後人多為明中葉提倡文學復古運動的文人集團冠上「前七子」的名號。七子當中除了徐禎卿是南方人，其餘都是北方人。有學者因此認為前七子提倡文學復古，實含有為北方文學爭勝的意味。本文通過對此一集團的領袖人物李夢陽的考察，旨在說明地域差異確實是我們理解明代文化發展的一條重要線索，不過不同地域之間的交流與競爭的實情卻相當複雜，因此，當我們從地域研究的角度分析明代的文學現象時，不宜陷入地理決定論的誤區而簡單地依據歷史人物的北方人或南方人的身分下定論

Today we tend to apply the label of ＂Former Seven Masters＂ to the literati community that initiated the literary archaist movement in the mid-Ming period. Members of the ＂Former Seven Masters＂ were all northerners except for Xu Zhenqing. Some scholars have thus argued that when the Former Seven Masters promoted literary archaism, they were in fact trying to raise the status of northern literature at the expense of its southern counterpart. By zooming in on the leader of this community, this paper attempts to show that regional disparity is indeed an important perspective for understanding the cultural development in the Ming dynasty, but the interactions and competitions between the different regions were complex and deserve closer attention. When we adopt the method of regional analysis for studying Ming literature, we should avoid falling into the trap of geographic determinism and arriving at a conclusion based solely on the regional identities of the historical figures whom we study