Literary Gatherings in the Capital:The Generation of Literary Field and the Blend of Poetic and Prose Concepts in the Early Ming Dynasty
In the first year of the Hongwu reign(1368),the Ming court set up historical and ritual societies in the Tianjie Temple of Nanjing to write history and create rituals and music.The societies gathered many scholars from Zhedong,Wuzhong,and Jiangyou,including officials from the present and previous dynasties and recluse scholars.As a relatively free temporary institution,Tianjie Temple converged numerous scholars with different identities from different regions,forming a unique literary field.They gathered to drink and recite poems,es-tablished close and friendly relationships and communicated about emotions and thoughts by writing the preface of poetry collections.These gatherings showed the interaction and blend of literary thoughts between landscape-style and secretariat-style poets and formed the main literature trend then.