Studies On The History Of Non-dramatic Songs In The Ming Dynasty

The non-dramatic song occupies a very important place in the Chinese classical poetic art. It incorporates the art of poetry and that of ci and it forms a new literary approach. The non-dramatic song is diversified in form and content just because it came into being late. A complete study of classical poetry is supposed to include poetry, ci, and qu. Without poetry and ci, the source of qu can not be observed, and similarly, without non-dramatic songs, the same problem happens to the development of poetry and ci. The non-dramatic song is mostly natural and it is as easy to understand as daily conversations, thereby, the source provider of the new vernacular poetry advocated in the May Fourth New Literature Movement. In the perspective of poetry development, the non-dramatic song is just like a bridge connecting tradition and modernness.It is universally believed that the non-dramatic song flourished and flowered in the Yuan Dynasty, but the Ming Dynasty can contend with the Yuan Dynasty in the following respects. In terms of the number of works, the Ming Dynasty produced three and four times as many as the Yuan Dynasty, and in terms of the artistic quality and overall achievement, they make no difference. The non-dramatic song in the Ming Dynasty is well worth studying for the unique characteristics either from the aspects of stylistics, culturology, folklore, and linguistics or in the study of the historical development of non-dramatic songs and that of literature in the Ming Dynasty. Whatever is to be studied, it is essential to understand the basic information and historical development of the non-dramaticsongs in the Ming Dynasty.The non-dramatic song is most ignored in the study of classical poetry for various reasons, and least attention is paid to the study of the non-dramatic songs in the Dynasties of Ming and Qing. 700 papers and lots of high quality specialized books are devoted to the study of the non-dramatic songs in the Yuan Dynasty, but only 30 papers or more are found in the study of the non-dramatic songs in the Ming Dynasty, and no high quality specialized books involved can be found. Although the scholars in the twentieth century had some discussions about the non-dramatic songs in the Ming Dynasty in their general works devoted to non-dramatic songs, yet at that time A Comprehensive Collection of the Non-dramatic Songs in the Ming Dynasty was not yet compiled and published and, therefore, scholars had a limited number of works in this respect to consult with, and there were no specialized books on other types of writing in the Ming Dynasty so that it was difficult to conduct a horizontal comparison, therefore, the study of non-dramatic songs is mostly focused on non-dramatic songs themselves, and accordingly, there are unavoidably some questions or shortcomings in the non-dramatic songs in the Ming Dynasty as follows: Case studies of writers are not enough; the division of writer schools and groups is not scientific enough; the definition of developmental stages and the discussions on features in different stages are relatively indistinct; historical content studies are weak and with major errors. Thus a high quality specialized book on the history of the non-dramatic songs in the Ming Dynasty is earnestly needed either from the point of view of the science of non-dramatic songs or from the aspects of classical poetry and the literature study in the Ming Dynasty. In order to achieve this goal, the author has worked diligently for three years and finally finished this dissertation, which welcomes examination and criticism.This dissertation falls into ten chapters. The first chapter records the author's personal opinions about the important issues on the ups and downs of Beiqu and Nanqu in the Ming Dynasty. A redivision of the developmental stages of thenon-dramatic songs in the Ming Dynasty with elaborate reason statements is the focus of chapter two. Chapters three to ten concentrate on the discussions about the historical development and writers and their works of the non-dramatic song...