The Many Faces of Ruan Dacheng

Abstract

The first monograph in English on the life and work of Ruan Dacheng (1587-1646) re-assesses this significant Ming-dynasty literary figure. Ruan Dacheng was in his own time a highly-regarded poet, but is more famous as a dramatist. He is most notorious as a ‘treacherous official’ of the Ming-Qing transition; as a result his literary work has been neglected and undervalued. The book analyses his poetry, plays, and surviving prose writing, as well as addressing his infamous political activities. It sifts fact from fiction in accounts of Ruan’s life, and demonstrates that Ruan was not the close associate of the influential eunuch Wei Zhongxian that he was later believed to be; this view of him, held by adherents of the Donglin and Fushe factions, became widespread only after Ruan’s brief career in power under the Southern Ming and his surrender to the invading Manchus. His intellectual formation and life experiences are related to his literary work, and his poetry, dramas, and surviving prose writings are analysed particularly in relation to their concern with identity and the authenticity of the individual, topics which under the influence of Yangming thought were of great importance in late-Ming intellectual life, particularly to the Gongan literary school, of which Ruan is shown to have been an adherent. Rather than being a transgressive figure, Ruan shared many of the interests typical of the late-Ming literati elite, and as a writer he should be seen as one of the Ming dynasty’s most outstanding poets and dramatists.