Organizer and Chair: Wei Shang, Harvard University
Discussant: Stephen Owen, Harvard University
With the development of publishing enterprise and the rise of a reading public in the late Ming China (late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries), a variety of literary miscellanies, collections of jokes and anecdotes, household encyclopedias, writing manuals, guidebooks on hobbies, travels, and urban life were produced and came into circulation through the mediation of the market. One of the things common to these materials was their close connection with everyday activities. Not only did these materials serve as the object for leisure reading, which itself constituted part of daily activities, they provided a print space in which daily activities were the subject for classification, instruction and various kinds of description. Although none of these materials were published on a regular basis, taken together, they resembled the magazines of later periods in significant ways. They gave shape to the knowledge necessary for daily use and gained power over the representation and dissemination of news and gossip.
Several questions guide our discussion: What is the significance of this textual construction of the daily world that emerges in this period? How is it defined and classified? What are the issues of concern? We will also examine the production and reception of these materials by exploring the answers to the following questions: How are these texts compiled, published and read? Do they bear any common physical qualities which in turn regulate the way of reading? And, finally, how are they reproduced and adapted to suit different forms of daily entertainment?
To answer these questions, we adopt approaches ranging from the history of books to history of reading, to cultural studies in a broad sense of the term. We want to create a forum for scholars in different disciplines of literature and art history to examine a common set of issues concerning the representation of daily activities. It is also our hope to develop new approaches toward the study of late Ming and early Qing publishing culture.
Literary Miscellanies, Household Encyclopedias and the Jin Ping Mei
Wei Shang, Harvard University
In his retrospective comments on late Ming popular culture, Liu Jizhuang, an early Qing scholar, placed emphasis on popular reading materials. He regarded them as the mundane counterpart, as well as the modern version, of Confucian six classics: popular song and drama correspond to the Book of Songs and Book of Music, the short story and the novel correspond to the Book of Documents and Spring and Autumn Annals, and finally the texts of divination and folk ritual correspond to the Book of Changes and Book of Rites. Although apologetic in tone, this remark announces the advent of a new type of printed text, one that needs to be justified. Out of it there arises the textual space of everyday life, a common locus of various (sub)genres. My present study focuses on literary miscellanies, household encyclopedias, and the Jin Ping Mei, a late Ming novel set in city, brothel and household. Through my analysis of these texts, I hope to reveal the common issues and patterns that shape the construction of the everyday world.
My study consists of two major parts: first, I argue that the texts under discussion constitute a shared vision of the daily world through a network of correspondence and cross-reference. This world is caught in tension, and thus in constant negotiation, with the established order of the Confucian world. I begin with a survey of household encyclopedias and literary miscellanies, which include texts abridged from different sources. These materials, I argue, find their narrative form in novels such as the Jin Ping Mei. The novel depicts various occasions in which monologue and conversation draw on popular songs, jokes, and slang of marketplace found in literary miscellanies, actions correspond to the account of daily activities of household encyclopedias, and the characters of the novel become virtually the acting embodiment of this new print culture. Secondly, I examine the typology of these publications and try to account for the possible changes it brings to contemporary modes of writing and reading. In household encyclopedias and literary miscellanies, heterogeneous materials are often presented in two or three vertical columns that coexist on the same page. The invention of such a format for the account of daily activities corresponds to the new narrative mode as well as new reading habits.
Writing and Reading Personal Letters in the Late Ming
Kathryn Lowry, University of California, Santa Barbara
A large number of anonymous popular songs from the late Ming describe the occasion of reading a letter or focus on the feelings of frustration when waiting for a letter to arrive or upon getting a letter that is illegible or even blank. Close depiction of the activity of reading and writing personal letters in late-Ming song texts and fiction find their counterpart in letter-writing manuals and collections of letters of this period. Letter-writing manuals specify the correct forms of address, order of presentation and level of language to be used in personal correspondence for a variety of purposes. Late-Ming publications that disseminate models for personal correspondence set forth the possibility of standardization in social practice. Although it is impossible to determine the extent of literacy in the late Ming and the extent to which people utilized the forms of personal letters, we can move from text to text and note the appearance of letters across a range of publications. Textual analysis of letters and the allusions and clichés they employ may allow us to imagine possible scenarios where someone would be expected to communicate through a letter.
This paper will attempt to survey letter-writing manuals in household encyclopedias and examine the types of models for personal correspondence and their composition. What can the appearance of letter-writing manuals tell us about social practice? Why would people be expected to buy or consult such books? Late-Ming books promoted letters as a necessary medium for the conduct of daily affairs, and depiction of their use in literary works shows their acceptance in the realm of print.
Indiscriminate Duplication of Calligraphy, Pictures and Texts in Late Ming and
Early Qing
Qianshen Bai, Western Michigan University
The late Ming witnessed a blossoming of the publishing industry. Not only were beautifully printed books themselves works of art, they also had a significant impact on other forms of visual art, such as calligraphy, jiupai or drinking cards, and porcelain decoration. This influence lasted into the early Qing.
An important impact of the late Ming publishing enterprise on the visual arts appeared in various kinds of duplication of printed books. A noticeable phenomenon in the realm of calligraphy was that the page design and format of printed books were often taken as models for imitation. For instance, marginal comments and glosses which constituted organic parts of some printed texts were introduced into calligraphic works. Texts and pictures of printed books were also copied on drinking cards and porcelain for the occasions of entertainment or daily use. As they were adapted to new media and functions, they began to possess new connotations and meanings.
By focusing on calligraphic works, drinking cards and porcelain decorations, this paper tries to explore how the printed materials were duplicated, transformed and appropriated, and how they contributed to the construction of a new textual and visual environment in which daily activities were conducted.
Authority and the Problem of Personal Identity in Early Qing Texts
Tina Lu, Harvard University
My paper studies the texts composed and circulated one generation after the fall of the Ming dynasty. Specifically, I focus on different yeshi (unofficial history) versions of an incident which tore the Southern Ming apart: a few months after a makeshift regime coalesced in Nanjing, a young man appeared, claiming to be the Crown Prince, the eldest son of the Chongzhen Emperor, who had hanged himself at Li Zicheng's approach. Since an imperial cousin had already been crowned, the presence of the young newcomer presented some obvious problems. Officials who would have known the Crown Prince were rounded up, and the young man was run through a battery of tests. Writers of yeshi interpreted these tests in widely varying ways. For example, one of the Crown Prince's tutors brought in to identify the young man had stated confidently that he was an impostor: some writers accepted the authority of the tutor, while others interpreted his pronouncement as evidence of his collusion with the Nanjing government, eager to get rid of the Crown Prince, who would challenge their legitimacy.
What interests me in particular in these texts is precisely this manipulation of knowledge, which strikes me as characteristic of a print culture in which different versions of the same events proliferate. Different unofficial histories related precisely the same events, often citing the same quotations, but framed them differently. Partly because no one of the many accounts possessed greater authority than another, I suspect that anyone who read one account would have read others as well. I will explore the impact this kind of reading has on everyday life by focusing on how these texts articulate the notion of personal identity.