Civil Officials System And Literature Of Ming Dynasty

Ming dynasty is the later stage of feudal society and its political system has been quite comprehensive. Therefore, study on literature of Ming dynasty should pay close attention to its system. Under the regime of autocratic monarchy, Ming dynasty strengthened its control over intellectuals by requesting scholar-officials to serve the monarch; meanwhile scholars influenced by Confucianism also take the way of being an official in the government as a means to realize their value of life. As a consequence, the civil-officials institution has exerted great influence on the thought and behavior of Ming literati class, no matter scholars or officials. The so-called civil-officials system refers to a range of regulations on personnel management, from election to retirement, which includes enacting the method to be an official, classification and registration of identity origins, election and delegation of official post, evaluation during his tenure and retirement from an post, and so on. From the angle of civil-officials system, this article deals with its guidance in the social values, its regulation on the conduct of bureaucrat scholars as well as the influence on talented writers’literary activities. On the other hand, from analysis and interpretation of literary texts, the article presents how literature deals with the civil-officials system skillfully. It also tries to find out literary facts and explore why some literary phenomenon exist, and in turn helps to understand the rules and deep factors which affect development of literature, at the same time tries to provide some thought or experience in researching the relationship between literary works and their corresponding civil-officials system.The article is made up of introduction, main body and conclusion. Introduction part mainly defines some relative concepts, discusses the value and significance of selection of the topic, and presents some basic information about ideas, content, method, innovation and its insufficiency.The main body consists of six chapters. Chapter One deals with content and nature of " civil-officials system " in general, analyzes bidirectional relationship between the system and literature works:The system affects literary activities through exerting influence on the behavior and emotion of writers; while in the process of reflecting life, literature also reflects the system literarily, although the system is shown in the form of writer’s reflective recreation instead of provisions it regulates.Chapter Two to Chapter Four discusses the relationship between identity origin-investiture and literature of Ming dynasty. The identity origin system provides the access to being an official, which defines the types of identity origin, Jinshi-officials, Jiansheng-officials and civil-servant-officials, and embodies its nature as some kind of recognition of qualification. The identity origin is closely related to investiture, which is the basis of qualification for investiture, from primary election to promotion. The combination of identity origin and investiture leads to discrimination against identity origin in election of officials, and it consequently gives rise to the concept of "supremacy of Jinshi" in the minds of official management class and mainstream concept in the society. Centering around the concept of " supremacy of Jinsbi" Chapter Two points out that the regulation of Jinshi official----investiture and its operation in reality forces scholars to prefer to begin their official career by way of becoming Jinshi first, while the choice of becoming Jiansheng and then serving the government has been the last one. This chapter also points out that literature in Ming dynasty record those scholars’ various lives and spiritual experiences on their way of taking imperial examinations, such as their indecision and persistence, success and failure, joy and frustration. For those Jinshi officials, it has become a literary fact that in the poems of seeing people off who may work outside of the Capital, the theme of "whish them back to serve in the Capital" has become some kind of writing pattern, while in the novels, the subject of county magistrate’s recommendation to take part in imperial examinations appear repetitively. Chapter Three focuses on the discrimination against Jiansheng officials, and analyzes the minds of those Juren or Jiansheng who want to enter official career. What’s more important, this chapter analyzes status and image of those Jiansheng officials, and discusses the literary manifestation and meaning of their stories. Chapter Four researches on civil-servant-officials and points out the difficulty of their promotion and the lower position they may acquire in the government. There is no such writer in Ming literature as is the petty civil-servant-official. In literary works, there may have stories of those people’s acquisition of better official position.However, it can only be served as some kind of typical case to instruct people to behave in a good way. Chapter Two to Chapter Four displays various literary depictions about discrimination against identity origins and its reflection in literary works, which is unique to Ming literature in comparison with previous dynasties.Chapter Five discusses relationship between assessment system and Ming literature. Assessment system regulates officials should subject themselves to assessment and check-up, which is predictable. There are poems about seeing people off for their assessment in lyric literature, and in narrative literature, there is description of mind and behavior of people who would be assessed.Chapter Six deals with relationship between retirement system and Ming literature, and discloses retirement is different from quitting the official post. In the mid of Ming dynasty, retirement system has got another meaning of punishment from the government, which affects official’s attitude towards it. At the later stage of lyric literature, the theme of retirement has decreased significantly; while narrative literature makes use of retirement to display people’s character or to arrange a perfect ending for the figure.Conclusion serves as a summary, and reviews key information in each chapter. It generalizes essentials in bidirectional relationship between civil official system and Ming literature and different effects of the system.