A Survey of Literature in Ming Dynasty (Excerpted from Yuan Xingpei's History of China Literature)
foreword
The Ming Dynasty lasted for 277 years from the founding of Zhu Yuanzhang in the first year of Hongwu (368) to the seventeenth year of Chongzhen in Zhu Youjian (1644). On the basis of the new changes of literature in Yuan Dynasty, the development of literature in Ming Dynasty was full of twists and turns, showing a wave-like development trend. This can be roughly divided into two stages: the early stage, as the aftermath of Yuan Dynasty literature, prepares for the sudden change of literature in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, which can be regarded as the last stage of China's medieval literature; After Jiajing (1522 ~ 1566), the literary revolution was like a sudden, rapid and abnormal revolution, and China literature officially entered a new era of modern times. From the middle of Ming Dynasty to the Opium War in Qing Dynasty, it is the first paragraph of China's modern literature. The social unrest in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties formed a trend of thinking of governing Taoism and worshiping heroes, and a group of literati with spiritual liberation and a sense of mission of the times emerged. Literary works, when advocating the beauty of virility, are often saturated with the writer's deep sense of hardship. The compilation of the popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin, represented by Zhongxing, Song Lian, Liu Ji and Gao Qi in the Southern Opera, has brought a prosperous scene in the field of literary creation. However, this momentum of literary development was quickly blocked and destroyed. The economic recovery and the relative stability of people's life in the early Ming Dynasty eroded the sense of hardship of scholars. Ideological and cultural * * ism and spy rule have increased the insecurity of creation. Intellectuals with poor spirit appreciate a stable, harmonious, graceful and elegant beauty in the pursuit of career promotion and self-balance. Vigorous novels and operas are despised and restricted, and the Thai-style poems and dramas that eulogize wealth, morality and immortals are flooded, and literary creation slides to a low point because of aristocratization and emperors.
In the mid-Ming Dynasty, with the prosperity of urban commercial economy, the growth of citizen class and the decline of ruling group, the loosening of ideological control and the popularity of Wang Yangming's theory of mind, literature gradually stepped out of the situation of silence and stagnation. Especially after Jiajing, he quickly strode forward from recovery. At this time, literary creation is more realistic with the lower level and citizenization of the recipients, and the spirit of the creative subject is more lofty, thus highlighting the expression of personality and human desire. In addition, the overall maturity of narrative literature, the popularization of various literary styles and the consciousness of genre also fully show that literature is undergoing vigorous changes in the direction of modernization. The signs of this change are: the publication and popularity of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Outlaws of the Marsh, the finalization and publication of The Journey to the West and The Flowers in Jin Ping Mei, and the upsurge of writing popular novels by rules; In terms of traditional Chinese opera, the emergence of three legends, namely, Sword, Huansha and Mingfeng, the finalization of the legendary system and the reform of Kunqu Opera, and the writing of Four Dreams in Linchuan by Tang Xianzu have pushed the creation of traditional Chinese opera to another peak after Yuan Zaju. In terms of poetry and prose, after Li Mengyang, He Jingming and other first seven scholars launched the literary innovation movement under the banner of "restoring ancient ways" during the Hongzhi period (1488 ~ 1505), both the Tang school and the last seven scholars, the public security school and the Jingling school made efforts for literary reform from different angles. The prosperity of other vernacular short stories, such as Sanyan and Erpai, and the popularity and arrangement of folk literature, such as Guazhier and folk songs, clearly reflect the characteristics of the new era. During the Apocalypse and Chongzhen (162 1 ~ 1644) in the late Ming Dynasty, with the difficulty of state affairs, the trend of practical learning rose, and some writers began to bid farewell to flaunting their individuality, show their desires, return to rationality, and re-emphasize the social function of literature, which opened the transformation of literary trend of thought in the Qing Dynasty. Generally speaking, after the mid-Ming Dynasty, following the historical trend of the rapid transformation from agricultural civilization to industrial and commercial civilization, literature quickly moved towards secularization, personalization and interest, and its inner spirit and aesthetic form were marked with this transformation color clearly and strongly.