The Study Of Feng Mengzhen

Feng Mengzhen (1548-1606), whose courtesy name was Kaizhi, literary name was Juqu, Styled himself as Lay Buddhist of Zhenshi, was born in Xiushui of Zhejiang, and lived during Jiajing and Wanli of Late Ming Dynasty. He set literati, official, famous teacher, lay Buddhist, collector, collator and editors and other identities in one, enjoyed great prestige in the vicinity of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and had a wide friends circle. His writing was Kuai Xue Hall Collection, which had sixty-four volumes. In addition, he wrote Li Dai Gong Ju Zhi, Shang Shu Da Yi Jing Yi Kao, and so on. He had great fame during his lifetime but oblivion after his death. His name is very unfamiliar to us in modern literary history, which is inconsistent with the actual history. Until recent years, Feng Mengzhen and his Kuai Xue Hall Collection especially his diary, just beginning to attract attention. But the research results related to the important figure of Late Ming is not much. His whole life seemed placid, but some of his views had ever glittered in late Ming history. His life had certain representativeness in the literati of late Ming. There are many potential problems about his rich life experiences that need to be explored. By researching him, you can glimpse literati’s inner world and everyday life of Jiangnan in Late Ming Dynasty.The paper mainly starts from documents and attaches importance to the collecting and organizing of them. The theoretical analysis also bases on documents. The paper includes introduction, text, ending part, appendixes and references. The text which is the main body of the paper consists of the following five chapters.Chapter One, Feng Mengzhen’s Ancestry and Life Story. Firstly, it introduces Feng Mengzhen’s lineage origins to understand his family background, living conditions and their influence on his life. Secondly, it introduces his life experience, which combs from three aspects: imperial examination, officialdom and seclusion. Finally, it raises suspicion of his death time and place and makes new research.Chapter Two, Feng Mengzhen’s Personality and Temperament, Supramundane Mentality and Mundane Mentality. It mainly analyses his personality and temperament, also his mental state when he was a official and a hermit, which had directly affect him. He neither had great political ambition nor lived out of the secular world. He was broad-minded, natural, frank, unique and elegant, free and easy, so he could calmly face either supramundane life or mundane. He had never been indignant, gloomy and resentful. He always stayed at ease under all circumstances or just let it be.Chapter Three, Feng Mengzhen’s Buddhism Belief. Feng Mengzhen believed in Buddhism, he practiced both Zen Sect and Sukhavati Sect. Also, he absorbed thoughts of both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. He was deeply influenced by both Master Daguan and Master Lianchi. He actively committed to the Buddhist affairs and made a great contribution to the development of Buddhism in the Southeast. But on reading, speculating and practicing of Dharma, his main behavior was sufficient, while auxiliary behavior insufficient, so he had no great achievements in practicing Buddhism. As for the Taoist, he opposed the thought of alchemy and female tripod, but selectively absorbed its health practices.Chapter Four, Feng Mengzhen’s Literary Views. There are drastic argument between Shi Xin theory and Shi Gu theory in Late Ming. Feng Mengzhen proposed some distinctive views such as encouragement of true, freshness, pureness, expressing one’s own spirit, not rigidly adhering to old law in literary world of Late Ming which presented a trend of diversified development. He and a group of like-minded people together fueled the development of the Shi Xin theory, which was an important link of the Xing Ling theory in Ming Dynasty. In view of his achievements in eight-part essay and the importance of eight-part essay in Ming Dynasty, his views and criticisms were mainly directed against the eight-part essay. He emphasized true, conveying own ideas, plain-concise-unsophisticated style, governing by Confucian classics, trying to fathom and refining words, which had similarities with his literary views. His works were very highly regarded by his contemporaries, but he didn’t carry forward and further developed his literary views. The reasons are as follows. Firstly, he did not deliberately publicized his ideas, had no intention to compete with the retro school, furthermore, he had no ideal to build up school or launch movement. Secondly, he focused on the eight-part essay rather than poetry and prose. Thirdly, he never had the desire of taking part in any schools.Chapter Five, Feng Mengzhen’s Literature Creation. Feng Mengzhen’s poetry and prose were straight from his heart, clear and unconventional, not stayed in step with ancient laws, had no drawback of carving. His Kuai Xue Hall Diary recorded his nineteen-year’s everyday life, which had very high literary value and historical value. By analyzing his diary, we can reveal his life-state. It is an important aspect of Feng Mengzhen’s researching that studying his real life from day-to-day secular trivialities. Poetry and prose are not only literary works but also gifts or goods. For Feng Mengzhen who had both literary fame and prestige, literary debts or elegant debts were inevitable interpersonal intercourse, which led to the contradiction between theory and creation. So, it is necessary to combine his literature creation with his daily life when analyses his works.Ending Part, Feng Mengzhen’s Lasting Influence. After the death of Feng Mengzhen, his Kuai Xue Hall and two plum trees with green petals which he planted in Yongxing Temple became the objects that people to pay their respects and recollect him. They wrote poetry to recollect Feng Mengzhen’s past charm and bewail historical changes and the impermanence of the world.Appendixes of the paper:Appendix One, Compilation of Feng Mengzhen’s Works which were Uncollected in Kuai Xue Hall Collection. Feng Mengzhen’s writing was Kuai Xue Hall Collection, which had sixty-four volumes. But according to literature especially his own records, these works were much less than his practical production, which is bound to affect comprehensive understanding and systematical researching of him. So searching of his lost works, even if only exist-title bibliography, is also very necessary.Appendix Two, Compilation of Comments on Feng Mengzhen’s Works Made by People of Ming and Qing Dynasties. It mainly compiles comments on Feng Mengzhen’s poetry and prose, including on eight-part essay, in order to get a glimpse of his works’historical value and status.Appendix Three, Chronicle of Feng Mengzhen’s Poetry and Prose. According to Feng Mengzhen’s collected works, dairy and other literature, arranged his works in a chronological order, in order to more clearly understand his creation process and his life experience. Meanwhile, it also helps to compile Chronological Biography of Feng Mengzhen. Because of the works’ old age and insufficient of literature, it was impossible to make a completely accurate time sorting, but a general chronicle was possible.