The Study on the Information of “The Literary Mind of Gifted Scholars” and “The Structure of Maritime Culture” during the Late-Qing Dynasty and the Early Republic of China Period

Studies concerning the late Qing Dynasty has become one of the most prominent field of studies. Yet the majority of it is constituted by limited subjects, whether it is a study of a certain time period, within a certain context, on a (few) person/people, or an event which could be regarded as a discourse. The late Qing period is not a concept in comparison with early Qing or the "high" Qing (Kang-Xi, Yung-Zheng, and Qian-Long Regimes), the emperor's regime coexists with the changes in the structure constructed by socio-culture and psychological knowledges, and its spiritual culture entity consists of a key word, "change." The change of the society triggers the change of civilians’ mindset, and further influenced by the changes in the entity of literature. Viewed from the perspectives of culture history, the late Qing appears to be an ultimate structural change which extended until the early Republic years. Therefore, the project "the structure of maritime culture" is a reflection on these certain features. The dramatic changes in the late Qing have brought about the drastically change in the literature. Viewed from a literary subject point of view with Wang Guo-Wei's idea that "every generation has a literature of its own" one can infer that "every generation has a core to the literature of its own." "The literary mind of gifted scholars" is the choice of the way and the subject of a man of letters. "A man of letters" differentiates themselves from "a person of noble integrity" in the way they take the alternative route to stay away from the clichés of scriptures (as Lu-Xun asserts, in his preface to his Scream, "take alternative route, and escape to other whereabouts"). In the exotic field of Shanghai, those who craved to be a "literary beggar" constructed their literary foundations based on their disregard of the pursuit for officialdom, the romantic indulged in the literary lyricism, and the Western pragmatism and sciences. These three contexts constitutes the outlook of the maritime culture, the focus of this project--the construction of contemporary historical study (The editing, writing, and translation of contemporary Europe and East Asia politics and wars), the modernization of contemporary eroticism tradition in Shanghai（Erotic History Serial Notes《豔史叢鈔》, 《海上花列傳》and series novels such as 《歇浦潮》and《Erotic Book Series香豔叢書》etc.）and the cultural corridor that connects the newspaper journalists, officials, and man of letters in East Asia（《申報》Shanghai,《循環日報》Hong Kong、《朝野新聞》Tokyo, etc.）It is within this context that scholars and literati such as Wang Tao, Tsai Er-Kang, Han Bon-Qing, Yuan Zu-Zhi, Zou Tao, Zhang Zhong-Liang、成島柳北、栗本鋤雲、岡千仞, etc.）and their literature shaped by maritime culture that corresponded to the changes of the world. This structural discourse intends to make up for the insufficienciesof current to late Qing studies and methodologies, and aims to establish a new aspect to thoroughly inquire and examine in detail.