Late Ming Plays and Vernacular Theater

• In Event: Vernacular Textual Culture in Ming and Qing China

Abstract

Plays (xiqu) are often classified as a vernacular genre in Chinese literary history, yet it is also widely understood that play texts are rich deposits of classical allusions and lyricism. Using the concept of the “vernacular” to focus on linguistic registers and qualities of the spoken, quotidian, local, and unofficial, this paper looks at how the recasting of earlier tradition in a set of plays produced in the late Ming reflects broader cultural transformations at work during the period. Specifically, this paper discusses Ming recastings of dramatic classics such as the story of Orphan Zhao and the Romance of the Western Chamber, alongside the definitive work of late Ming dramatic art, the Peony Pavilion, drawing context from late Ming writers’ own comments on compositional strategies in dramatic literature, to explore the applicability and limitations of an opposition between “classical” and “vernacular” in coming to terms with these primary sources.

Author

• Yuming He, University of California, Davis