Organizer: Lucille Chia, University of California, Riverside
Chair: Cynthia Brokaw, University of Oregon
Discussant: Ellen Widmer, Wesleyan University
Scholars often speak of a complex of cultural, social, and economic changes between the early and late Ming, with a broad dividing line around the late 15th century. Charting these developments, however, has so far been incomplete because we know much less about the early than the late Ming. The purpose of this panel is to examine some specific changes in the course of the dynasty through literary and artistic production. To this end, two historians, one art historian, and one literature specialist will address issues including the tremendous growth of commercial publishing from c. 1500 onward, the developments in the writing and publishing of examination literature, the flourishing and decline of academy painting, and the evolution of the novel both in Classical Chinese and in the vernacular as reflected in their publishing history. Each paper, by tracing in its field the conditions in both the early and late Ming, will offer a clearer, more detailed account of what changes occurred. Although the panelists do not attempt, individually or together, the unrealistic task of giving a grand explanation of the transitions from early to late Ming, we hope that by pooling our findings we can discern some common cultural patterns that will show whether such an early-late Ming division is historically useful.
Commercial Publishing in the Ming: New Developments in a Very Old Industry
Lucille Chia, University of California, Riverside
Was there a boom in commercial publishing in late Ming China? And how do we characterize it qualitatively and quantitatively? While many scholars would answer yes to the first question, hard evidence to substantiate such a phenomenon is still largely wanting. This paper examines some significant developments in book printing during the Ming, especially in central and southern China. First, I offer some quantitative data that do point to a tremendous increase in commercial publications with time. For example, of the nearly 1,500 known titles produced during the Ming in Jianyang, the well-known publishing center in northern Fujian, only 11 percent appeared in the first 130 years of the dynasty, and the remainder in the last 150 years. Second, I argue that conspicuous changes in the physical appearance of certain kinds of works, including medical texts, household encyclopedias, and historical romances meant widening audiences for these imprints. Third, I show that characteristics that distinguished imprints of one publishing center from another in the early Ming diffused to other publishing centers as well-evidence of an increasingly unified interregional book market and distribution network from the late 15th century onward. Thus, the shangru xiawen (illustration above, text below) format for historical romances that originally came from Jianyang were produced in Nanjing, Suzhou, and other Jiangnan publishing centers by the mid-16th century. The important difference that emerges in the late Ming was less among the large printing centers than between them and small-scale rural printing industry aimed at a local market.
Examination Essays: Timely and Indispensable Reading for Students in the
Ming
Hsiang-kwang Liu, Columbia University
In the late Ming, different kinds of collections of examination essays abounded, including successful essays by jinshi and juren of a given year, essays from literary societies, outstanding essays by students at a government school or academy, and essays by the scholars of a particular region. Furthermore, not only did those who passed the examinations want to broadcast their degree-winning essays, but even some who failed also had their essays published to show the world their unappreciated knowledge and talent. For although examination essays had been printed since the Song, some significant changes occurred in the production of this literature in the mid-16th century. Until this time, examination literature in the Ming were either reprints of famous works from earlier times or the composition of largely unknown writers paid by commercial publishers seeking to profit from a perenially reliable market. After all, for students in late imperial China, examination essays became essential reading, perhaps even more so than the Classics and Four Books themselves.
But why the boom in the late Ming of collections of examination essays by scholars willing to attach their names to such works? An important part of the answer deals with the adoption of the eight-legged essay and its evolution into a respectable literary form, so that these compositions were increasingly printed both for profit and for enhancement of the authors' reputations. This paper discusses the changes in the writing and publishing of Ming examination literature, with particular attention to the role of the eight-legged essay.
The Ruyi jun zhuan and Origins of the Chinese Erotic Novel
Charles Stone, University of Chicago
Much of the philosophy of late Ming China celebrates the pursuit of sagehood by the common man and the importance of his desires. But instead of describing unfettered enlightenment and the emancipation from emotional and moral restraints, the major fiction of the late Ming, such as the Four Masterworks, tends to describe characters who turn within themselves only to find a mind that has been destabilized. Their ultimate motive to act often stems from weakness of will, the pursuit of a deluded image of the self, obsessive preoccupation, and the loss of control. In the Four Masterworks, and much of the fiction of the 16th century, descriptions of human sensuality are often central to the depiction of self-delusion and confusion.
We can trace the early development of the Ming erotic novel by examining the first work to confront directly sexual relations and depict them in graphic detail-a short novel written in the middle of the 16th century called the Ruyi jun zhuan. While the earliest commentators suggested that it was essentially a moral work told in an offensive fashion, most modern commentators have tended to reject this observation without further explanation. When the fictional technique and implied moral of the Ruyi jun zhuan and other early erotic novels of the Ming are examined, however, it appears to share the concerns described in the Four Masterworks. Rather than celebrate the individual's emancipation from moral restraints they tend to illustrate the unsettling consequences of that possibility.
The Eunuchs and the Ming Painting Academy
Ju-Yu Scarlett Jang, Williams College
The late 15th century marked the beginning of the downfall of the Ming Painting Academy, and the growth of the eunuchs' power was one of the fatal factors. During the first half of the Ming dynasty, the prosperity of the academy was seen in the number of leading masters who specialized in a variety of painting categories; most of them achieved their success as court artists through the sponsorship of court officials. During the second half of the dynasty, however, the Painting Academy suffered from the notorious corruption of the eunuchs. They not only accepted bribes from those who wished to work in the Painting Academy, but also wielded their power to gain imperial favor for court artists. Moreover, they forged imperial edicts granting court painters honorary titles and appointing many of them to regular government offices.
Officials who went through the regular channels of the bureaucracy were so outraged at the eunuchs' abuse of imperial authority that they repeatedly presented memorials to the throne to protest the malpractice. This explains why from the late 15th century onward the relationship between court officials and court painters became more distant and the decline in the institution of court painting in general.
This paper investigates the questions of how and why the Ming Painting Academy fell victim to the eunuchs' abuse of their power and what the ramifications of this were in both artistic and political terms.