A Study Of The Letter In Yuan Mei

Yuan Mei was a famous literary scholar in the mid-Qing period,who had a profound influence on poetry,prose,and fiction.He was also a famous letter writer of his generation.As a classic in the field of letter writing,his letters have an endlessly evocative artistic impact and have been widely loved and admired by later generations.Inheriting his spiritual thoughts and aesthetic interests,Yuan Mei’s letter writing reflected the daily life and social style of the literati in the mid-Qing period,having important literary values and aesthetic implications.However,the current academic community has not paid much attention to Yuan Mei’s letter writing,and related research results are not abundant as well.Living a leisurely and relaxed life in the garden,Yuan Mei’s showed in his letters a wealth of aesthetic resources,including leisurely activities such as building a garden,appreciating and collecting things,and traveling in the mountains,as well as literary activities such as singing in elegant gatherings and talking about poetry and learning.On the one hand,the literati of the mid-Qing period,represented by Yuan Mei,enjoyed themselves in their leisurely life and pursued the aesthetic spirit of eternity and the unity of heaven and man,highlighting the refined interests of the literati class;on the other hand,they entertained themselves in literature to affirm the value of their own life and their ideal of life,reflecting the special literary scene and social style of the Qianjia period.In this sense,Yuan Mei’s elegant and passionate writing became a window into the aestheticization of the literati’s daily life in the mid-Qing period,thus contributing to the construction of ancient Chinese aesthetics.In terms of language style,Yuan Mei’s letters are clear,natural,popular,and free from the redundancy of difficult pronunciation;In terms of emotion,they are playful,indulgent,and free from the tedium of sparseness and blandness.His writing is unique and ingenious.With distinctive individual characteristics,he pushed the Qing Dynasty’s letter writing to the final peak,specifically in terms of reminiscent narrative techniques,poetic aesthetic meaning and literary character of authorship.Letters Written in a House of Xiaocang Mountain,after setting off a publishing boom during the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China,has become a classic of letter writing,known as one of the "Three Great Letter Writings of the Qing Dynasty".In light of this book,this paper examines not only the process and reasons of the diachronic classicization of Yuan Mei’s letter writing from the perspective of literary acceptance,but also the cultural implications and aesthetic spirits of Yuan Mei’s letter writing,explaining their values in the contemporary context.