Lu Tiancheng, a dramatist in the Ming Dynasty, commented on The Peony Pavilion: "It's thrilling, ingenious and memorable, and it's really a masterpiece of the ages!" The Peony Pavilion, as a symbol of the development peak of the Ming Dynasty legend, contains more contents besides its own literary charm-Tang Xianzu's criticism of the times, his cognition of women, his attention to people, and the promotion of the most sincere feelings ... Although the Peony Pavilion has been in operation for a hundred years, its light remains undiminished, highlighting the necessity of analyzing its diachronic communication and contemporary significance, which may provide reference for the spread of literary classics. In this book report, I will analyze and summarize my feelings after reading Peony Pavilion from four angles.
China's view of marriage and love in ancient times
"A year has passed, and it is really a waste of youth not to match well earlier." As can be seen from this sentence, Du Liniang 16 years old and over 30 years old did not hold the ceremony of "adding gifts" at this time, because women in the Ming Dynasty could only hold the ceremony after they promised to get married. From the perspective of ancient folklore, adding marriage means the end of parents' guardianship of girls, and the girls' right to marry and love has been recognized by the public. However, Du Like Li Niang, a government-run woman, must hold a rite of passage before marriage, otherwise she can't get married. In the process of reading, we can find that Li Niang mentioned her age many times in her lyrics (the tenth, fourteenth and twenty-eighth songs). Therefore, Du Liniang repeatedly emphasized his age in his lyrics in order to find a legal basis for his "early marriage and good marriage".
It must be said that early marriage among women was a common phenomenon in the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Zhang Lvxiang, a beginner in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, said: "In ancient times, men married at the age of 30 and women married at the age of 20, and their marriages were mostly temporary. Marriage is too early in modern times, so it should be changed from time to time. When men and women are engaged, they must pay attention when they are about ten years old. It's not too late, it's hard to choose if it's too late. " It can be seen that early marriage of women is a common folk custom in Ming and Qing Dynasties. The theory that "women marry at the age of 20" is gradually untenable, and the call for Li Niang has a realistic and theoretical basis.
But Li Niang's father Du Bao denied that his daughter had fallen in love, flatly denied it and refuted it. "Old see what to sell? If I had a family, I wouldn't get sick. Cough outside! In ancient times, men got married at the age of 30 and women got married at the age of 20. What does the daughter know when she is older? " (Excerpted from Peony Pavilion,No. 16, Sickness) Du Bao used the norms recorded in the Book of Rites, a pre-Qin ritual system, to educate contemporary women. He didn't want his daughter to get married early, which was related to his deep-rooted concept of family status-he was determined to cultivate his daughter into a "noble model" to ensure that his parents would be brilliant in the future.
The essence of holding different opinions on the time of marriage is that women have no autonomy in marriage and their status is low. Women are not independent individuals, but chess pieces. Personal will and emotion are not important, but the value lies in the role of the whole layout. Women can't decide their own destiny and have no choice, so they have to obey the arrangement and wronged their own will. There is a saying in the Book of Rites Sacrifice Law: "All sentient beings have to die and return to the land after death. This is called a ghost. When flesh and blood die, yin is wild soil. Its qi is carried forward in the world, clear and sad, and it is also the essence of all things and the work of God. Because of the nature of things, the system is extreme, ghosts and gods are obvious, and the first is thought. Hundreds of people are afraid and ten thousand people are convinced. " This statement serves the patriarchal clan system with "respecting ancestors and respecting ancestors" as its pillar. Although we also admit that people "contain the yin and yang of heaven and earth, and have feelings of sadness, joy and anger", we never advocate the display of personality, but emphasize that we must set an example by observing festivals, restrain them and obey the interests of the country. In marriage culture, it is necessary to guide them to be filial and finally govern the country, that is, "lofty heaven and earth, fear ghosts and gods, arrange the order of precedence, become the meaning of husband and wife, and then serve the country as their home, which can be cured." To discuss the status of women in the Ming Dynasty, we have to mention the requirements of women's chastity in the Ming Dynasty. Under the persecution of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties and the thought of the Three Cardinal Principles and the Five Permanent Principles, they were required to be chaste above life, and their personality was severely suppressed. According to Mr. Dong Jiazun's statistics, there were 2,765,438+0,465,438+0 recorded German women in Ming Dynasty, which was 45 times that of German women in previous dynasties. There are 8,688 martyrs, which is 14 times of the total number of martyrs in previous dynasties. It can be seen to what extent women in the Ming Dynasty were oppressed and tortured.
