Discussions on Mid-Qing Dynasty Opera Artists

Author: Lin Yeqing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-10-01
Features: Dr. Lin Yeqing is a young scholar specializing in the history of Chinese opera. This monograph is a rich fruit of her ten years of dedication. During her master's and doctoral studies at the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Nanjing University, I served as her supervisor and deeply understood her lofty aspirations and rigorous academic approach. She set a ten-year plan, selecting the group of opera writers from the mid-Qing Dynasty as her long-term research topic. As early as 1992, when she entered the master's program, she began studying Tang Ying's Ancient Cypress Hall Opera. During her doctoral studies, she focused on the study of Jiang Shiquan's Nine Works from the Zang Garden and Twelve Lyrics from Hongxue Tower. After obtaining her doctorate in 1998, she joined Tsinghua University. While fulfilling heavy teaching duties, she spent four more years researching Xia Lun's Six New Works from Xingzhai, Zhang Jian's Four Works from Yuanyan Hall, Yang Chaoguan's Miscellaneous Plays from Yinfeng Pavilion, and Shen Qifeng's Four Works from the Red Heart Lyricist. Now, the entire work is completed and finally ready for publication, which brings me great joy. I am deeply impressed and amazed by her persistent, diligent, and rigorous academic spirit. It has taken her ten years to achieve this consistent success in her research—truly, "ten years of hard work are not ordinary!"
We know that the mid-Qing Dynasty was a significant turning point in Chinese history. At that time, as Cao Xueqin wrote in Dream of the Red Chamber, "Although the outer framework has not completely collapsed, the inner treasury has indeed been exhausted!" Rather than calling it the "Prosperous Age of Qianlong," it would be more accurate to say it was the twilight of feudal society. The opera writers of that era, apart from Tang Ying, were mostly literati who had suffered hardships and were unsuccessful. They carried the orthodox worldview and traditional values, but as a group of (wandering and destitute) opera writers, they all had tragic life stories and profound anxieties about the times. Studying their life experiences, life circumstances, cultural mindset, and opera works can reveal the impact of the decline of the feudal late period on the ideology and thought trends of the literary and dramatic circles at the time, holding significant historical value.
From the perspective of the development history of Chinese opera, the mid-Qing Dynasty coincided with the transitional period of the competition between "flower" (refined) and "herb" (popular) styles. Since the appearance of the two monumental works, The Palace of Eternal Life and The Peach Blossom Fan, during Kangxi's reign, the "flower" style Kunqu opera faced a decline, while the "herb" style local operas flourished during the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods. Did the "flower" style Kunqu opera have successors? What was the subsequent development of the scripts? Could it compete with the "herb" style operas? These questions have long been weak links in the study of Chinese opera history, with scholars having a relatively vague understanding. Through a comprehensive examination of the opera writers of this period, Dr. Lin Yeqing has clearly and unambiguously answered these questions, enriching and fulfilling the study of the development of Kunqu opera in the mid-Qing Dynasty.
In my opinion, the creative achievements of this monograph are mainly reflected in four aspects.