| dc.description.abstract | This essay will focus its attention on Li-Yu from loyalists’ perspectives. Li-Yu was a scholar born in the late Ming dynasty. He went through a major historical event named Chia-Shen Chih- Pien. Actually, the psychological trauma left to those who suffered from the transition of dynasties was far beyond imagination. Thus, filled with sorrows out of the lost hometown, Li, consciously or unconsciously, displayed a pathos of nostalgia in his literary works. This essay will discuss how Li-Yu expressed his poignant feelings through his dramas, novels, poetry and other pieces of work.
This essay will be divided into six chapters. The first chapter will explain why I was motivated to work on this topic, and I will also briefly characterize “Ming Loyalists” in this section. In fact, Li Yu exemplifies the Ming loyalists in response to the Ching dynasty as well. More often than not, loyalists are traditionally believed to show strong hermetic thoughts in the face of a new dynasty. They are morally transcendental and accompanied by an intense feeling of nostalgia toward the lost country. What distinguishes Li-Yu from other loyalists is his active involvement with the mundane world, yet, as a matter of fact, his work still reveals a sense of reclusiveness. This chapter will also cover several precedent dissertations concerning this topic.
The second chapter will describe how Li-Yu got his trauma memory formed in the wake of Chia-Shen Chih- Pien. He witnessed how the war inflicted catastrophic effects on his hometown. Therefore, works like Wu-Sheng His and Twelve Towers dimly reflected his “trauma memory” and “loyalist’s consciousness” after he experienced the troubled age.
The third chapter will analyze Li-Yu’s Li-Weng Shih-chung Ch’u. First, I will describe how the political turmoil fostered the popularization historical plays. Li-Weng Shih-chung Ch’u.often handled the theme of love and marriage; that was why it was often considered “gross”. However, Li skillfully blended some historical facts into his own work. The Jade Hairpin, for example, covered the complexity of political squabbles during Ming Cheng-te reign. The chapter will also discuss why the late Ming dynasty was so corrupt, at which evil eunuch usurped imperial power, bandits started to cause a disturbance, military became unable to fight battles, and the screening system for the talented became increasingly unfair. All of these factors made Li-Yu think critically and reflectively on the politics at that time.
The fourth chapter aims to discuss how Li earned his money. The way Li Yu made his own living was intimately connected with the political climate then. He was so expert at marketing that his books were often best-sellers. His work not only went with the flow of the literary circles but also appeased the public’s taste. This way, he achieved success and then he took advantage of his fame as propaganda. Such action might be controversial, yet his published books like Ch’’ih-tu ch’’u-cheng and Ku-chin shih-lueh showed his recognition for the Ming loyalists and pathos for the lost dynasty, for in these books he carefully collected other writers’ works and reports of the martyrs.
The fifth chapter explores the relationship between Li-Yu and yard forests. According to his yard-building theory, we can find his aesthetic attitude toward the yard. Later, I will also discuss how Li showed his hermetic thoughts in his poetry and novels in the wake of Chia-shen chih- pien. Besides, his different feelings and subjectivity while staying in the different three yard forest wills be discussed respectively later. | en_US |