The Research Of Hanlin Guanke Papers In The Ming Dynasty

The article mainly takes the Hanlin guanke papers in the Ming Dynasty as the research object, and analyzes guanke’s active role and limitation in the Hanlin Bachelor system which was the senior civilian training system of the Ming Dynasty through interpreting the genres and contents that the guanke proposition.The first chapter mainly explores the publication and retention of the Ming Dynasty’s Hanlin guanke compilations. In the late Ming Dynasty, the Hanlin guanke compilations (including two types----special guanke compilation and guanke compilation of personal corpus) got edited and published on a large scale under the affections of the ruling class, bookshop owners and literati scholars. Then they quickly became the best seller. However, because the social ethos of being eager for quick success and instant benefit grew, the edition and publication of guake compilations also appeared some problems such as the degradation of quality, lack of compiling style, in the name of Hanlin teacher, the curtness of selecting and so on, partly undermined the cultural values they contained. In the early Qing Dynasty, these Hanlin guanke compilations continued to spread and some new versions appeared. But until the reign of the qianlong emperor, because of the prohibition in the process of compiling Si Ku Quan Shu, A lot of Hanlin guake compilations of Ming dynasty were destroyed. So it was difficult to read Hanlin guake compilations of Ming Dynasty after Jiaqing period. Now, according to the author’s reading, the amount of Hanlin guake compilations of Ming Dynasty after the war of the Republic of China is25. Although it’s a small number, they carry the intrinsic values and political philosophy of Ming Dynasty’s senior civil service training system which is Hanlin Bachelor system, but also reflect the reality of the situation at the time of the Ming state and society. So they are the important historical data for our interpretation of the Hanlin Bachelor system and Ming Dynasty’s history.The second chapter mainly teases apart the genres of the existing Hanlin guanke papers. According to the proposition method of each essay and each poem, we could see there are46kinds of essay genres,3kinds of poetry genres. First of all, the essay guanke papers’genres included document, prose and verse. Document was a literary style for government to deal with political affairs, and could be divided into two kinds----on behalf of the king’s words and the expression of courtiers’opinions. In the existing essay guanke papers,8kinds of genres such as Gao(imperial decree), Zhao(imperial mandate), Chi(imperial edict), Zhi, Ce(conferring book), Xi(war proclamation), Xishu, Yunyu(crambo) belonged to on behalf of the king’s words; such as Shu(memorial to the throne), Zou, Zhuang, Jian, Biao, Lubu(an official call to arms), Zhiyu belonged to the expression of courtiers’opinions. Prose, it was free from rhythm and parallelism. In the existing guanke papers, there were argumentative writing and narrative. The former included the following17kinds of genres:Yi(discussion), Ce(countermeasure), Wendui(question and answer), Qi, Kao, Ping(comment), Shu(letter), Shuo(theory), Bian(debate), Jie(explicate), Yuan, Xun(lecture), Wen, Tiba(preface and postscript), Xu(introductory), Yin(introduction), Lun(argument); the latter included the following6kinds of genres:Ji(notes), Bei(epigraphy), Zhuan(biography), Shu(narration), Zazhu, Ji. Verse, it referred to the essay particular about the rhyme. In the existing guanke papers, it had two kinds, one was Zhenming essay including Zhen(apothegm), Ming(inscription), Lianzhu, another was lyric essay including Song(ode), Zan(a literary eulogy), Fu, Ci. Secondly, the genres of poetry guanke papers mainly contained classical poems, metrical poems and quatrains. Specifically, they were four-character poetry, five-character poetry, seven-character poetry and some free verses. It can be said the proposition genres of Hanlin guanke in the Ming Dynasty were very extensive and diverse.The third chapter mainly analyzes the contents of Hanlin guanke. This chapter still discusses in accordance with the classification of essay guanke papers and poem guanke papers. Firstly, according to differences in the contents and the characteristics of times, there were3categories in the existing essay guanke papers-----current politics, history, morality and mentality. The proposition contents of the politics’ guanke papers largely were various systems, policies or events related with the real national and social situation, they specifically included political, economic, cultural, military and royal aspects, and truly reflected the actual situation of government. The proposition contents of the historial guanke papers contain5aspects:first was based on the way of being emperor&officials and other political thoughts such as using person with ability, financial, military and education; second was based on drawing up previous articles; third was based on the evaluation of historical characters and events; fourth was based on the judgment of historical writings and thoughts; the last took the knowledge’s closely examination of the astronomy, calendar and musical temperament as the themes. Moral and mental guanke papers mainly took the traditional Confucian classics, the famous ancient thought and neo-Confucianism as the starting point, and then assigned topics on moral character, self-cultivation and the way to study. Secondly, the proposition contents of the poem guanke papers consisted of7categories-----Yizhi(the poetry upon the emperor’s order), Hanyuan(imperial academy) life, reading&argument, painting, reflection of the reality, chanting the ancient times and imitative ancient poems. Whether essay guanke papers or poem guanke papers, their contents of proposition were very extensive and targeted, and they all not only took care of reality and paid attention to the history, but also not to ignore the cultivation of moral character and ideas. The difference was that poem guanke papers was influenced much by the guanke style than essay guanke papers, so the same thesis was often more easily into the formula of praising, beautifying the ethos and whitewashing under the form of poetry.The fourth chapter is to look at guanke’s role and limitation in culturing civilian from guanke papers. Many famous officials came forth from the Hanlin bachelors, and occupied an important position in the national governance such as literary retinue and management of the country. They not only made a contribution to the normal operation of national civil service system of Ming Dynasty, also profoundly affected the running of society, politics, economy and culture and so on. And this was inseparable with the Hanlin Bachelor system and the training of guanke. Concretely speaking, the positive roles played by Hanlin guanke in the senior civil service training included the training and promotion of article writing ability, the acquisition of experience in politics and governance, and the accumulation of knowledge, etc. All these laid a good foundation of quality and ability for the Hanlin bachelors’(including the first three winners entering Imperial Academy for learning) performing duties in their posts. However, it could be seen from the proposition and reviewing of the existing guanke papers, the Hanlin guanke’s training in Ming Dynasty also had some limitations-----too much attention to poetry and ignoring the training of practical ability, lacking of inclusiveness and innovativeness, human relationship’s influence on results. These limitations which interacted with system’s poor implementation such as non-mandatory of examination and serious fraud limited the function and values of Hanlin guanke, to some extent, resulted in the straits that the talents trained by guanke couldn’t adapt to the need of political realities in the late Ming Dynasty.