Li Niang's age has been stated many times. Why did you mention it again? Of course, it is not the author's idle pen-it is to resist cruel ethics and morality with reasonable marriage customs, emphasize human desires, and resist the suppression of women under feudal rule. Tang Xianzu's social problems about women in The Peony Pavilion reflect his understanding of women's independent personality and life value, his desire and expectation to realize legitimate desires, and his affirmation of human dignity and value.
Tang Xianzu's view of great love
Tang Xianzu also commented: "I don't know what happened, but it went on forever." . It's boring to find old songs with pipa. "When it comes to the Peony Pavilion, the most famous one is a passage in the Peony Pavilion Inscription." I don't know what happened, but if I keep going, the living can die and the dead can live. People who are born but can't die and die but can't be resurrected have no feelings. " As a concise topic sentence, this sentence divides Tang Xianzu's emotional thought into three stages as a whole: emotional beginning ("I don't know how")-emotional depth ("the living can die, the dead can live")-emotional depth ("those who are born but can't die, and those who die but can't be resurrected are not emotional").
"I don't know what to do." Does Tang Xianzu really know where to start? In fact, Li Niang's love affair is not accidental, but a meticulous process: teasing flowers and birds, influencing the Book of Songs, feeling sorry for herself in the mirror and enjoying the garden. There is a saying in the Book of Rites: "What people do is what things do." Emphasize the influence and interference of the external environment on the subject. Analyzing this process, we can find that Tang Xianzu echoed the "sense of things" in China traditional culture. Only on this basis, he expanded the scope of things and extended it to objective education, specifically, Li Niang's boudoir vision.
"Love doesn't know drama" is a part of Tang Xianzu's "great love" thought. The Peony Pavilion shows Tang Xianzu's "love" completely through the lingering love between Li Niang and Liu Sheng. Love, everyone has, runs through all literary works; And to love is the highest state of love. Propagandizing pure truth, Tang Xianzu made an exclusive explanation and explanation in Ode to Peony Pavilion. The concept of "the utmost affection" not only runs through Tang Xianzu's entire artistic thought, but also confronts Zhu Cheng Neo-Confucianism as the official ideological guidance in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, opposes "preserving natural principles and extinguishing human desires", affirms people's normal feelings and desires, and advocates "affection" and "truth" that Tang Xianzu himself firmly believes in. Perhaps it is precisely because of this emotion that Peony Pavilion was born in the 26th year of Wanli in Ming Dynasty, but it still makes us linger in words and arouse our emotions.
Self-awareness awakening
Shen Defu, a critic of drama theory in Ming Dynasty, commented in Miscellaneous Words of Ancient Songs: "The Peony Pavilion Dream came out, and it was passed down to the next generation. The West Chamber was reduced in price several times." In another book, The West Chamber, Cui Yingying is not desperate for love because of her personality. She knows that her strength is limited and it is difficult to compete with external forces. Therefore, Cui Yingying's "love" is mainly driven by external forces, which removes obstacles for their emotional development. Unlike Cui Xie's love in The West Chamber, Du Liniang's love is from the inside out, and it is manifested in the process of pursuing love, which is a symbol of Du Liniang's awakening of self-consciousness.
Du Liniang's awakening of self-consciousness can not be separated from both internal and external driving forces. The analysis of external causes is naturally inseparable from the background of the times at that time. In the Ming Dynasty when Tang Xianzu lived, the seeds of capitalism impacted the self-sufficient natural economy, and the emergence of new economic forms paved the way for ideological innovation. Du Liniang's father is a representative of stubborn feudal parents, and he takes his wife Zhen Shi as an example to discipline his daughter. Chen Liangliang, a corrupt scholar, tells stories for Li Niang, who is forced to instill all kinds of "smell the Tao". However, Chen Liangliang's first lesson "The Book of Songs" and the first article "Guan Ju" did not give the feudal women a firm belief in virtue, but triggered a girl's desire for love. Blinded by Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties, there must be resistance if there is oppression. Thinkers, represented by Li Zhi, appeared to criticize the shortcomings of the times. They affirmed people's legitimate desires and opposed the blockade and control of people's thoughts by feudal Neo-Confucianism, which boosted the social progress at that time and opened a window for the closed ideological space. Tang Xianzu said in "A Brief Introduction to the Pavilion of Light Ji": "Young people are empty-minded. Actually, it was said by an amateur. Once inside, you can never come back. So that people can't see comfort and hear pure voices. " Tang Xianzu was greatly influenced by Li Zhi. Among them, "the interpretation of vulgar teachers" and "the rule of justice by scholars" are the concretization of "listening to Tao" put forward by Li Zhi, which criticizes the Confucian classics' post-Confucian preaching. It can be seen that the high pressure of Neo-Confucianism and the imprisonment of thought at that time. Tang Xianzu had a bad career and was keen on fame, but he was beaten back by the darkness of officialdom and could not realize his personal value. Under the influence of Li Zhi and others' thoughts, his thoughts contain many radical elements that are incompatible with the times. Tang Xianzu injected it into the image of Du Liniang, running through the destruction of fresh life by feudal ethics. The beautiful dream is in great contrast with the cruel reality. generate, a girl who suppresses hesitation, is full of vitality and arouses her concern and cognition of self-worth.
