A Study On 'Qing Palace Drama' In Contemporary TV Series

1980s saw a surge of'Qing palace drama'which based on the royal life of Qing emperors and people around them. After 1990s, the'Qing palace drama'assumed a dominant position in the video field. According to a crude statistics of mine, the'Qing palace drama'has totaled over 80 through the years, among which are not only excellent works winning awards home and abroad and representing the overall level of'Qing palace drama'creation like YongZheng Dynasty and The Last Emperor, but also some production of inferior quality arousing the strong dissatisfaction and sincere concern of general audience and critical circle. Up to the beginning of the new century,'Qing palace drama'spurred such a hot tendency of creation and production of dramas related to Qin dynasty, Tang dynasty and Ming dynasty that the relevant authority had to stipulate some policies to control the situation. The famous writer WangMeng also criticized the flooding of emperor drama at NPC &CPPCC.Now'Qing palace drama'is still produced and watched, but compared with the popularity at the beginning of the century it is no longer the focus of video field. As a literary phenomenon though, it leaves people in deep thinking. How come that it has had the monopoly of TV audience for almost 20 years even among fierce attacks? What are the advantages of its art creation? How is it related with the real history? All these questions deserve a careful and thorough study. The previous studies mainly concentrate on the differences between the drama and the real history instead of conducting a theoretical study based on the TV drama itself, which leads the study astray.As a case in contemporary Chinese culture study,'Qing palace drama'has a share in the development of culture renaissance in the new period and a study of it will reflect some structural characteristics of contemporary Chinese culture. This thesis attempts to study the artistic feature, narrative strategy, aesthetics and the audience psychology of'Qing palace drama'based on the TV play itself. The thesis can be roughly divided into the following six parts:The First part focuses on the category and artistic features of'Qing palace drama'.'Qing palace drama'includes two types: historical serious play and historical stories. The former type can be subdivided into: (1) serious play which attempts to reproduce history and reflect the law of history development, (2) pseudo-serious play which looks like historical serious play in terms of artistic style, but in fact all the story is made up for the sake of fascination and therefore cause people's misreading of history, (3) secret history which belongs to the second subtype and the drama directed by You Xiaogang forms a major part and (4) comedies which uses humor, antics, absurdism and irony for an orgiastic effect. The historical comedies has the greatest social influence among all the'Qing palace drama'. It breaks away from the starting point of production of historical drama. Instead, it only uses history as an inspiration to imaginary and popularization, naturalization and dramatization are the basic narrative strategies adopted in this type of drama.The second part analyzes the anti-modern consciousness. Most'Qing palace drama'are carols for emperors and honest and upright officials. The popularity of'Qing palace drama'embodies the profound influence of the awareness of royal power deeply embedded in Chinese people, and reflects an inborn state of mind and value held by the common people. On the other hand,'Qing palace drama'illustrates the overdeveloped political wisdom and diplomatic culture. Diplomatic culture is the product of feudal society. When wisdom and diplomacy became dominant means of political development and survival strategy, they are abhorrent from the public moral laws and legal principles and became political trickery closely related to feudalism system.'Qing palace drama'pays its attention to the wisdom in political arena and intensifies the falsity in individual and moral system. This reveals the practical function of historical play. And the receivers'strong desire of appreciation and experiencing in turn spurs on the over-abundance of'Qing palace drama'and some of them finally become the artistic specimen of traditional Chinese politics.The third part explores the new changes in historical viewpoint and the writing of history. The analysis of'Qing palace drama'reveals the evolution of historical view and people's reflection on history. Obvious changes in history writing can be found compared with the previous history play. In Contemporary'Qing palace drama'the traditional tone of heroism is weakened and removes from the traditional value system based on the national ideology. On the contrary, the heroes are put in the background of social development and human logic, and by writing those historic figures, the human nature and value system are reflected.The fourth part studies the historical view in'Qing palace drama'. Historical play and history are closely related. The historical play in real sense should be written and produced based on the history. The tendency of popularization and vulgarization arising from'Qing palace drama'on the one hand helps common people to ponder over history, on the other hand, causes misreading of history because of the negligence in historical truthfulness found in some historical comedies. Historical play is also a historical text, and therefore should be handled with great caution.The fifth part relates to the symbol system in'Qing palace drama'. Human's life is closely related to symbols which are a key element in people's thinking and differentiate people from other animals. In Qing royal palace there was a special cultural symbol system that has been far away from our life with the perishing of Qing dynasty. The popularity of'Qing palace drama'helps people to understand a nation and an era in the past and recognize these symbols that have almost been forgotten.'Qing palace drama', the boundary between"good"and"bad"is blurred and diverges away from the traditional aesthetic mode of"heroes"and"villain"; more attention is paid to the exploration of people's character and nature.The sixth part concentrates on the narrative strategy in'Qing palace drama'. These drama uses the story telling and plotting in Chinese classic novels as a source of reference and indicates the return to historical cultural and aesthetic tradition of China.'Qing palace drama'are usually TV series limited by the broadcasting time and condition and audience can not finish the watching in several days. Hence, it pays great attention to the story and plot to attract audience. Every episode in the TV drama is similar to a chapter in Chinese classic novels in that it can be an independent story as well as a stage in the development of the story. Like Chinese classic novels,'Qing palace drama'enjoys telling a complete story which has its own beginning, development, climax and ending and they serve as the clue of the narration. Another thing that deserves our study is the stereotype in'Qing palace drama'. The same subject matter, similar background and costumes, the repetition of same historical figures all strengthened the advantage of stereotype in'Qing palace drama'. This is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, the stereotype makes the creation and production easy and produces a habitual receiving mode in audience. On the other hand, however, repetition and reproduction will make the art lose its vitality and novelty.As a prominent form of popular art,'Qing palace drama'has become a token in the composition and evolution of Chinese culture in recent years.