Commercial publishing and the rise of Shishang local culture: the publishing of the Huang Ming shiliu mingjia xiaopin in Late Ming China

This thesis examines the emergence of xiaopin in late Ming China. Xiaopin in the late Ming became a distinct and established literary genre. It is often recognized by contemporary scholars as a short-form, nonfictional prose, excluding dramas and poetry, and discussed as a genre of belles-lettres. However, due to its various and dynamic styles since the late Ming, xiaopin has never been adequately defined. Thus, this thesis attempts to explore the boundaries of xiaopin. It argues that the contemporary definition and categorization of xiaopin are narrow and insufficient, because it considers the xiaopin as a literary genre with only peculiar stylistics, thus glossing over the complexity of this genre in styles and contents, as well as the rich social contexts it is embedded in, which are the focus in this thesis. This thesis attempts to interrogate one representative collection of the late Ming xiaopin genre, the Huang Ming shiliu mingjia xiaopin 皇明十六名家小品 (Xiaopin of the Sixteen Renowned Authors of the Ming Dynasty). Through textual and cultural analysis of this xiaopin collection, the social and economic functions of xiaopin are explored by viewing xiaopin as a commodity in the expanded field of commercial publishing in the late Ming. It is demonstrated that xiaopin as a literary genre was not just trivial pieces for aesthetic appreciation in the sense of belles-lettres, but also served practical functions in social relations in its material production and circulation by the economically-motivated shishang publishers and writers. The main argument in this thesis is that the xiaopin was a salient literary genre reflecting the development of an alternative culture of local, superfluous literati that challenged the literary authority used to be held by the officials in the political field. The rise of xiaopin thus exemplified the expansion of shishang culture in the literary field in late Ming China.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

E Asian Languages & Cultures

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Hang, Mengzhu

Contributors dc:contributor

• Chow, Kai-wing
• Chen, Jingling
• Symes, Carol

• Xiaopin
• Commercial Publishing

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Mengzhu Hang

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115957

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F115957