The Research On Fake Biographical Works Of Chinese Ming Dynasty

Fake biography originates from Mao Ying Zhuan written by Han Yu in Tang Dynasty. It uses the historical biography as its framework, writes about the fusion of imagination and reality, and about the combination of humor and implict. The appreciation of fake biography is the self-criticism of both serious and factious, or at superutility of parody of historical works. By Ming Dynasty, fake biography bas been widely accepted by literati, and established its status in the history of literary style for Xu Shi highlighted it in his book Wen Ti Ming Bian. Fake biography can be classified to the ancient novel, but also modern fiction. Its language is quite elegant because most of authors are cultured scholars who are varied from the dignitaries to the to-be officials. Therefore, the status of the author decided weather the objects are elegant or not. From the development of fake biography in Ming Dynasty, the autors’status migrated from top to bottom. In the middle and later periods of Ming Dynasty, most of authors are in the status of the middle and the lower. Hence, fake biography stepped into vulgarization gradually.From the vertical point of view, in the earlier stage fake biography in Ming Dynasty got rid of the traditional creation in Tang and Song Dynasty, and mainly focused on the monarch and his subjects’ getting along well, and on the sources of the subjects. Hence most of the fake biography in this period is relatively implicative. In the middle and later stage, social custom was increasingly extravagant for the development of business. Therefore, the creative themes of fake biography began to pay attention to the social changes which includes merchants or economy in South of the Yangtze River, together with the development of philosophy of the mind. From the horizontal point of view, the reason why fake biography was classified as satiric literature is that it mainly focus on entertaining other than narrative. The creation was based on the historical biography, and colored by the authors’ imagination. Thus it formed a contrast which will be solved seriously, and then come out of the humor. The scope of selecting materials is more wide especially in Ming Dynasty. There are less allusions piled up and more dialogues. So the fake biography in this stage is colloquial and originative, and the characters are full of variety. The narrative mode of the combined biography and the group biography become a feature of the Ming Dynasty, which gave a new life to fake biography and contributed to its prosperity.After the middle period of Ming Dynasty, there are many anthologies published. In addition to the sylloge, collected works and recorded spectrum, anthology is the most important way in transmission. The way of selecting materials includes literary appreciation and popular spread. The standard of compile is given priority to both novelty seeking and the combination of education and entertainment. The owner of bookshop often elevates the works of fake biography to the equivalent status with the Six Classics. He use the Confucian politics putting the fake biography into a bigger position.After the middle period of Ming Dynasty, all the people pursue the fresh style, so the fake biography reached its peak relying on its humor. But in Qing Dynasty, the number of related anthologies decreased rapidly, and the anthologies of Ming dynasty is no longer reprinted. Under the ethos of advocating practical learning, fake biography has gradually fading in Qing dynasty.