The Commercial Culture And Popular Novels Of Ming Dynasty

Commercial culture is not only a landscape, an economic space, but also a center of life and activity, even an environment, a feature or a soul. It is not just a simple physical phenomenon, such as the facade, market, or a simple social activity, such as commodity production, transportation, trade, but an embodiment of a state of mind, a psychological projection of people who take part in. The commercial culture came into being before Ming Dynasty, however, it took on a number of interesting things in this period. Ming's commodity economy came up to a new level. It appeared a lot of merchants who were well-educated and good at trading and management. It produced a new concept of consumption, which extended a new content to commercial culture. It also shook the traditional social ceremony system, and made a new starting point for social change. The story of Popular Fiction especially Sanyan and Erpai, took the life and commerce of business people as the center, displayed vividly an image of the manual owners and business people at that time who were how to use their business skills, hardworking spirit and rare opportunity to get rich. The story also reflected the economic life and the consumption concept of all social class. From the story, we can see the rise of Mercantilism thoughts, the prosperity of business culture, the aspiration and mind of the general public in pursuit of commercial profit and cultural taste, it embodied the spirit of the times at that historical stageThe thesis falls into four chapters. The preface has introduced the reason of choosing this subject, research status, relevant concepts and methods. Chapter one, connotation of Ming commercial culture. The economical values, the life values, the moral values and esthetic values, these aspects elaborate the core value system of Ming commercial culture. Chapter two, the rising of Ming commercial culture strength. The transportation improvement and the transportation network formation promoted the commercial development and prosperity; these were the conditions which made the Ming commercial culture rise. Chapter three, Ming commercial culture expedited the popular novel. The trade prosperity and resident's cultural expense demand expedited popular novels bearing the strong commercial culture color, however the novel in turn manifested the commercial culture idea. Sanyan and Erpai was representative of popular novels. Chapter four, the commercial culture in Sanyan and Erpai. The commodity culture, the marketing culture, ethics culture, the consumption culture, these all were organic constituents of the commercial culture.