attention to rhythm. Han Yu has always advocated that literary creation should restore the expressive meaning of the Qin and Han Dynasties, which was to express content as the main purpose, which can be summarized as "Ming Dao". Under such an idea and principle, Han Yu created many works of great literary value.
"Shi Shuo" is one of Han Yu's representative works of literary creation. The article was completed in the 18th year of Zhenyuan (802) when Han Yu was serving in the Imperial College. The article was written to Li Fan, Han Yu's disciple at that time, but Han Yu also used it to criticize those who despised the teachings of teachers and were ashamed of their misconceptions. The article "Teacher's Theory" first affirms the existence of the teacher's way, and people must have the guidance of a teacher to study. Then he pointed out the shortcomings that occurred in society at that time. The teachers hired by parents only knew how to teach small categories such as sentence reading, but the large category of solving puzzles was difficult for them to talk about. At the end of the article, Han Yu used Confucius's apprenticeship as evidence and pointed out that respect for teachers has existed since ancient times, and people today should not abandon it.