Late Ming Twenty-Five Small Works

Author: A Ying
Publisher:
Publication Date: 1989-05-01
Features: The twenty late Ming literati selected in this collection, starting from Xu Wenlang and extending to the two major schools of Gong'an and Jingling, as well as other writers who, though not strictly aligned with Gong'an and Jingling, shared similar thoughts and literary styles, were almost all rebels against the orthodox Ming literature. Politically, most of these twenty individuals had never held prominent official positions, and in literature, none had ever dominated the literary scene. However, due to their aversion to prominent officials and their inclination for the secluded life of the mountains and forests, and because of their to the restrictive, orthodox literary style, they created a new, spontaneous writing style that transformed the literary trends of late Ming. These twenty individuals could be considered the main force behind this change. Precisely because they were rebels against orthodox literature and lacked political influence to back them, this group of writers was constantly subjected to criticism or attack. If you advocated the secluded life of the mountains and forests, you were accused of seeking fame through the guise of a hermit, treating the recluse life as a shortcut to officialdom; if you advocated that literature should be pure and expressive of the spirit, you were labeled as indulging in shallow and trivial rhetoric, unworthy of attention. This mutual disdain among writers, who failed to assess the true value of one another and instead relied on sarcastic ridicule as their primary means of attack, remains unchanged even today, three hundred years later. Therefore, in compiling this collection, I have strived to include witty and flavorful excerpts from the prose of various writers, while also paying attention to their opinions on literature and some texts that reveal their personalities. The latter point, though it may carry a hint of "didacticism," I believe is particularly important today. Recently, there has been a movement to promote Ming-era prose, naturally leading to counterarguments against it. Advocates praise the "Ming writers' " prose, while opponents condemn their characters. The advocates do not necessarily expect everyone to read Ming-era prose, but the opponents may unfairly accuse the ancients. Thus, while compiling this collection, I have included texts that reveal the spirit of these Ming writers. For example, regarding Tang Ruoshu, most people are familiar with him as a lyrical poet who excelled in composing love songs, but his letters to friends and disciples reveal his deep indignation toward the petty and morally corrupt state of the court and society at the time. This shows that beneath his romantic and flamboyant persona, he possessed a righteous and unyielding character. To view him merely as a lover of romance would be to misunderstand Tang Ruoshu. As for the selection of the twenty writers in this collection, there was no specific criterion. I chose them based on my convenience. Originally, I intended to include Zhang Dai, but since my collection does not yet include The Orchid Pavilion Anthology, and The Dreams of the Orchid Pavilion and the Dreams of the West Lake are now relatively easy to obtain, I decided not to include him. Liu Tong's works were selected entirely from The Brief Records of the Imperial Capital, as this book is not widely available, and his writings are indeed outstanding. The works of the other writers were mostly selected from their individual collections or other anthologies, with the rarity of the books being a primary factor in determining the extent of selection. Thus, this collection of twenty volumes has extracted the essence of dozens of complete Ming-era literary collections, and readers who possess this volume will effectively have access to the literary treasures of hundreds of Ming-era collections.