Organizer and Chair: Kenneth J. Hammond, New Mexico State University
Discussant: Katherine Carlitz, University of Pittsburgh
Developments in Chinese intellectual history over the last decade have tended to erode the traditional distinctions between history, thought, literature, and politics, and to recast the image of the literati from that of loyal servants of the emperor to a broad social group with interests and objectives of its own. This panel explores the position of the literati in the political culture of the Ming dynasty and the interaction between literary expression, literati social or political interests, and the power of the Imperial regime.
Peter Ditmanson's paper examines the emergence of the Hanlin Academy as an instance of the Imperial court seeking to maintain hegemony in literati intellectual life, controlling the construction of tradition and setting the parameters of the acceptable in cultural discourse.
Ken Hammond's paper considers Wang Shizhen's Gubugu lu, in which he develops an extended critique of Ming political culture using the motif of decadence, defining the realm of legitimate literati concern to include not only government policies but social relations and the shifting nature of cultural values. This reveals a perspective distinct from the concerns of the court and capital, and suggests the need to clarify the divisions and constituencies within the Ming elite.
Finally, Philip Kafalas argues in his paper that even where late Ming literary forms ostensibly eschew political content they continue to be structured by the realities of power in 16th and 17th century China, and to reflect and express the political concerns of their authors.
The Hanlin Academy and Cultural Authority in the Early Fifteenth Century
Peter Ditmanson, Harvard University
During the reign of the third Ming emperor, Yongle (r. 1402-1424), the Hanlin Academy (Hanlin yuan) became a more significant institution in the central administration of the Chinese empire. Its leading officials, the grand academicians (daxueshi),who had mere clerical responsibilities in the early years of the dynasty, now became prominent advisors to the emperor. This advisory body eventually became formalized as a separate institution, the Grand Secretariat (Neige).
In the early years of the dynasty, the Hanlin was composed of a small ad hoc staff drawn from members of the emperor's personal retinue, old Yuan dynasty officials, and a few civil service examination graduates. Under the direction of Yongle and the grand secretaries, the institution was consolidated and formalized. The personnel at the academy was greatly increased and its members were recruited systematically from among civil service examination graduates who showed exceptional literary promise.
This paper argues that the Hanlin Academy functioned as the proxy of the court in the intellectual and literary circles of the day. Through such projects as the editing of the classics and the production of anthologies or Sung and Yuan philosophical works, the Hanlin became an important arbiter of the literati intellectual tradition (Cheng-Zhu thought and its alternatives). Moreover, with their further training in the Academy and their access to the imperial library and archival resources, Hanlin scholars secured reputations as masters of literary composition in archaic styles (guwenci ). Sponsorship of the Hanlin cast the court as a central repository of literati culture and tradition.
The Decadent Chalice: Wang Shizhen's Critique of Ming Political Culture
Kenneth J. Hammond, New Mexico State University
The image of decadence recurs frequently in traditional Chinese rhetoric, with an idealized Antiquity being used to highlight a fall from standards of propriety in public and private life which writers regularly see as characteristic of their age. Wang Shizhen (1526-90), one of the most prominent voices of the Ming literati, who also followed an official career to the rank of Minister of Punishments in Nanjing, developed the motif of decadence extensively in a series of notes gathered under the title of the Gubugu lu, or the Record of the Decadent Chalice. The title derives from a passage in the Analects where Confucius laments the decay of the proper form of the ritual vessel called a gu, and suggests that this symbolizes the overall erosion of propriety, and political life, from the early Zhou.
I examine the Gubugu lu to discover Wang Shizhen's view of later Ming political culture, and to situate his thought in the context of 16th century social and cultural life. The text comprises 65 items, with subjects ranging from the honors granted to retiring officials, to the evolving art market, to relations between officials and eunuchs. From the individual instances of decadence described it is possible to develop an overall sense of Wang's critique of the political and cultural world around him, and to use this to better understand the composition of that world, and the relationships between different groups and social forces within the Ming elite.
Weighty Matters, Weightless Form: Politics and the Ming Xiaopin Writer
Philip Kafalas, Wellesley College
The late Ming is characterized in literary histories as the era of the xiaopin essay, a form whose very name indicates at once its narrow frame and its avoidance of issues of weighty moral and public import. In xiaopin we find accounts of travel and outings, descriptions of gardens and architecture, observations on the natural world of plants and insects, and the quirky social behavior of acquaintances, all seen at close range. It is a world from which the failings of the court and the troubles of regional administration are excluded; one in which authorial personality reigns instead.
In fact the narrow frame of xiaopin is very much defined by these excluded worlds. Issues of political morality and efficacy make up the very walls which define the genre, which is everywhere an acknowledgment of them, and of the division which runs through the world of which it is but half.
To explore how perceptions of the political world shape literary genre I examine two xiaopin authors, one early and one late, who share the hometown of Shaoxing. Xu Wei (1521-93) was a writer, painter, dramatist, local defense strategist, and, with Zhang Dai's great-grandfather, edited the gazetteer for Kuaiji. Zhang Dai (1597-1684?) in turn helped compile Xu's incidental writings, and was known both for his prose collections and his history of the Ming. The informal prose of these two authors illustrates a developing definition of the xiaopin genre, while their other writings shed light on the political attitudes which shaped that process.