Author: Fu Jin (Professor of China Opera Academy)
There is a question about the origin of the word "opera".
I don't want to do exegetical research on this word, but I just want to know when this term, which is used by people to address China's unique plays, came into being, who first started to use it, and when did it have the meaning we know today?
This question is raised because what we are used to calling "drama" today can't be found in ancient books-of course, I have an ill-chosen phrase. More than 20 years ago, Hu Ji, an old man from Jiangsu Kunqu Opera Troupe, accidentally found a passage in Sikuquanshu: "Yongjia plays, Nanfeng splashes with youth". Mr. Luo immediately published the original text of this letter in the internal magazine "Art Research" edited by him, and repeatedly explained in his writings that this was a major discovery of Mr. Hu Ji-no drama research expert had made such a discovery before. Because there is a word "drama" in Yun Shui Cun Shi in Song Dynasty, it can be regarded as the earliest source of the word, but the problem has not been really solved, because Liu Biao used the word "drama" here, but there was no similar title in other documents at that time, and there was no record of his repeated use of the word. In this case, it is not enough to regard this as the origin of "drama" as a common term, not to mention that people who later called it "drama" never mentioned a source. From an academic point of view, the so-called "source" should be based on "flow". Whether there is traffic or not, the "source" cannot be confirmed.
It is generally believed that the combination of "drama" and "qu" to name China's unique drama began with Wang Guowei's textual research on Song and Yuan dramas. In the past, China scholars regarded drama as a "trail" and studied it occasionally, starting with melody and articles. Although "drama" is a clue, "music" and "prose" are always great events; Drama contains both music and prose, so it can be studied as music and prose. Therefore, since the Ming Dynasty, various melodies have appeared and become the main body of traditional Chinese opera research works. The study of articles, the quality of phonology and language can also be the object of literati's attention. Take drama as "drama" and emphasize the factors of performance and drama. Until the Qing Dynasty, Li Yu's Idle Feelings discussed the performance and the cultivation of actors, and Li's Drama Talk and Drama Talk evaluated the famous works of past dynasties from the perspective of drama, both of which were representative works. As for Wang Guowei, he was the first person to study modern drama. China's traditional drama has successfully entered the modern discipline system because of his standardized and systematic academic research on drama, and its achievements are unparalleled in academic history.
Textual Research on Song and Yuan Dramas was written on 19 13, and was renamed as History of Song and Yuan Dramas when it was published by 19 15. Wang Guowei's study of China's drama is named "Traditional Drama", probably influenced by Japanese academic circles. In Japan, there are many collections of "traditional operas" published in the early days, and there are still new ones until now. However, we can't take it for granted that the names of "drama" used in these Japanese books are the same as those commonly used today, because in Japanese books, there are not only collections of Meiji era operas, but also collections of Italian independent operas, Shakespeare's operas and Ibsen's operas. , has been carefully distinguished for more than 65,438+000 years. I saw that the earliest title marked "Opera" was the "Opera Series" published by 1890, which included the scripts of famous artists such as Songmen Saemon, and there should be earlier; During the period of 1988, an exhibition of drama activities of Warrior Du Shixiang was held in Tiaobu City, Japan. The name "drama and performance" can further prove the corresponding relationship between the word "drama" commonly used by them and the word "script" in Chinese.
Then, can Wang Can Guowei's Textual Research on Song and Yuan Opera be directly regarded as a Textual Research on Song and Yuan Opera? When Wang Guowei said that "a dramatist tells stories by singing and dancing", he was certainly not just talking about scripts. But if you read the contents of the book, he said at the beginning, "Every generation has a generation of literature." Chu Ci, Han Fu, Six Dynasties Parallel Prose, Tang Poetry, Song Poetry and Yuan Qu are all so-called generation literature. So it is not surprising that he regards his "drama" as "literature" Moreover, his interest is basically in literature. At this point, he is no essential difference from his predecessors who only value literature and despise performance. Wang Guowei regards "drama" as "script" and looks at China's plays from a literary perspective. Mr. Huang Shizhong, a good friend, once mentioned in his article that during the period of1920s, Japanese youth Aoki Masayoshi wanted to study China's Ming and Qing dramas and made a special trip to China to visit Wang Guowei in Peiping. When Wang Guowei heard that he wanted to study Ming and Qing dramas, he said disapprovingly that "Yuanqu is living literature and Ming and Qing dramas are dead literature", which is another proof of his position of using the word "drama". This usage is basically consistent with the connotation of the word "drama" used by Japanese scholars. When Drama Monthly published a signed book review, it criticized Zhengzhen's newly written History of Modern Drama in China, pointing out that it confused the concepts of drama and drama, and thought that "drama history is not drama history, drama history is script-centered, but drama history is stage-centered", which also showed that scholars at that time were realistic in the use of the word drama.
