1, Guan Hanqing, word, number has been lent, Xiezhou people, native of Daduhe and other places. The founder of Yuan Zaju, the first of the "Four Masters of Yuan Opera", is also called "Four Masters of Yuan Opera" with Bai Pu, Ma Zhiyuan and Zheng Guangzu, and is known as "Qusheng". Guan Hanqing's zaju is the greatest achievement. Today, there are 67 zaju, including 18, the most famous of which is Yuan Zaju. Today, there are more than 40 poems and 10 sets of Sanqu.
2. Ma Zhiyuan, known as Dongli, was a famous dramatist and Sanqu writer in China in Yuan Dynasty. He, Guan Hanqing, Zheng Guangzu and Bai Pu are also called "Four Masters of Yuan Dynasty" and known as "the ancestor of Qiu Si". His zaju creation has the beauty of combining reality with reality, and he is good at allegorizing the content of resisting the world and cynicism with the external form of lamenting and surpassing the world. He wrote 15 kinds of zaju, the most famous of which is Autumn in Han Palace.
3. Bai Pu, whose original name was Heng, whose word was Renfu, was later renamed Piao, whose word was originally from his ancestral home. There are also data that he may be a famous zaju writer in Quwo County, Shaanxi Province, and he is also known as one of the four masters of Yuanqu with Guan Hanqing, Ma Zhiyuan and Zheng Guangzu.
4. Zheng Guangzu, whose name is Dehui, was born in Xiangling, Pingyang. He was a famous dramatist and Sanqu composer in the Yuan Dynasty, and he was as famous as Guan Hanqing, Ma Zhiyuan and Bai Pu. Later, he was called "the four masters of the Yuan Dynasty". According to "Ghost Record", he took Confucianism as his career in his early years, and later awarded Hangzhou Dao as an official, and his former residence was in the south.
Name source
The arrangement and evaluation of these writers of Yuan Opera vary from person to person and from time to time.
In Ghost Record by Zhong Sicheng in Yuan Dynasty, Guan Hanqing was listed as the first zaju writer, and Jia called Guan Hanqing "the head of the pear garden, the editor-in-chief and the head of the zaju troupe", but in the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Quan's Taihe Yin Zhengpu first recommended Ma Zhiyuan, thinking that he was "superior to the others" and regarded Guan Hanqing as "a talented person who could be promoted and demoted".
After the early Ming Dynasty, some praised Zheng Guangzu, while others belittled the other three. How to say in "Four Friends": "Ma's words are old and healthy, but they lack flattery, while Guan's words are inspirational and few, and white is quite simple. Those who owe, when Zheng first. " In Wang Jilie's Qutan, he thinks that "Guan, Bai, Ma and Zheng belong to one family".
Modern Wang Guowei's History of Drama in Song and Yuan Dynasties said: "Since the Ming Dynasty, composers in Yuan Dynasty have been called Guan, Ma, Zheng and Bai, but according to their age and attainments, Guan, Bai, Ma and Zheng are the best. Guan Hanqing leans on the side, and his words are arrogant. The words are full of human feelings and should be the first in the yuan. "
Guan Hanqing, Bai Pu, Ma Zhiyuan and Zheng Guangzu represented the achievements of different schools of zaju in different periods of Yuan Dynasty. They are called "Four Masters of Yuan Dynasty" and have been recognized by history. In the Ming Dynasty, Wang Shizhen and others criticized Wang Shifu for not being among the "Four Great Masters", and Wang Jide also put forward the theory of "Wang, Ma, Guan and Zheng".