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In an outline of my previous book Feng Menglong and Late-Ming Popular Literature published elsewhere on this website, I have already written about my encounter with Chinese literature and Feng Menglong, a man of letters who was active in Suzhou in the late Ming, and about my subsequent research centred on his writings. Readers may wish to take a look at that as well.
 
The late Ming was a time when popular literature flourished in China, and this included vernacular fiction such as the Sanguozhi yanyi, Shuihu zhuan, Xiyouji, and Jinpingmei as well as plays such as the Mudan ting huanhun ji. Feng Menglong has been called the standard-bearer of popular literature in this period and is known for his Sanyan collections of vernacular short stories, the Shange (Mountain Songs), which is a collection of Suzhou folk songs, and the Xiaofu, a collection of humorous tales, and he is an important figure who cannot be overlooked when exploring the flourishing state of popular literature at the time and its background. My previous book Feng Menglong and Late-Ming Popular Literature brought together my research on Feng Menglong himself.
 
It is impossible to correctly understand a work of literature or a writer by examining only the work or the writer in question. For example, Feng Menglong was involved in the editing and publication of many books. One cannot investigate the position of his publishing activities and understand their meaning unless one takes into account the world of publishing as a whole in the late Ming. In order to understand Feng Menglong’s various activities, I have until now used several approaches.
 
In this book I have brought together articles that are not directly related to Feng Menglong, and they have been arranged in accordance with several topics that I have used for understanding him. These are the four topics of popular literature, literati, civil service examinations, and books.
 
With regard to popular literature, I consider legends about the author of the Jinpingmei, the many works of fiction about the misdeeds of monks that appeared at the time, the long popular narrative ballad Hong niangzi, the popular tune West River Moon that was often used in contemporary fiction, and the relationship between Chinese popular fiction and Japanese popular fiction of the Edo period.
 
Among literati, I take up figures such as Chen Jiru, Qian Qianyi, Mao Xiang, and Hou Han. In connection with the civil service examinations, I discuss the so-called “eight-legged essay,” which was important in the civil service examinations of the Ming-Qing period, and“The Encouragement of Learning” by Emperor Zhenzong of the Song, which shows the civil service examinations and material gains. As for books, I focus on books of the Ming-Qing period and deal with manuscript editions, the circulation of books, illustrated books, and so on.
 
The Ming-Qing period, especially the late Ming and early Qing, saw an efflorescence of culture against a background of economic prosperity in Jiangnan, which included cities such as Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Yangzhou. In the late Ming, there appeared many writers and artists in Jiangnan who were active not only in popular literature but also in traditional prose and poetry, in arts such as calligraphy, painting, and landscape gardening, and in the world of the refined tastes of literati. This world resembling a rich brocade quickly turned into a veritable bloodbath after the collapse of the Ming dynasty and the subsequent southward advance of Qing armies, and contemporary intellectuals were exposed to cruel fates. This tableau of human experiences is also something that is distinctive of this period, and I hope that this book will help to throw into relief these aspects of the Ming-Qing period.
 

(Written by OKI Yasushi, Professor, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia / 2021)