Peony Pavilion - Fragrant Letter

Author: Tang Xianzu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: ▼Complete Content ▼Sandalwood Aroma ▼Compact and Portable ▼Original Illustrations ▼Easy to Carry
The Peony Pavilion is the masterpiece of the great Ming Dynasty composer Tang Xianzu, when the author's thoughts and art had fully matured. The Ming Dynasty storytelling novel Du Liangni's Love and Rebirth provided the basic plot for The Peony Pavilion. In the play, certain original lines from the novel are preserved in the spoken parts of the scenes A Dream of Awakening, A Search for a Dream, and A Tragic Death. In the novel, after Du Liangni is reborn, a marriage of equal social standing is successfully arranged. However, in the opera, Tang Xianzu undertook a creative transformation, blending the legendary story with the realities of Ming Dynasty society, giving it a strong anti-feudal and anti-traditionalist tone and embodying the radiant ideal of pursuing individual freedom.
The heroine, Du Liangni, 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 life lesson is the first poem of the Book of Songs, Quanju. Traditionally, it is regarded as a praise of the virtues of empresses and consorts, making it an exemplary text for women. Yet she intuitively recognizes it as a love song. Encouraged by her maid Chunxiang, she secretly leaves her secluded room. "Without visiting the garden, how would one know the beauty of spring?" The natural world of spring awakens her youthful vitality. She lives in an environment shrouded in feudal etiquette, almost isolated from the world, helplessly watching her youth fade as she is unable to resist. She can only suppress her passionate feelings within.
Tang Xianzu did not follow the conventional of previous novels and operas, where characters fall in love at first sight, court each other in the garden, and secretly pledge their love. Instead, he arranges for Du Liangni to meet her lover in a dream after her garden visit, followed by a scene of her Searching for a Dream in the garden again. A Dream of Awakening and A Search for a Dream are the outbursts of the passion that has been building within Du Liangni, as well as her practical act of resisting the real world. The emotional power of The Peony Pavilion lies in its strong romantic ideal of pursuing individual freedom and opposing feudal etiquette. This ideal emerges as the antithesis of the feudal system. All that is good and virtuous belongs to Du Liangni. Tang Xianzu successfully portrays her beauty, but the scenes depicting her emotions and ideals are even more captivating. The Peony Pavilion shows that she does not die because of love being thwarted, but because of her futile yearning for love.
Through the character of Du Liangni, The Peony Pavilion expresses the aspirations 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 etiquette destroys people's happiness and beautiful ideals.