本文主旨在於探討傳統文人小品散文書寫中之日常與閒適的美感情懷，本文首先探討晚明小品文書寫的美學意義，指出小品文的「小」，不僅代表一種謙稱，也是一種美感價值的隱喻，指向日常、卑微、平凡、瑣碎之物。晚明小品「尚小」與「尚品」的特色基本上與文人「尚閑」（尚閒）之精神有關，即所謂「閒適之情」有關。其次，本文分析「閒」與「閒情」在中文裡的字義及其語用含意，指出閒適或閒情作為中國文學書寫的美學範疇，不但是主體觀照事物存在的感受方式，甚至指向萬物理想的存在方式。文人不但以「閒人」自居，而且「養閒」、甚至「養慵」也成為美感創作的因素之一，而別具意義。第三，本文指出小品散文指向常生活中的尋常又瑣碎事物，其中所隱含之以常俗為美的美學意涵。

The aim of this paper is to explore the appropriate aesthetic
meanings of leisure in Chinese literati‟s prose writings, both in the historical context of cultural transformations and in the artistic context of literature. The first step is to examine the multiple reasons of love of leisure life in the culture and society of the 16th and 17th Centuries China, at the dawn of modernity, when the Late Ming literati were standing at the crossroad of transformations under various impacts: the collapse of traditional social system and traditional value, the rise of Confucian merchants with great wealth and prosperity, the newly arrived
European missionaries with Western technology, philosophy and religion.
The second step is to analyse the aesthetic meanings of xian (literally, leisure or idleness) in Chinese literature, where xian, as one important category of beauty, is understood not only as a subjective feeling toward the life-world, or a mental attitude of being-in-the-world, but also as an ideal way of existence for all beings, including humans, nature and art works. The third step is, on the critical level, to point out, in this mode of leisure life, the crisis of indulging too much in material objects to the point of losing one‟s spiritual ambition. In the meanwhile, to find out the
dynamism or creative energy of popular culture embedded in their
leisure life which is deeply rooted in people‟s daily life and the everydayness of their life-world.