Conclusion: The Role Of The Publisher

A prominent school of thought holds that the inclusion of illustration in the publications of the late Ming period was motivated by economic considerations. One way that publishers attempted to win a place in the culture was to stamp themselves on the text through the process of editing, commenting and annotating. In the Wanli period, especially, publishers seized on illustration as another means of shaping both the text and the reception of the text. The famous manuscript of Pipa ji transcribed by Lu Yidian, bears only one noteworthy feature: the lyrics and the dialogue are rendered in different-sized characters. Authorship encompasses not only playwright, editor, and publisher, but even the commentator of the text. The most famous case is Jin Shengtan, a commentator of Xixiang ji, who called his edition as “Shengtan’s Xixiang ji.”.Keywords: late Ming period; Pipa ji ; Wanli period; Xixiang ji