This book is a comprehensive and inviting introduction to the literary forms and cultural significance of Chinese drama as both text and performance. Each chapter offers an accessible overview and critical analysis of one or more plays-canonical as well as less frequently studied works-and their historical contexts. How to Read Chinese Drama highlights how each play sheds light on key aspects of the dramatic tradition, including genre conventions, staging practices, musical performance, audience participation, and political resonances, emphasizing interconnections among chapters. It brings together leading scholars spanning anthropology, art history, ethnomusicology, history, literature, and theater studies.
How to Read Chinese Drama is straightforward, clear, and concise, written for undergraduate students and their instructors as well as a wider audience interested in world theater. For students of Chinese literature and language, the book provides questions to explore when reading, watching, and listening to plays, and it features bilingual excerpts. For teachers, an analytical table of contents, a theater-specific chronology of events, and lists of visual resources and translations provide pedagogical resources for exploring Chinese theater within broader cultural and comparative contexts. For theater practitioners, the volume offers deeply researched readings of important plays together with background on historical performance conventions, audience responses, and select modern adaptations.
Patricia Sieber is associate professor of Chinese at Ohio State University. She is the author of Theaters of Desire: Authors, Readers, and the Reproduction of Early Chinese Song-Drama, 1300-2000 (2003).
Regina S. Llamas is associate professor in the humanities at IE University, Spain. She is the translator of Top Graduate Zhang Xie: The Earliest Extant Chinese Southern Play (Columbia, 2021).
目录
Contents
Thematic Contents
Preface to the How to Read Chinese Literature Series
A Note on How to Use This Anthology
Chronology of Historical Events
Symbols, Abbreviations, and Typographical Usage
Introduction: The Cultural Significance of Chinese Drama
Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas
Part I: Yuan and Ming Dynasties: Zaju Plays
1. The Story of the Western Wing: Tale, Ballad, and Play
Wilt L. Idema
1.1 Yuan Zhen's (779-831) "The Tale of Oriole"
1.2 Story of the Western Wing in All Keys and Modes: "The Tale of Oriole" in Narrative Ballads
1.3 *The Story of the Western Wing: Student Zhang and Oriole on Stage
1.4 Controversies in the Ming and Qing Dynasties
2. Purple Clouds, Wrong Career, and Tiger Head Plaque: Jurchen Foreigners in Early Drama
Stephen H. West
2.1 Approaches to the Foreign
2.2 Wrong Career and Purple Cloud: Jurchen Performers in the World of Entertainment
2.3 The Tiger Head Plaque: Jurchen Performers in Their Native Lands
3. The Pavilion for Praying to the Moon and The Injustice to Dou E: The Innovation of the Female Lead
Patricia Sieber
3.1 Guan Hanqing (ca. 1220-after 1279), Zhulian xiu (fl. 1270-1300), and the Acting Culture of Yuan Zaju Theater
3.2 The Pavilion for Praying to the Moon: The Moral Suasion of Situational Ethics
3.3 The Injustice to Dou E: The Disruptive Power of Filial Remonstration
4. The Story of the Western Wing: Theater and the Printed Image
Patricia Sieber and Gillian Yanzhuang Zhang
4.1 Image-Making Between Self-Expression and Commerce
4.2 *The Story of the Western Wing: The Deluxe Edition (1499)-an App for Singing
4.3 The Story of the Western Wing: The Glossed Edition (c. 1609)-an App for Role-Playing
4.4 The Story of the Western Wing: The Exclusive Edition (1639-1640)-an App for Virtual Reality
5. The Orphan of Zhao: The Meaning of Loyalty and Filiality
Shih-pe Wang
5.1 Historical Background
5.2 The Orphan of Zhao: How the Yuan Zaju Play Dramatizes the Story
5.3 *The Orphan of Zhao, Wedge: The Confrontation between Good and Evil
5.4 *The Orphan of Zhao, Act 1: How the Orphan Was Smuggled Out
5.5 The Orphan of Zhao, Act 2: To Die or to Live On
5.6 The Orphan of Zhao, Act 3: A Play Performed for the Eyes of the Villain
5.7 The Orphan of Zhao, Acts 4 (and 5): Truth and Revenge
5.8 The Orphan of Zhao: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations
6. The Female Mulan Joins the Army in Place of Her Father: Gender and Performance
Shiamin Kwa
6.1 Xu Wei (1521-1593) and His Quartet of Ming Zaju Plays
6.2 Mulan: The Two-Act Structure
6.3 *Mulan: Changing Clothes
6.4 Mulan: Gentle Men
6.5 Mulan: Happily Ever After
Part II: Ming Dynasty and Early Qing Dynasty: Nanxi and Chuanqi Plays
7. Top Graduate Zhang Xie and The Lute: Scholar, Family, and State
Regina Llamas
7.1 Top Graduate and The Lute: Background
7.2 Top Graduate and The Lute: The Prologues
7.3 Top Graduate and The Lute: The Ungrateful Scholar
7.4 *The Lute: The Husk Wife
7.5 *Top Graduate and The Lute: Language and Comedy
8. The Southern Story of the Western Wing: Traditional Kunqu Composition, Interpretation, and Performance
以下为对购买帮助不大的评价