Research on the Legendary Zaju in the Late Qing and Republican Eras

Author: Zuo Pengjun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: This book aims to be based on as rich manuscript and archival materials as possible, starting from specific facts in the history of drama and literary history, to examine and analyze the basic documents of representative writers' works, important historical facts, and other related issues in the history of Chinese opera and literary history. It strives to make some new discoveries in the specific facts and documentary materials of the late Qing and Republican period's legendary and zaju plays, laying a solid foundation of documentary resources for this field. Further, it describes and clarifies relevant historical facts in the history of Chinese opera, providing important documentary and historical information through the examination and analysis of several specific issues, thereby promoting the understanding and research of the late Qing and Republican period's legendary and zaju plays among scholars in the field of the history of Chinese opera, the history of modern Chinese literature, and other areas. The content of this book is quite detailed and diverse, sometimes even appearing overly minute. It does not aim for comprehensiveness or systematicity, but rather seeks to be concrete and grounded. It hopes to advance research in this field based on the existing achievements of predecessors and contemporary scholars. This book is the first specialized work to comprehensively focus on and explore the legendary and zaju plays of the more than one hundred years (1840-1949) since the late Qing and Republican period. The author begins with the fundamental task of organizing materials, reviewing a vast amount of library resources and private and public collections, conducting in-depth research, carefully verifying documents, and cross-examining historical facts. Its achievements have been highly praised by contemporary scholars. This book also includes an appendix—a directory of late Qing and Republican period's legendary and zaju plays—which, based on previous related works, adds a large number of new materials and new plays discovered by the author.