A Study On The Rhythmical Parallel Prose Of Ming Dynasty

Although the overall achievement of Ming dynasty's rhythmical parallel prose was low,and the outstanding writers and works were in shortage,it played a transitional role in connecting the SongYuan's decline and Qing's rise.With the shake of the Confucian school of idealist philosophy and the revival of literature,it performed a sustainable development gradually after experiencing the extreme downturn at the early stage,and had been ready for Qing's renaissance.The recovery of Ming dynasty's rhythmical parallel prose went along with cultural transformation of the society,which was also a part of the literature trend that advocated returning to the ancients at that time.It achieved a thoroughly prosperity by combining with practical writing such as Biao and Qi.What's more,the lower Yangtze valley contributed the majority of its writers because of the traditional advantages of regional culture.This paper focuses on the study of its creations and relative ideas.Instead of listing the writers and their works in chronological order like most do in writing a history of literature,this paper will put them back in the three-dimensional space-time of Ming dynasty's literary evolution,and integrate all of them together with the deep law of literature and humanistic spirit for the purpose of exploring the positive values of Ming dynasty's rhythmical parallel prose.The first chapter History and Panorama will give an overall introduction of its development and main characteristics,as well as its historical status,in order to build a basic cognitive platform for the next four chapters which focus on different special subjects respectively.The second chapter Literary Evolution of the Rhythmical Parallel Prose in the Imperial Examination pay attention to the Biao and Pan in the imperial examination which revealed the trend of Ming's literary development.The third chapter Footnotes to the Literature Trend which Advocated Returning to the Ancients is about what it had done excellently during Hongzhi and Wanli to ensure its efforts and achievements in finding a way out for Ming's literature by trying different archaisms,and thus reflects the variety of literary ideas at that time.The fourth chapter The New Voice of Jiangzuo's Rhythmical Parallel Prose studies the works of Xu Zhenqing and TangYin who came from the lower Yangtze valley to discover some new features impacted by Ming's retro trend and imperial culture.and the fifth chapter Harbinger of Late Ming's literature just concludes some information of the transitions of late Ming's literature which had already occurred and would occur soon.