The Studyof Relationship Between Intellectuals And Businessmen And Literature From Jiajing To Wanli In Ming Dynasty

After the middle of Ming Dynasty,intellectuals and businessmen,who were separated from the two ends of the traditional social structure,became more and more intimate.It has become an important social phenomenon that can not be avoided when people pay attention to this period of history.From Jiajing to Wanli,which was in the period from the middle to the late stage of Ming Dynasty,this social phenomenon was particularly typical because of the special atmosphere of the times.The interaction and contact between the intellectuals and the businessmen were not only more frequent at this time,but also relatively concentrated in terms of historical time limit.When the literati in the stratum of intellectuals were in the relationship pattern full of epoch character,it meant that the literary ecology,literary text,the whole literary outlook and the writing of literary history will change.During the period from Jiajing to Wanli in Ming Dynasty,the commodity economy flourished unprecedentedly.Correspondingly,the court system was lax,the viewpoint of the traditional order of the people was weakened,and the social activities became more complicated.Under the propulsion of many factors,the intellectuals which the upper class of the social structure and the rising and growing businessmen had all kinds of intersection.The specific manifestations are as follows.First,during this period,many intellectuals came from businessmen’s families or married with family members of the businessmen’s side,including many celebrities in the literary scene and intellectual circles.Second,some intellectuals established friendly relations with businessmen,and their friendship became a common phenomenon at this time.Li Kaixian and a businessman named Yuan chongmian,Min Ling and his literary friends from different areas,Wang Shizhen who was the leader of the literary scene and his circle of business friends were the epitomes of many forms of friendship between intellectuals and businessmen.Third,intellectuals also had connections with businessmen in the society due to the economic help of businessmen.In this aspect,the businessmen funded to set up the free schools to support the intellectuals,invited the intellectuals to work as the tutors at home to solve their livelihood problems,and provided financial support for the examiners,so as to shorten the distance between them.The process of establishing the relationship network between intellectuals and businessmen was the process of deepening the influence of "business" factors on intellectuals.The closer relationship between intellectuals and businessmen had profoundly changed the ideology and life style of the literati in the intellectual class.Different from the creation team in the early literary history,which was mainly composed of upper literati such as officials and noble elites,the literati writers from Song and Yuan Dynasties gradually became civilian.And developed to the Jiajing to Wanli in middle and late Ming Dynasty,at this time,the literary scene gathered a large number of new writers composed of middle and lower literati and civilian class,as well as some traditional writers with "new state" under the impact of commodity economy trend.This determined that the literati in this period were more willing to accept the influence of common customs and commercial atmosphere,so that their spiritual concept,cultural life and social activities changed significantly in the close interaction with businessmen.In the aspect of spiritual concept,with the penetration of businessmen’s values,the concepts of valuing justice above profit and controlling desire by reason were dispelled in the literati’s ideology,but the concepts of indulging in pleasure and extravagance were respected.In terms of cultural life,due to the intervention of the businessmen,the literati obtained considerable material support,and they were able to wantonly pursue humanistic interest and enjoy cultural entertainment.In the aspect of social livelihood,the literati tended to be "businessmen" in the process of affirming the survival mode of businessmen.They sought for means of livelihood through their own literary talent.From all aspects,the position and connotation of the literati writers was changing and closing to the secular society.The trend of literati writers towards secularity determined that the artistic vision and literary works presented in this period will be different from those in the past.Firstly,in literary creation,there were traces of change in the selection of theme,image creation and aesthetic taste.More and more elements about businessmen and commercial activities were included in the content category of poetry and novel literature creation.The positive image creation of businessmen was a major feature not only of business-related novels but also of businessmen’s stele biographies.The indulgent and romantic literati were in line with the secular atmosphere,the aesthetic taste of literature deviated more and more from the noble moral norms of classical literature.It reflected these literati’s familiarity with business activities,their concern for the businessmen’s social status,their understanding of businessmen’s real situation,and their full recognition and affirmation of businessmen’s spiritual world.This,in turn,reflected the deep communication and interaction between literati writers and businessmen across the class gap,which had an important influence on the overall appearance of literature at that time.This,in turn,reflected the deep interaction and interaction across class gap between literati writers and businessmen,and this influence on the overall appearance of literature at that time can not be neglected.The second is the evolution of literary form such as poems,essays,novels and operas.From the perspective of poetry,the broadening of literary vision made the real life more flexible and rich in the view of the field of art.From the perspective of biography,the great increase of businessmen’s stele biographies and othersocial articles made the text value and writing strategy of this literary form get a new understanding.As far as the novel was concerned,the works represented by The Plum in the Golden Vase had a more multifaceted and broad appearance in the depiction of the society of that period.As far as opera was concerned,under the common promotion of literati and businessmen,both opera performance and script creation had been significantly improved and developed.Comparatively speaking,the changes in the field of popular literature were more extensive and profound than those in the field of orthodox literature.In addition,the influence of the relationship between literati and businessmen on literature and art was not only limited to literati and their creation,but also the "literati tendency" of businessmen and their creation.These "cross-border" businessmen entered the literary creation team,and their literary works with poetry as the main part reflected a different form from the pure literati.From the literary ecology to the writers,and then to the literary creation itself,if we measure the significance and influence of the relationship between intellectuals and businessmen in the period from Jiajing to Wanli of Ming Dynasty by the "four elements" of literary activities on the literature at that time,the consumption and circulation of literature should also be included.The businessmen were the mainstream of literature reading and literature consumption at that time.Their strong purchasing power not only promoted the development of popular literature,but also influenced the commercialization process of literature by transmitting market information to literati writers.At the same time,literary publishing entered a prosperous situation in this period.On the one hand,there were many literati who tend to be "businessmen" competing to join the publishing industry.On the other hand,there was a certain sense of "cooperation" between booksellers and writers,which expanded and accelerated the publication and circulation of literary texts.This had a profound significance for the communication and preservation of literary works and theories additionally.