The Intellectuals And Folk Songs Of Ming Dynasty

The relationships between intellectuals and folk songs had a long tradition, but this tradition changed in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. In a nutshell, before this time,the tradition was "change the popular to the elegant",the intellectuals drawed nutrient from the folk songs and provided reference for the creation of elegant literature.In Ming Dynasty, especially the middle and the late stage, this trend began to change. Some intellectuals contraried the tradition,began to pursue the popular aesthetic standards to substitute the elegant one. From Li Mengyang,Li Kaixian to Yuan Hongdao,Feng Menglong, their attitude to folk songs showed a group-consciousness, which was extremely different from the Middle Ages.Then,why this change occurred in the Ming Dynasty? How did the relationships between intellectuals and folk songs exhibit? In this series of contactions, which role did the intellectuals play? The main purpose of this article, is to make a general inquiry about this series of questions. The previous research on folk songs of Ming Dynasty usually focused on the "text", so, this article changes the angle to the "intellectuals". Specifically, this research studies the intellectuals’mentality, concept, literary activities, on this basis, research the deep cultural implications of this relevance in the context of interactivition between popular and elegant. The research methods focus on the combination of cases and overall, demonstration and description; The specific discussion focuses on the combination of text, data and charts; This article maximizes the use of descriptive language or reasonable inference, which makes the paper more objective and rigorous.The full text is composed by introduction, text and epilogue. The introduction mainly proposes the question about redefinition of folk songs of Ming Dynasty as the "study object", and analysises on the related concepts. On this basis, the introduction proposes changing the research focus to the "intellectuals"Jn the same time, it also demonstrates the feasibility of the research ideas, and introduces the innovations and the shortcomings.The text is divided into five chapters. The first chapter summarizes the relationships between intellectuals and folk songs of Ming Dynasty. First, it summarizes this tradition before Ming Dynasty, and clears the roles which intellectuals and folk songs play. On this basis, studies the background and methods about this relationships, clears it’s specials which are different from the Middle Ages. In the same time, studies the survival times, activity areas and identities of the intellectuals.The second chapter focuses on the theoretically acceptance of the intellectuals in Ming Dynasty. Different intellectuals had different understandings about the same trait of folk songs. Different lifestyles and temperament mettles also influenced their understandings of the sincere and the emotion. The main task of this chapter is discussing the different interpretations about the sincere,and the evolving of the emotion’connotation. Because of Feng Menglong’s outstanding contribution and advanced concepts, the last section discusses him separately. In addition, this chapter also notes the voice of opposition.The third chapter focuses on the creatively acceptance of folk songs of the intellectuals in Ming Dynasty. The concentrated reaction of this acceptance was a large number of creation of simulation about folk songs. Associated with it is the creation of Zhuzhi-songs. This chapter chooses a few intellectuals who commended the folk songs, and researches the relationship between their creation of Zhuzhi-songs and concept of folk songs. The acceptance also influenced their creation of poem and verse. In addition, the creatively acceptance also includes the use of folk songs in the creation of popular fictions. The last section discusses the attenuation of the intellectuals’ enthusiasm about folk songs.The fourth chapter mainly discusses the intellectuals’ efforts about the propagation of folk songs.First, the minority elite group’s preferences expanded the impact of such folk songs. Second, the Guazhier and Shange which Feng Menglong edited spreaded widely. Even more unusual, he formed a systematic, scientific principles and methods in the editing. Third, The largest role in promoting of the propagation of folk songs was the majority of the lower intellectuals who cooperated with the publishers. Last, the relationships between intellectuals and folk songs was not absolutely one-way, in certain aspects, the folk songs had some dominant, such as the selection and mapping of "shanren".The fifth chapter mainly discusses the questions about gender concepts.As the sustained-releaser of "sexual tension", how did they achieve their goals by the folk songs? How did the image of desire-female built up the intellectuals’ view of women with chastity-women and talented women? The intellectuals interested in the creation of simulation about folk songs ridiculing prostitute, what was the reason?The epilogue is a summary of the text, it mainly reviews of the key elements of each chapter, macroscopically summarizes the cultural property of the relationships between intellectuals and folk songs, and evaluates the research model about intellectuals-center in the context of the interaction between popular culture and elegant culture.