Influenced by Japanese scholars, Wang Guowei used "drama" to refer to China's unique drama, but this does not prove that the word "drama" commonly used today originated from Japan. Wang's writing was written in the Republic of China, but there was an appeal for "drama improvement" as early as the late Qing Dynasty. The reformists don't see any special intention in using the term "drama", but it is obviously different from the Japanese.
Chen Duxiu refuted the pedantic Confucian scholars and said, "There is too much useful knowledge in the world, so why only take useless vulgar and lewd operas?" His "On Drama" was first published in "As the saying goes"No. 1904No. 1 1, with the signature of "three loves" and the following year's classical Chinese. The word "drama" he used is almost exactly the same as that used by modern people, so it is more suitable for the establishment of this term than Wang Guowei's "An Examination of Drama in Song and Yuan Dynasties". If we think that when Liang Qichao wrote The Relationship between Novels and Group Governance two years ago, he only regarded drama as a novel, or at least regarded it as the same kind, then we can see that Chen Duxiu's use of the word drama is indeed pioneering, which is different from Liang Qichao's clear distinction between drama and novels, and is also very different from Wang Guowei later.
In Chen Duxiu's generation, the word "opera" gradually became a common vocabulary in newspapers and periodicals. Of course, it was mainly discovered on the occasion of "improving opera" or "improving opera". It is circumstantial evidence that Zhou Xiaohuai organized the "Drama Reform Association" in Sichuan from 65438 to 0905. However, the use of "drama" is not popular among ordinary literati. YiWen Zhao Xi wrote the first script to improve the guild, and he only talked about "improving Sichuan Opera". In the first year of the Republic of China (19 12), the General Inspection Department of Beijing Inner and Outer Cities specially formulated a special regulation on recruiting female students to teach drama, which was called "Detailed Rules for the Management of Female Drama Rehearsal", stipulating that "all teaching drama should be beneficial and harmless". 19 15 the president of the Republic of China ordered the establishment of a public education research institute in the Ministry of education, which was divided into three parts: novels, operas and speeches. The word "opera" has been common in education, institutional setup of civil affairs departments and official document writing in various places, but its source is still a mystery.
Looking further ahead, the court of the Qing Dynasty had long used the word "drama". According to the Qing Huidian, the imperial edict in the twentieth year of Jiaqing said, "In recent years, Mongolia has gradually developed the bad habits of the Han people, such as building a house in go to the opera"; The Record of Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty said that "it is extremely unusual for the Harmony Movement to follow the Ming system and still use traditional Chinese opera". In the archives of the Qing Palace, there are many secret reports from local officials in Qianlong in 456, saying that they received an imperial edict: "My slaves bought 397 kinds of Le Shu in succession, found out 84 kinds of songs, and put all kinds of reasons on file before they were folded." "Yesterday, I planned to invite all the people involved in the script of this dynasty and Song Jin to be inaccurate, so I deleted the lottery, made a list again, and put it together with the original. Those who have absurd plots in the rest of the songs are afraid that they will confuse the ignorant. Among these memorials, there are words such as Kunqu Opera, Bangzi, Luanxi and Script, but "Drama" has become a general term for all kinds of dramas, which does not seem to refer to scripts. It can be seen from the process of investigating and dealing with "violation of drama" in various places that "drama" has always been the general name of traditional operas in China until the late Qing Dynasty.
Considering that the motto of the emperor is closer to spoken language than the poems of literati, it is likely that the word "opera" has become a habit in the daily language of the Qing Dynasty. Scholars, such as Wang Guowei, feel that such appellation is too colloquial, so they are unwilling to use it in words. However, from the late Qing Dynasty, Chen Duxiu, Zhou Xiaohuai to the early Republic of China, there is no reason to avoid laws, regulations and government agencies because of the background of the vernacular movement. Although Qi Rushan and others tried to use the title of "National Opera", it failed to popularize it. After such a tortuous course, "national drama" has become a commonly used vocabulary to refer to China's unique dramas with various stage means such as singing, reading and acting, until today.