Analyzing the internal causes is the need to shape the characters in the play on the one hand, and the philosophical thinking implied in The Peony Pavilion on the other hand: exploring why people live. Compared with The West Chamber, The Peony Pavilion is more tragic. When Du Liniang visited the beautiful scenery in the garden, he sighed at the thought of his life situation, and the strong sense of loss in reality was finally made up in his dream. Looking at the plot itself, what Du Liniang has been longing for after the twists and turns of life and death may only be willow waves and love, but this is not the case-her neglected and imprisoned youth and the meaning of life. On the surface, her pain and loss stem from the desire of youth. At a deeper level, her pain and loss stem from this philosophical problem, from an independent individual's introspection as a human being-the awakening of self-consciousness. Thinking about people's existence value and attaching importance to people themselves are closer to the spiritual theme of "people" in western literary works after the Renaissance, which is also the direction that China drama and film should continue to focus on in the future.
Diachronic Communication of Peony Pavilion and Its Contemporary Significance
Tang Xianzu once said: "I have four dreams all my life, and I am proud of peony." Self-evaluation is not convincing? Zhang Daizan, a scholar at the end of the Ming Dynasty, praised: "The spiritual Miaomiao has reached the extreme." Li Yu, a famous scholar in Qing Dynasty, even called it "everyone knows" and "meaning is profound and shallow". The Peony Pavilion has been passed down to this day with its unique value. In addition to its original script, there have been many forms of expression, such as revision, comment, drama, film and television.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the text dissemination of Peony Pavilion focused on the criticism, adaptation and influence of other literary works in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Among the comments, Sanfu comments are the most prominent. It not only proves that Peony Pavilion was widely circulated with boudoir women, but also proves that it is rare for ancient women to get involved in poetic drama criticism. The reason for many adaptations is that Peony Pavilion can't be put on the stage completely according to the original performance due to the limitation of its own works. Based on the requirements and conditions of stage performance, the lyrics and structure have been changed to some extent. These are the direct communication behaviors of Peony Pavilion in ancient times. The Peony Pavilion had a certain influence on many operas and novels in the Ming and Qing Dynasties with its unique charm. According to incomplete statistics, there are as many as 70 legends of Ming and Qing Dynasties influenced by it, and there are countless novels and scripts that mention or quote their sentences again. Lian Wenxue's masterpiece A Dream of Red Mansions has also been mentioned many times (in the 23rd novel The Peony Pavilion, Daiyu listened attentively to The Peony Pavilion). Due to the limitation of social system and social structure, the Peony Pavilion in Ming and Qing Dynasties mainly spread words, and there were also Kunqu opera performances and oratorios in Ming Dynasty, and opera performances prevailed in Qing Dynasty.
In modern times, Peony Pavilion has become a representative work of Kunqu Opera, mainly in the form of stage performance. In modern times, with the continuous development of economy and society, the media is constantly updated and the classical Kunqu forms are rearranged. As a representative of China's traditional culture, people have gone abroad, and the forms of film and television drama have also aroused people's interest in this classic work-Peony Pavilion is full of vitality and vigor in the new era.
From the initial text communication and drama communication, to the later modern film and television communication and richer and more intuitive stage expressions, the communication methods of Peony Pavilion are more and more diversified. The ideological depth, artistic charm and new connotation accumulated in the diachronic communication process of the work itself make the classic itself pass through a hundred years and still be accepted by audiences of different ages and hobbies. From the perspective of cultural communication, we should stick to the literary value and poetic value of classic texts, understand the meaning of works, spread literary classics in a diversified way, combine the characteristics and hot spots of the times, innovate the way of interpretation and utilization without dissolving its original intention, and maintain the vitality and vitality of works.
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