"Complete Collection of the Ming Dynasty Zaju" (28 volumes)
Cheng Huaping Editor-in-chief
Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House
Published in August 2020
Editor's note: Ming Dynasty Zaju is an important part of my country's traditional opera culture. Due to the contempt and ban on literati and rulers of all dynasties, a large number of opera scripts have been lost. In order to preserve this precious opera literature and serve the needs of today's academic research, Professor Cheng Huaping, Tan Fan, Wu Ping and other professors of the Chinese Department of East China Normal University were edited by professors Cheng Huaping, Tan Fan, and Wu Ping, and organized relevant opera experts to collect, organize and identify existing Ming Dynasty zaju documents at home and abroad. They selected more than 340 scripts with academic, information-oriented and high version value. The compilation was made for photocopying and publishing of "The Complete Collection of Ming Dynasty zajus" to inherit excellent traditional culture and provide a set of precious documentary and historical materials for the research of ancient operas. To facilitate readers to read and utilize, this book now writes an abstract for each zaju, introducing the author's life, script content, document value, and version changes, and attaching it to the main text of each zaju.
01
1 In the second year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty (1629), when Zhang Yuanzheng wrote the preface to "Shengming Zaju", he disagreed with the saying that "Chinese, Tang poetry, Song lyrics, and Yuan operas were all the same, and later there was an author, which was hard to continue." He retorted: "What is there for my Ming Dynasty? If Li and Wang rise up, they will no longer be the Xijing and Dali. Why are the famous lyricists and music masters so much that they are inferior to Meisangzhai, Dongli, Hanqing, and Renfu?" Although they are so arrogant, the positioning of the Ming Dynasty zaju in the history of ancient opera has been relatively embarrassing, but it is also a fact: when it comes to zaju style, people first think of the Yuan Dynasty zaju, which represents the first peak of ancient opera; when it comes to zaju opera, the brilliant achievements of legends have largely obscured the glory of zaju. The reason for this is naturally related to people's long-term lack of due attention to Ming Zaju and fair evaluation. In fact, with the development of the Yuan Dynasty for hundreds of years, the Ming Dynasty zaju also achieved remarkable achievements. The main ones are as follows:
"Shengming Zaju"
First of all, the number of works by Ming Zaju far exceeded that of the Yuan Dynasty, showing the prosperity of Zaju in the new era. Based on the two catalogs of Japanese Amitabha, the historian Zeng Yongyi, "Introduction to Ming Zaju", based on the two catalogs of Japanese Amitabha, Yagi Sawayuan and Fu Xihua's "Complete Catalogue of Ming Zaju", obtained 125 writers, 413 works, and 134 missing names, resulting in a total of 547 types. In fact, the number of zajus in the Ming Dynasty is much more than that. This fully demonstrates that the Ming Dynasty zaju creation has also achieved remarkable achievements.
Secondly, the zaju system has undergone many changes. In addition to some operaists who still adhere to the Yuan family law to create Northern Songs, there were also styling styles such as Southern Songs, single or multi-slip short dramas, short dramas, and flexible role singing methods in the Ming Dynasty. The changes in these zaju system are just as Zeng Yongyi summarized in "Introduction to Ming Zaju": "The zaju in the Ming Dynasty inherited the mantle of the Yuan people on the one hand, and on the other hand, gradually drew nourishment from the prosperous Southern Drama legends, thus integrating the strengths of the North and South Drama songs to produce a more refined and reasonable new genre. ...The zaju did not decline in the Ming Dynasty, but developed and innovated. "
It can be said that in order to adapt to the development and changes of the aesthetics of the times, Ming Zaju is also constantly changing itself. While constantly absorbing the strengths of the Southern Drama and Legend, it has made many changes to its own system and content, and finally achieved another prosperity. Here, we can briefly sort out its development history, which will help us understand the characteristics of each stage of the Ming Dynasty zaju and its causes.
