Literature of the early Ming to mid-Ming (1375–1572)

Abstract

Overview In the available histories of Chinese literature today, early and mid-Ming literature has been largely ignored. This problem is partly due to our obsession with the late Ming (i.e. 1550–1644), which has led us to ignore some equally important, if not more important, literary phenomena occurring before 1550. In fact, many of the important trends that have been associated with the late Ming actually find their origins much earlier. For example, it was during the early Ming – especially the Yongle reign (1403–1424) – that literature began to flourish in the court, when scholar–officials considered themselves to be somewhat like European courtiers. For the sake of convenience, the literature of the early and middle Ming can be divided roughly into three periods: 1375 to 1450, 1450 to 1520, and 1520 to 1572. The beginning of the first period was far from being a cultural revival. Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor, was suspicious to the point of paranoia, and was completely unpredictable in his responses to poetry. His persecution of authors whom he believed to have secretly criticized him was often brutal. Once a poor peasant and a local leader during the Red Turban revolt, the emperor assumed that the cultural elite would despise him; thus, reading between the lines for evidence of disloyalty, he brought death or banishment upon countless literary men. Given his persecution of writers and artists, it is ironic that among the past emperors of imperial China, Zhu Yuanzhang is the one whose portraits have been best preserved. At present, twelve portraits of Zhu are kept in the Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan, and one is in the Palace Museum in Beijing.