The Study Of Shaoxing Qi’s Family Gardens And Literature In The Late Ming Dynasty

The trend of garden construction gradually flourished after the middle of the Ming dynasty,and even more prevalent extended to the late Ming dynasty.Especially,gardens can be seen in the most areas of Shaoxing.The rise of Shao xing gardens in the late Ming dynasty showed a very obvious familial character,namely,those high quality gardens often clustered in aristocratic family and clans;Traditional gardens performing living and artistic functions still occupied a dominant position.Besides,there was a new atmosphere that many gardens were specially designed for giving lectures,meeting friends,studying arts and doing meditation;The identity of the owners of gardens were still dominated by bu reaucrats and scholar-officials.In addition,there was also a trend of spreading to the general public.The rise of Shaoxing gardens in the late Ming dynasty could not be separated from the support of economic foundation.In addition,as cultural superfluous things,gardens were the spiritual knots of the literati and gentries.As a compensation for the interest of natural scenery,gardens were also widely favored by common people;At the same time,the popularity of Shaoxing literati association in the late Ming dynasty was an important background for the rise of literati gardens.The development of Qi’s family gardens went through about three generations: began with Qi Chenghan,thrived in Qi Biaojia and Qi Zhijia brothers,got worse gradually in Qi Bansun and Qi Lisun brothers,spanning the late Ming and the early Qing dynasties,the peak and bottom periods of the development of its were closely linked with times.The owners of Qi’s family gardens such as Qi Chenghan and his son Qi Biaojia,both are Jinshi,as representatives of the local gentries,they showed concern to current affairs and pursued elegance,carrying out frequently various forms of literary activities,intercourses and creations in their gardens constr ucted carefully.Especially in the early Qing dynasty,Qi’s family gardens were more become important places in which Qi’s family females talked about poetry and Dao,read and expressed their emotion.The garden has actually often become an important literary field.Based on the classified statistics of the two main axes of literary activities in Qi’s family gardens--drama acting and viewing and garden appreciation and literati gathering,it can be seen that literary activities in Qi’s family gardens were once very prosperous,and the functions of drama acting and viewing were diversified,especially for the enjoyment of literati.Each time,many participants and activities are carried out frequently,and creative results are often produced in the process of activities.That was a bottom-up approach created by drama acting and viewing to influencel iterary creation in which opera literature also completed the process of returning from the stage to the text;The popularity of drama acting and viewing in garden also promoted the literati to discuss extensively and contend secretly.Garden appreciation a nd literati gathering in Qi’s family gardens related to literature had a difference between "temporary elegant gather" and "appointed association gather",which directly contributed to the literary creation of literati.In addition,garden tours that were open to the public at selected times were occasionally associated with literary creation in different ways.In terms of the objects of literary intercourse,people in Qi’s family gardens were relatively numerous and complicated,and the representative objects could be roughly classified into the following categories according to the different organizational forms and identities: members of the associations,Chan masters,family fathers and brothers,principal builders of the gardens,long-stay guests and private teachers,government officials.The characteristics of the literary intercourse of Qi’s family garden were mainly manifested in the individuality and groupment of intercourse objects,as well as the presence and absence of the intercourse scene,which often affected the way and content of the creation of garden literature.The influence of Qi’s family garden liter ature intercourse was various,which had direct effect on literature,including promoting literary criticism and cultivating local and family literary interests.There were also those owners of gardens with certain social and economic status and ordinary literati with relatively low social and economic status who took literature as a "springboard" and acted on other non-literary level can benefit from it.Gardens also became the spiritual dependence of Qi Chenghan and his son Qi Biaojia when they were politically frustrated.They at the time of building gardens were also looking for a new life goal.The combination of literature and gardens was actually the result of the independent choice of gentries and literati to seek their own way out under the social and political crowding out.Actually,this showed the deep mechanism of the garden literature field generated by social forces that is similar to the theory of "literary field" by Pierre Bourdieu,a famous French sociologist,but the uniqueness of the literary field of ancient Chinese garden cannot bei gnored.In the creations of different dimensions,no matter for the title or annotation of the garden,they both were to determine a certain meaning for it,or to open up a certain meaning,but only when the title and annotation left the owners of the gardens by the literati appreciation and comment,the meaning of the garden can meet the greatest interpretation space.A number of collective and interactive ways of creations,such as joint-sentences poetry,composing by taking atitle randomly or selecting a rhyme,acrostic poetry and responsory poetry,were prevailing in the field of gardens,the relation between them and the popularity of garden literati as sociation actually promoted and achieved each other.In addition,the co-existent compositional attitude of playfulness and seriousness was an important creative feat ure of Qi’s family garden literary field.In the early Qing dynasty,Qi’s family garden literary activities,intercourses and creations still continued for a period of time on which Qi’s family females were representatives and often carried out in the Mi Garden.However,Qi’s family males literati mostly indulge in the Buddhism,and the Yu Garden was also grad ually deserted.The change of Yu Garden was of heavy significance to the Qi’s families,and it has become an important place and literary symbol for the Qi’s families to recall the past and mourn the dead.Under the background that Jiangnan gardens were flourishing in the late Ming dynasty,the gentries and literati,as the main body of garden construction,were leading the garden elegance,the research on the literary field of Qi’s family garden is of general significance.Pierre Bourdieu’s literary field theory provides a way for us to systematically understand the essential problems behind the flourishing of garden literature in the late Ming dynasty,and a new way for us to re-understand the gentries’ fanaticism in garden construction,as well as the literary activities,intercourses and creations of garden in the late Ming dynasty.Namely,the gentries’ universal and initiative pursuits of garden life and garden lite rature in the late Ming dynasty should never be viewed separately,instead to see fr om the angle of outward the competition and permeation in the stage of garden between social politics field and literary field,literati power and secular power.For retired officials,that is a different path through literature from official success,by which they can re-establish their ambition,personality and family.However,whether from the perspective of pursuing their own value or from the perspective of reforming the society,the literary path created by the retired gentries retreating into the garden also can be viewed as the same path with the former one for similar ultimate goal of official promotion and fame.