At the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Luo Guanzhong, Wang Ziyi, Liu Dongsheng, Gu Zijing, Yang Wenkui, Li Tangbin, Yang Ne, Jia Zhongming and other "16 people in the dynasty" and the vassal kings Zhu Quan and Zhu Youying were representative writers in the first stage of zaju. These writers mainly lived in the Zhengtong period from the early Ming Dynasty to the death of Zhu Youyi (1436-1449), and many of them entered the Ming Dynasty from Yuan Dynasty. The creation of zaju during this period basically followed the Yuan Dynasty's text system and mainly belonged to the category of zaju in the Northern Qu. However, under the influence of Southern opera, the zaju system has also begun to change.Zhu Youyi was very innovative in the zaju system. For example, using the full version of Dan and the last one, one with 50% off, using resings, choruses, and round singing, etc., adding the factors of Southern Opera to the Northern Opera, providing subsequent playwrights with examples of "imitation" and also inspiring the emergence of Southern Opera.
Luo Guanzhong's "Song Taizu Dragon and Tiger Storm Meeting"
Until the Hongzhi, Zhengde and Jiajing periods, as Chen Duo, Wang Jiusi, Kang Hai, Yang Shen, Xu Wei, Wang Daokun and others entered the Qutan, the weak state of zaju creation in the early Ming Dynasty improved, and thus entered a new stage of development, that is, the Beiqu Zaju gradually declined under the impact of the increasingly prosperous legendary system, while Nanqu Zaju ushered in an opportunity for development. The absorption and imitation of legendary institutional factors by zaju has become a common phenomenon, and its own stylistic characteristics are becoming increasingly blurred. Although several Qu scholars such as Liang Chenyu and Ling Mengchu still followed the family rules of the Yuan people, they were rare.
According to the records of He Liangjun, a Ming Dynasty man, and Shen Defu's "Wanli Yehuobian", after Jiajing and Longqing, few people sang the zaju operas in the Northern Song Dynasty. The popularity of Southern Song, especially the popularity of Kunshan accent, brought far more impact to Northern Song Zaju than before. However, it should be pointed out that many opera historians in modern times believe that the creation of this issue of zaju mainly refers to the Northern Qu Zaju, while the Southern Qu Zaju began to flourish after Jiajing. As a result, the integration of zaju and then entered a new stage of development.
He Liangjun's "Siyouzhai Congshu"
02
Opera historian Lu Qian's "History of Opera in Ming and Qing Dynasties" once conducted statistics on the "time and place" of playwrights, and found that Ming zaju writers are mainly distributed in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and other provinces. "If you are in terms of hometown, there are more people from Wu, followed by Zhejiang", and "in fact, Jiangnan is the most prosperous." It is self-evident that these operaists who live in the southeast of the birthplace of Nan Opera and the legendary legend are deeply influenced by Nan Opera and legend. Therefore, there are many Ming Dynasty playwrights who work as legends and zaju, such as Shen Cai, Liang Chenyu, Lin Zhang, Mei Dingzuo, Hu Wenhuan, Shen Jing, Gu Dadian, Wang Jide, Chen Yujiao, Wang Tingne, Ye Xianzu, Chen Ruyuan, Xu Fuzuo, Meng Chengshun, Yuan Yuling, etc., all of them are like this. Operaists double-played as legends and zaju, which gradually blurred the boundaries between the two, and eventually led to the legendaryization of zaju and the dissolution of zaju style.
The zaju in the Yuan Dynasty was mainly used to please the public. The "zaju script play" has a strong folk literature and entertainment color, so it has been widely welcomed. Most of the creators of these zaju are unsuccessful lower-class officials, frustrated literati, ordinary people such as doctors, merchants, diviners, and advocates for excellent artists. With the continuous development of opera, by the early Ming Dynasty, zaju entered the museum halls and halls of the upper class and the residences of the vassal kings. At this time, the vassal king Zhu Quan clearly divided the zaju actors into two types: "good children" and "prostitutes and good families" to separate them. The huge gap in status has caused the literati and actors to belong to two social classes, which are of different high and low status, and it is difficult to form a situation like the Yuan Dynasty where literati and actors get along harmoniously, and opera creation and performance promote each other.
Therefore, since the Hongzhi and Zhengde periods, with Wang Jiusi, Kang Hai and later Yang Shen, Li Kaixian and others involved in opera, the creation of zaju will inevitably bring the aesthetic taste of literati. The first thing a literati focuses on the expression of emotions, and what they care about is to expound their ambitions and imitate their expressions. They care more about whether these plays can reflect their distinct creative intentions and strong emotional expressions in the refined structure, and whether they can resonate and stir in the circle of literati with similar scents. The result is that zaju is increasingly isolated from the people, and it has become a desk drama for literati and scholars to chant by themselves.
