Poetry was a main media for Chinese literati to express their identities. The literati during the late Ming and early Qing turned their concern to the publication of popular literature. They came to realize popular literature to be a new way of \'expressing their intention.\' The production of high-quality illustrated fiction and play through seventeenth century coincided with that. By 1700, book illustrators and literati artists had generally gone separate ways, and book illustration, like other commercial arts, had been denigrated to the category of mere craft work. Likewise, most printed illustrations for books, particularly popular literature, declined in quality during the Qing. The period from 1580 to 1700 coincided with that of literati\'s resistance toward the political disorder of late Ming and the censorship of thought of early Qing authority. The publication of high-quality illustrated books of popular literature, especially that of The Record of Western Chamber, was conceived among literati of the era as a new media for the expression of identity.