The Merchant Elite and Vernacular Writing

Woodblock printed books from the Ming Dynasty. Click here for original source.

Historical Background

The Four Occupations

There were four distinct social classes, known as the Four Occupations.

The idea of the Four Occupations came from either Legalist or Confucian principles, dating back as far as the Zhou Dynasty.

These four different occupations were organized in a hierarchy of importance, starting with the Shi, followed by the Nong, the Gong, and finally the Shang. The Shi were the cultural elite. Originally a warrior class, over time the group shifted into the scholarly elite seen in the Ming and other dynasties. During the Ming, they were the gentry elite.

The Nong were the peasant farmers. They were considered second to the gentry because they grew the food necessary to maintain the empire.

The Gong were craftsmen and workers. They were considered second to the peasants; they did not create products quite as essential as food, but still made goods necessary for the people in the country. Some of the more successful members of this class formed guilds to sell goods.

The Shang were merchants. They were considered lower than the other classes because they profited off the work of others without producing their own work. While they were necessary to the country, the other classes were seen as more valuable.

The Four Occupations were seen more as an ideal rather than a realistic hierarchy. While the peasants and craftsmen were considered more valuable than the merchant class, merchants could not only gain wealth from within the country, but through outside trade, as well. With Europeans finding silver in the Americas, merchants were able to facilitate trade between foreign entities. Because of the desire for silver in China, merchants gained unprecedented wealth. (*)

The Shang

By the Ming Dynasty, the social distinctions between classes became blurred. It culminated with the formation of a group referred to as the Shishang.The name is clearly a combination of the gentry class and merchant class, shi and shang. The group was "a combination of the old examination-based elite with a new wealthy merchant class." The class was associated with fiction writing written predominately in vernacular Chinese (Cambridge 99).

It's probable that most of the merchant class, especially the merchant elite, were literate. Due to increased wealth, this class now had more time to spend on cultural pursuits. While some men of merchant families, such as Li Mengyang, pursued official careers, many did not. The market, controlled by the gentry and merchant elite, now focused on more than just the examination process. Careers outside of an official career were more than possible in the Ming.

Print culture

The End of Manuscript Culture, Movement into Print Culture

Calligraphy by Wang Wen. Click here for original source.

A woodblock for printing from the Yangzhou Museum. Click here for original source.

From as early as 200 A.D, woodblock printing has existed in China. Woodblock printing was not replaced by movable type printing that was developed in the Song dynasty, in about 1040 A.D, by Bi Sheng. This form of movable type was a technological innovation, but woodblock printing was cheaper. Most significant to China's literary culture is the development of paper, which by the Ming, was produced cheaply and abundantly out of various fibers, while in Europe, comparatively, paper was mostly made from animal skins. The cloth and plant fiber paper in China allowed for a much greater development of writing, and particularly printing.

Despite the existence of printing, scholars through the Tang and Song Dynasties valued handwritten manuscripts, lending to the name 'manuscript culture.' Texts were written by hand and distributed in literate circles, usually of the gentry class. Calligraphy was a highly prized skill throughout China's literary history. It is still considered one of the highest forms of art in China, "serving the purpose of conveying thoughts while also showcasing abstract beauty of lines" ("History of Chinese Calligraphy" 1). It was also around the time of the invention of the woodblock print that calligraphy began to be considered an art form.

By the late Ming, manuscript culture had been replaced by print culture. The amount of literacy and written work produced during the Ming was explosive in scale. While manuscript culture remained important, with works such as Jin Ping Mei, Flower in the Golden Vase, being written and shared in manuscript form, by the sixteenth century, printing became the primary mode of textual circulation (Cambridge 63).

Li Mengyang

Li Mengyang was a Ming Dynasty scholar. He came from a merchant family, making him a good example of the Shishang class.

He was a member of the Revivalist School of writers, who were focused on the expression of emotion over refined form. They saw the focus on form that was appearing in palace poetry of the time as vain. Particularly important to note about the Revivalist School is their fascination with colloquial songs. They felt that true poetry would be found among the people, where the writings were emotional and connected to real life.

Li's main interest was in the play The Western Wing, and he was the first to give it scholarly credence. His interest in the play and other forms of writing, such as his interest in popular songs, might be explained by his origins from a merchant family.

Li had a troubled career as an official; he was imprisoned four times, and ultimately left his career as a scholar. Even after the end of his career, he remained an active, vocal writer, dedicated to the Revivalist School.

The Western Wing; Plays and Colloquial Songs

Plays like The Western Wing (sometimes called Romance of the West Chamber)began to see attention from the cultural elite during the Ming. Not only were plays of interest to members of the elite, but colloquial songs were also gaining prominence.

The Western Wing was first published in 1498, about two hundred years after its first appearance as a performance. It was a cultural phenomenon in the Ming, gaining wide popularity among all classes of people. The songs featured in the drama were extremely popular, in particular. The play had the notorious status as "a lover's bible," and it was considered controversial. It featured a couple that consummated their romance without their parents' approval, set in the Tang Dynasty. It appeared as a story that was adapted into a drama, prints of the play appearing in the mid-Ming.

The Western Wing gained canonical importance from Li Mengyang, but the popularity of the play no doubt reached scholars before Li gave it important status. Scholarly interest extended to songs outside of drama, as well. The focus of songs and drama was to express human emotion. Because of groups like the Revivalist School, interested in precisely that, the culture of songs and lyricism in the Ming is an intermingling of the popular and the elite, and class distinction, while intact, was not as focused.

Fiction

Something comparable to fiction has existed in China for centuries before the Ming. Collections of prose tales of stories, most particularly collections of strange or supernatural tales, gained some degree of prominence in the Tang Dynasty.

In the Ming, due to editors such as Feng Menglong, and novels written in vernacular Chinese, the genre of fiction gained new importance. Vernacular writing and fiction are inseparable in China's literary history. Readers showed a preference for material that was quick to read and many of the people now reading were not a part of the examination culture that had previously been the dominant market for printing in other dynasties.

With the increase of printed material in general, whether it was a travel guide, a newspaper, or numerous other common genres, in addition to writing done for entertainment or learning, the focus of writing and reading changed in the Ming. Vernacular writing had more expressive power than previous forms, partly because the primary audience wasn't necessarily the elite class. It was able to say and do different things that classical writing was unable to do.

Feng Menglong

Feng Menglong was a writer and poet, but he was known for his work as an editor, compiling editions of vernacular stories, as well as rewriting older works into presentable printed works. His most important work was "The Three Words," which was a collection of three volumes, the Jingshi Tonyan, Yushi Mingyan, and Gujin Xiaoshuo. These were collections of vernacular writing written with a moralist interest. Feng Menglong was a follower of Li Zhi's principles and his works are informed by his philosophical standing.

Menglong wrote within almost every genre he could, but his most important works remain his editing and compiling work, which retained the history of the genre of vernacular stories and allowed the works to flourish due to the market potential inherent in the collections.