The tragic dimensions of traditional Chinese drama: A study of Yuan zaju.

摘要

Although tragedy is the major critical canon in Western literary history, the term beiju XXX, the Chinese translation of "tragedy", did not appear in traditional Chinese literary criticism until the 1910s when Wang Guowei (1877-1927) first used this term to describe several Yuan zaju XXXX (mixed drama). This study starts with a generally accepted notion in the discussion of tragedy--the tragic spirit--and relates it to the Chinese aesthetic concept of bei-zhuang XXX (tragic-heroic) which then will be augmented with some other terms in traditional Chinese criticism to derive from the semantic corpus of the word-stem bei X four tragic dimensions of traditional Chinese drama, namely: bei-ai XXX, bei-yuan XXX, bei-fen XXX, and bei-zhuang. The framework this structural linguistic approach establishes will then be applied to the dramatic analyses of eight Yuan zaju: Feng Yu Lan XXXX (The misery of the young lady Feng), Huo Lang Dan XXXXX (Woman singer of the Huo Lang style), Han Gong Oiu XXXX (Autumn in the Han Palace), Shuang Fu Meng XXXX (Dream of Two on a journey), Dou E Yuan XXXX (The injustice done to Dou E), Huo Shao Jie Zi Tui XXXXXX (Burning Jie Zi Tui alive), Zhao Shi Gu Er XXXXX (The orphan of the family of Zhao), and Zhang Oian Ti Sha Oi XXXXXX (Zhang kills his sworn-brother's wife). The findings will then be compared with selected major Western notions of tragedy, including tragic fate, tragic mode, tragic rhythm, and tragic vision. Readers may also find it interesting to read the three appendixes: "Multiplicity of Tragedy," "The Organic Structure of Yuan zaju," and "The Tragic Sense of Life: East and West," for further perspectives on the problem of Chinese tragedy.