Peach Blossom Fan

Author: Kong Shangren
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1997-04-03
Features: Kong Shangren (1648-1718), styled Pinzhi, also styled Jizhong, styled Dongtang, styled An Tang, and called Yunting Shanshen, was from Qufu, Shandong. A famous Qing Dynasty dramatist. Kong Shangren was the sixty-fourth descendant of Confucius. In his early years, he received traditional education from the feudal family and once took the imperial examination. He loved poetry and prose, was proficient in music, and had a wide range of studies. In 1685, when the Kangxi Emperor inspected the south and returned north, he came to Qufu to sacrifice to Confucius. Kong Shangren was praised for explaining the "Analects" in the imperial presence and appointed as a doctor at the Guozijian. A year later, due to dredging the mouth of the Yellow River, he frequently traveled between Nanjing and Yangzhou, making friends with Ming and southern scholars, which inspired reflections on the rise and fall of the former dynasty. After ten years, he created the famous Kunqu opera "The Peach Blossom Fan." In "The Peach Blossom Fan," Kong Shangren "used the themes of separation and reunion to express the sentiments of rise and fall." The play follows the love story of Hou Fangyu and Li Xiangjun as its plot, recreating the rise and fall of the Southern Ming Dynasty. It uses the emotional bonds of lovers to highlight the pain of national and family collapse, vividly reflecting the corrupt and turbulent social reality of the late Ming Dynasty and the conflicts and struggles within the ruling class.