The Research Of The Literature And The Collective Mentality Of The Northeastern Exiles In Qing Dynasty

During Qing dynasty, several groups of exiles were sent to northeast China. It occurred mostly under the rule of Emperor Shunzhi, Kangxi and Yongzheng; and the exiled were most commonly deported to three places, namely Shengjing, Ningguta and Bukui. Despite of harsh living conditions and extreme cold winters, many exiles still continued and flourished the cultural and literary activities, such as writing and sharing poems, editing local chronicles or teaching in local academies. These activities had a profound influence on the development of northeastern culture and the literature in Qing dynasty.For a long period, most studies of northeastern exiles have been focusing on a history perspective. However, the northeastern exiles, who are known as a important distinct group in Qing dynasty, still remain interesting to researchers, and such topic has great potential for further study. Therefore, this dissertation concentrates on the literatures and activities of the northeastern exiles in the early Qing dynasty and made a systematic summary of previous work. Observations and explanations were presented on how these groups emerged and developed, as well as on how tremendous amount of literatures were written. Thereby, it summarizes the cultural activities and social network of the northeast exiles, based on which a further analysis is made on the complex inner world revealed in their poetry, as well as the innovations in poem composition. Furthermore, this dissertation tries to the capture the variation of Qing scholars’ ideology, by analyzing the transition process of how they portrayed the northeastern exiles in their own literature works.The emphasis of this dissertation is on the collective mentality of the exile groups that is expressed in their poems, engaging in revealing the exile’s inside world on the basis of textual scrutiny on a large volume of poems and historical materials.Taken as a whole, the landscapes and the scenes, the folkways and the livelihood of northeastern China were massively written in literature for the first time via poetry and prose composed by the exiles. In addition, their self-portraits and the exiled females should both worth more attentions.