Mao Kun And The Evolution Of Prose Conception In Mid-Ming Dynasty

Mao Kun was a famous proser and commenter in the mid-Ming Dynasty, he got great achievement on the theory of prose."The Prose Collection of Eight Masters in Tang and Song Dynasty"that he compiled was very prevailing in the world and produced a far-reaching impact on the later articles. But no matter what the research on the prose of mid-Ming Dynasty or of"Tang and Song School", Mao Kun has been ignored. This article selects Mao Kun as the object , discusses the unique significance of his prose and probes into his role in the evolution of prose concept in mid-Ming Dynasty.Literature concept coming into being is firstly bound up with one's life experience and his state of mind. Chapter One of this article takes Mao Kun's ideal and his state of mind as focus to discuss his life experience and the sense of worth. It was a big turning point that Mao Kun was relieved of his post in his midlife which aroused violent feeling of frustration. The idyll was the main style of his life, but whether entering society or staying out of it was in a dilemma for him which induced that he could never detach himself from reality. The frustration of his official career made him lose pursuit in his early age, but caused a new chance of life which made him walk up to the road of writing and compiling. During the process of his comment and creation of prose, his conception became mature gradually.Chapter Two to Chapter Five discussed some core questions of his prose conception. First, the conception of Wentong, which indicated that Mao Kun's conception of prose had been initially established, was his inheritance and development of ancient idea that article was used to carry Dao. It concluded the following three aspects: Location of orthodoxy, unification of prose and Dao, his conception of history of prose.Second,"The view of Qingzhi"was the core of his conception. The appearance of this proposition meant in the field of prose the new tendency that Dao began to be changed to express feeling was occurred. The connotation of feeling and modality of objects contained in"The view of Qingzhi"showed Mao Kun's theoretical realization of feeling character of prose, thus caused the advancement of his conception.Third, discussion of grammar was the important part of his conception of prose. It included the following content: stylistics, discussion of nature, discussion of art and structure, discussion of linguistic style and others. Although it belonged to category of prose form, Mao Kun insisted the unification of standard and intention, which was successfully used in his comment on the classical prose and made Tangsong School's opinion of imitating Tang and Song tend to be perfect.Fourth, the production of category of"Fengshen"was originally enlightened by narrative art used in history biographies, then extended into other literary styles. Raising of this category made Mao Kun's conception get great development."Fengshen"was integration of"The view of Qingzhi"and"Discussion of Grammar", which included emotion rhyme, spirituality and other esthetic connotation. His contribution to the prose esthetics meant Mao Kun's status in the history of prose development should not be ignored.As a commenter, he was a winner, but he was loser on other aspects, for example, there is some certain conflict between his practice and theory, the depth of thinking in his article was inferior to Tang Shunzhi's, his talent was not as good as Wang Shizhen's, the innovation of his prose was inferior to Gui Youguang's. Chapter Six compares Mao Kun with other prosers in mid-Ming Dynasty, summarizes his status and analyzes the reason he was marginalized.The way of research on history of literary thought is adopted in this article. We try to make judgments on Mao Kun's conception combining with his creation, comment and his theory. Our basic views are followings: from cross direction, his conception was a compromise between"Qinhan School"and"Tangsong School", and played a transitional role in middle and late Ming Dynasty. From longitudinal direction, his conception inherited traditional views and had his own innovation which had the meaning of inspire on the following ideas of prose.