Type Study On Popular Books In Middle And Late Ming Dynasty

The middle and late Ming Dynasty is a historical period in which Chinese society has undergone transformation.The development of commodity economy has brought about some new changes in the society:the emergence of towns,the flow of classes,the rise of popular culture,and the gradual change of social atmosphere.At the same time,during the period,the publication and production of books experienced a huge development.The commercial publishing was unprecedentedly prosperous.Under the impetus of various factors,a type of literature,which is different from the previous elite books and literatures was born and raised.This type of literature was published and disseminated facing the public,their content is close to the normal lifc of the people and very easy to understand.Meanwhile,the quality of them was generally not high,often copying each other and some of them were misnamed.I define them as "popular books",which corresponds to the"elite books" that previously occupied the main body of Chinese ancient books.This study is a type study of popular books that emerged during this particular period.Because the quality of popular books is not high and the content is often uneven,so it is generally not valued by scholars.The existing research has focused on case studies or focusing on versions,printing techniques,etc.,but there is less attention to the aspect of social culture.There is also a lack of combing,classification and discussion of the full view of popular books.Therefore,this study will explore the rise,definition,nature,and type of popular books in the middle and late Ming Dynasty from a relatively macroscopic perspective,and focus on the detailed discussion of various types of popular books.This paper begins with a series of social changes starting from the middle of the Ming Dynasty,and explores the reasons why popular books emerged during this period from the perspective of social history.Undoubtedly,the creation of popular books is inextricably linked with the historical environment and social changes at that time.The development and prosperity of the commodity economy provides an excellent soil for the publication and circulation of popular books,and the expansion of middle class provides a solid reader for popular books.At the same time,the development of printing technology and the convenience of book publishing provide technical support for the mass printing of popular documents.Clarifying the relationship between these factors in the middle and late Ming Dynasty and their relationship with the popular books is crucial to understanding the connotation and essence of the popular books.On this basis,the author defines and discusses the definition and nature of the popular books,and on the baes of previous studies,the popular books in the middle and late Ming Dynasty is divided into daily use,enlightenment books,imperial examinations books,medicine books,business books,and religion documents and the paper discuss their nature,content,characteristics and so on.The main research method of this paper is the type research.It focuses on the popular books from an overall view,reveals its appearance and characteristics through the collection and sorting of the literature.What’s more,it pays attention to the social and historical environment,and outlines the history of the middle and late Ming Dynasty.The paper put the popular books into a broad social and historical background,and pay attention to their connection with these historical factors and the influence and significance of the book literature on social culture.