Of course, these are mainly based on the overall situation of Ming Zaju. In fact, whether it is the Northern and Southern zaju, it is still sung in the Ming Dynasty. After the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, with the departure of those who were good at singing northern songs such as Ma Xianglan and Fu Lingxiu in Qinhuai, the singing of the Northern Song Zaju became "Guangling San", and most of the Southern Song Zaju were replaced. After Jiajing, because Kunqu Opera was so popular and legends became increasingly popular, the actors and singers specialized in Nanqu opera to make their debut.As the Southern Song gradually occupied the Qutan, the Northern Song was constantly marginalized, losing the market and audience, and thus inevitably declined.
Ma Xianglan's Little Silk
03
1Ming Zaju has been published for six or seven hundred years, and there have been many opera collections that have included Ming Zaju. For example, Chen Yujiao's "Ancient Famous Artists' Zaju", Meng Chengshun's "Combination of Famous Dramas in Ancient and Modern Times", Shen Tai's "Shengming Zaju", Zou Shijin's "New Edition of Zaju", Wang Jilie's "The Alone and Ming Zaju", etc., all of which have collected and published some Ming Zaju works, allowing some Ming Zaju to be passed down. Of course, there are also some works of zaju writers that have been passed down to later generations in different ways.
However, for various reasons, the zajus of the Ming Dynasty never formed a total collection, which is naturally not conducive to the preservation and circulation of a generation of documents. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, scholars such as Zheng Zhenduo and Wu Xiaoru were committed to the collection and collection of Ming zaju. The "Ancient Drama Series" collected a large number of Ming zaju works that were rare in the past. In the late 1970s, Taiwanese scholar Chen Wannai was edited by "The All-Ming Zaju" and published, which included 168 Ming Dynasty Zaju works. However, due to the conditions at that time, there were many shortcomings in both "Ancient Drama Series" and "Quanming Zaju". Many Ming Zaju works have not been discovered and have not been included. In recent years, with the country's emphasis on traditional culture, the increase in investment in cultural construction, and the continuous discovery of opera documents, the publication of classical operas, including Ming Zaju, has also ushered in a golden age. For example, Jin Peilin, editor-in-chief of "Ming and Qing Dynasty Copyrights and Lonely Opera Series", editor-in-chief of Wu Shuyin, editor-in-chief of "Suizhong Wu Family Collection Manuscript Opera Series", edited by Peking University Library, edited by "Budeng Daya Library Rare Opera Series", edited by Jiang Yasha and others in "Collection of Ancient Chinese Zaju Documents", selected by Yin Mengxia, edited by "Zheng Zhenduo's Ancient Wu Lianshaolu Opera Series", edited by Wang Wenhua, edited by "Fu Xihua's Classical Opera Series", edited by Huang Shizhong, edited by "Rare Chinese Opera Series in Japan", compiled by Huang Shizhong, edited by "Rare Chinese Opera Series in Japan", etc., all of which include many precious Ming Zaju texts.
"Ancient Drama Series"
It is based on the continuous search and exploration of predecessors and sages that we edited and published "Complete Collection of Miscellaneous Dramas in the Ming Dynasty", striving to achieve the following two points:
1, and the script collection is to be detailed. Based on the previous achievements, "The Complete Collection of the Bibles of Ming Dynasty" has been widely searched and collected, and has collected more than 340 Bibles of Ming Dynasty, and has included the engraved, banknotes and residual versions of Ming Dynasty that can be found today.
2, the script selection is precise. The editor has done a lot of meticulous version screening work in advance, striving to achieve excellence.
We look forward to the publication of this full collection, which can play a role in the inheritance and research of my country's traditional culture, and we also look forward to providing convenience for the reading and research of ancient operas. However, due to the huge number of zajus in the Ming Dynasty, the scripts are diverse in shape, the collection places are scattered, and the collection situation is relatively complicated, it is indeed not easy to collect all the zajus in the Ming Dynasty. We believe that as time goes by and the continuous deepening of opera research, more Ming Dynasty zaju will definitely be discovered in the future.
(This article is the preface to "Complete Editing of the Ming Dynasty Zaju", with a delete)
