Mudan Ting

Author: Tang Xianzu
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2002-10-01
Features: "The Peony Pavilion" is a masterpiece of Tang Xianzu from the Ming Dynasty, where the author's thoughts and art had fully matured. The Ming Dynasty story "Du Lijiang's Love and Rebirth" provided the basic plot for "The Peony Pavilion." In the play, some original lines from the story are preserved in the spoken parts of scenes like "The Dream," "Seeking the Dream," and "The Turmoil of Grief." In the novel, after Du Lijiang is reborn, a match made in heaven ensures a harmonious marriage based on social status. However, in the play, Tang Xianzu undertook a transformative creative effort, blending the mythological elements of the story with the realities of Ming Dynasty society. This gave it a strong anti-feudal and anti-ritualistic tone, radiating the brilliant ideal of pursuing individual freedom.
The heroine, Du Lijiang, is one of the most beloved young female characters in classical opera. Her birth and social status dictate that she should become a virtuous wife and mother who adheres to the "Three Obediences and Four Virtues." Her foundational education includes the first poem of the "Book of Songs," "Guajun." Traditionally, it is regarded as a praise song for the virtues of empresses and concubines, making it the best reading material for women in the inner quarters. However, Du Lijiang intuitively recognizes it as a love song. Encouraged by her maid Chunxiang, she secretly leaves her secluded room. "Without visiting the gardens, how would one know the beauty of spring?" The awakening of nature in spring ignites her youthful vitality. She lives in an environment shrouded in feudal ritual, almost cut off from the world, helplessly watching her youth fade. She is unable to act or speak her heart, resorting instead to suppressing her passionate feelings.
Tang Xianzu did not follow the conventional approach of previous novels and plays, where love at first sight leads to secret meetings in the garden. Instead, he arranged for Du Lijiang to meet her lover in a dream after her garden visit, followed by a scene where she returns to the garden to "Seek the Dream." "The Dream" and "Seeking the Dream" are outbreaks of the passion that has been building within Du Lijiang, as well as her active defiance against the real world. The moving power of "The Peony Pavilion" lies in its strong romantic ideal of pursuing individual freedom and opposing feudal rituals. This ideal emerges as the antithesis of the feudal system. All that is good and virtuous belongs to Du Lijiang. Tang Xianzu succeeded in depicting her beauty, but the passages that portray her emotions and ideals are even more captivating. "The Peony Pavilion" reveals that she dies not from the destruction of love, but from her futile longing for it.
Through Du Lijiang's character, "The Peony Pavilion" expresses the cries of the vast majority of young men and women at the time for individual liberation, freedom of love, and autonomy in marriage. It also exposes how feudal rituals crush people's happiness and destroy their beautiful ideals.