Ming Dynasty Folk Song

In Ming Dynasty, the folk songs got more and more active. Free from affectation, the folk songs greatly influenced the scholar-bureaucratic literature, concerning about the aspects of personal temperament and experiences. The writers, being keen on absorbing the nourishments of the folk songs, finally finished the lashing and correcting on all sorts of formalisms, so that they much enriched and substantiated the connotation of the enlightenment trends in literature in the late Ming Dynasty.This thesis consists of four part, i.e. the coming about, the ontology, the influence and the background of folk songs in the late Ming Dynasty-First, the comrng-about of the folk songs is touched upon, and this topic is mainly discussed in the Introduction Part, Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3 and Chapter 9 in this thesis. The development of the folk songs in Ming Dynasty was, to a large extent, ascribed to the fact that the heavily stylized scholar-bureaucratic literature was in need of the stimulation by something new. ^olk songs, characterized by their clear nature, immediately won the favor of Li Mengyang, who was seeking a way out for the outmoded scholar-bureaucratic literature. As stated in The Preface of the Poem Collection (Vol 50. Collected Works of Kongtong), "The true poem comes from the folk." In fact, what Li Mengyang practiced was to make the literature simpler and more natural, just like the nature of the folk songs In a certain way, he propelled the development of the folk songs. During the period of time of Wanh. the folk songs from the northern and Central part of China converged into the current of the southern folk songs, among which Cassia Twig was the most popular In this process. Yuan Hongdao. one of the representative characters in the literary innovation in the late Ming Dynasty, played a significant role. On one hand, he used the fresh and lively folk songs very well as a sharp weapon to fight against the old tradition. On the other hand, his influence at that period of time helped folk songs win the supports of more people and finally become the main force to boost the literary innovation. Besides, contributions made by Li Kaixian Feng Menglong and etc. to the improvement of the folk songs of late Ming Dynasty are highly appraised in this thesis.Secondly comes the ontology, dealing with the folk songs themselves. It is covered in Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7 and chapter 13 The reason why the folk songs were popular was that superfluous words and formahstic styles were never used in folk-song and instead, folk songs were embodied with true affection. Moreover, the description of adultery in the folk songs satiated the social and aesthetic needs of sexual love. In this thesis, we summarize and analyze the contents of the folk songs in late Ming Dynasty. Meanwhile, for broadening of the vision of the field, die thesis discloses the vogue of sexual love in the late Ming Dynasty, through the studyingof the relationship between the prosperity of prostitution and the popularity of folk songs. Furthermore, we investigated the completion time and the author of the novel Jingpmgmei through studying ditties. Additionally, we organized and analyzed about 10 rare plays which used folk songs. By doing this, I have made it clear the developing of folk songs in different times, drawn a conclusion that there were more or less 2000 folk songs composed in the Ming Dynasty, investigated the cross-references of folk songs in block-printed editions, and lastly, but no less importantly, corrected the quotation mistakes of folk songs in Ming Dynasty in the book History of Chinese Folk Literature and other books written by Zheng ZhenduoThirdly, this thesis dwells upon the influence of folk songs in Chapter 8. In Ming Dynasty, folk songs had a clear impact on the literary production as well as literary theories. The impact on the literary theories has been clearly stated above So here I only explain the impact on the literary production. This impact is mainly incarnated in the tendency of vulgarization of...