Jiangsu Ming Dynasty Writer Studied

As for the research of authors in Ming Dynasty, the academic has been focusing on the novelist and dramatist for a long time, while ignoring the poets and essayists, let alone the regional writers. During Ming Dynasty, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces were the most thriving in economy, culture, and the imperial examinations, where the literati was the most active, making the highest achievements. Especially the southern part of Jiangsu Province played a leading role in the writing group and literary development, and bore distinctive regional characteristics. Through strengthening the research on the regional writers of the southern Jiangsu Province, we can combine the spatial synchronism with the temporal diachronism, and explore the authors'writing idea, creating features and literary development tendency of a particular period—Ming Dynasty, in a particular region—Jiangsu Province. This field is still a virgin soil with great pioneering significance.This dissertation, for the first time, made an overall and systematic study of Jiangsu literati of Ming Dynasty, and revealed their distinctive regional features.Through gathering all kinds of literature, such as the general history record, the chorography, the poem and essay collections and so on, this dissertation collects 1,986 Jiangsu writers whose poem and essay collections or poems or essays have been passed down, and finds over 400 poem collections. Based on the first-hand material, this dissertation intends to examine and investigate the life and writings of these 200 authors mentioned above.With the poets and essayists as the focus, this dissertation, employing the synthetic methods of combining the textual research with the argumentation, the historical facts with the contention, the particular angle with the general, and the temporal with the spatial, conducts an overall research on the literati throughout Jiangsu Province, so as to from multiple perspectives reveal the writers'creating features of Ming Dynasty, who undertook writing in the Wu cultural atmosphere with Wuzhong culture as the core. This dissertation puts an emphasis on the authors living in the Wuzhong, Jinling, and Guangling sub-culture zones of Ming Dynasty and their production's literary features. It brings forth roundly the writing features of men-of-letters, who were immersed in the distinctively local culture of Jiangsu Province, such as the kindred culture, the Shanren culture, the culture of the talented gentleman and lady, the culture of the imperial examination, the hermit's culture, and the culture of the adherents of a former dynasty. Besides, this dissertation explores the leading role of Jiangsu writers of Ming Dynasty, especially the thriving literati and authors of schools.Jiangsu authors of Ming Dynasty had distinctive regional features: firstly, most of them were expert at the classic culture, had a strong self-reliant sense and showed a creating personality; secondly, Wuzhong was prestigious for its education of the imperial examinations, with a larger number of successes in the imperial examinations than other regions; thirdly, the writers belonging to some school or group were quite active, dominated the literary tendency; fourthly, the families with several literators were springing like mushrooms, and authors from the same family became the main force of Jiangsu writers of Ming Dynasty; fifthly, the bel-espits formed one group after another; sixthly, the development of culture, the popularization of education along with the special position of Nanking as the alternative capital promoted the emergence of female writers in a particular region or a family; seventhly, shanren and hermits, especially those of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, took a great proportion of writers. Wuzhong authors were just a typical example; eighthly, Jiangsu authors were animated in thought. The founding and developing of Donglin Party and Fu Faction even more brought forth the pluralism and enrichment of the writing group. Among the literati of Ming Dynasty, Jiangsu writing group with such regional features had more reputable talents, made greater achievements in forming some school and dominating the literary circle, and had better performance in every genres than those of any other region. Thus, Jiangsu literati of Ming Dynasty led the national cultural tendency.