The Narrative Art Of The Legendary Historical Dramas Of The Ming Dynasty

The legendary historical drama of the Ming Dynasty refers to the long historical plays whose literary system is standardized and whose musical system is formalized. The historical drama refers to the fact that the main characters in the plot and their partial deeds have been recorded in historical books. The vicissitudes of drama of the Ming Dynasty are mainly expressed in the way of treating historical materials and the setting up of the circumstances of characters.The development of the legendary historical drama of the Ming Dynasty had three stages, in which the ratio of the historical drama originating in historical events was constantly dropping, while the ratio of the drama whose main characters were historical ones, yet their deeds being mostly fabricated by the author, was constantly rising. This indicates such a fact:the whole process of development of the legendary historical drama of the Ming Dynasty was a process of development in which plays created according to historical books gradually less depended on historical materials; creating was done by imaginary plots. Such a change, on the whole, indicated that the consciousness of historical learning was gradually weakening, while the consciousness of drama was gradually strengthening. This exerted an obvious influence on the creation of legendary historical drama of the Ming Dynasty-Its narrative art was constantly being perfected. It was concretely expressed in, firstly the more and more paying attention to the rise and fall of the plot, secondly its closeness and its development being much more and more reasonable.The legendary historical drama of the Ming Dynasty forms several kinds of plot-structure models which can perfectly deal with the relations between drama and history-"fiction and fact". The plot-structure models refer to how historical drama deals with historical materials and enriches the plot. It is formed on the basis of traditional ideas of knowledge and their thinking style. There are three kinds of forms:structural model based on history, structural model in which possibility is restored, and structural model in which fiction and fact correspond. In the course of development of the Ming Dynasty legendary historical drama, the use of the structural model in which possibility is restored and of the structural model mainly based on history, generally speaking, is gradually lessened, while the use of the structural model in which fiction and fact correspond is gradually increasing and its developing tendency is gradually to gain mastership. Such a change illustrates the fact that the consciousness of historical learning of the authors of the Ming Dynasty is gradually weakening, whereas the consciousness of drama is constantly strengthening.The art notion of the legendary historical drama writers changed mainly from that of "restoring the original truth" to the basic one of "historical materials chosen available to oneself" step by step. Such a change in art notion was somewhat associated with the shift of the values of the social philosophy in the Ming Dynasty. After the mid Ming Dynasty, the social historical cultural conditions changed fundamentally, the dominating position of Cheng and Zhu's Neo-Confucianism was shaken, while Wang Yangming's theory of mind was spread rapidly and popular among grass roots to become the dominant school of thought, gradually taking place of Cheng and Zhu's Confucian school of idealistic philosophy.The main feature of Wang Yangming's theory of mind is a kind of practice moving from the internal to the external and realizes itself in the external world, while Cheng and Zhu's idealistic school, is characterized by studying the phenomena of nature in order to acquire knowledge, which is sort of exploring process from the external to the internal. The differences in the thinking way of the above-mentioned two schools are equal to those of structural model in which fiction and fact correspond and structural model based on history. Therefore, during the later Ming Dynasty,the drama writers have dealt with the historical materials and then created the historical figures according to their own social cognition and understanding rather than confined themselves within the bound of historical facts.Compared with the poetic drama of the Yuan Dynasty, the salient basic characteristic of the legendary historical drama of the Ming Dynasty is the strengthening of historical narrative quality, while the historical play in the Yuan poetic drama is, as much as possible, to turn historical events into lyrical factors. The legendary historical play of the Ming Dynasty is, as much as possible, to turn historical events into narrative factors-the constant perfection of the setting up of the circumstances of characters is an important mark of strengthening its narrative quality. The realistic circumstances of characters mainly refer to the concrete affairs which may possibly happen to the leading character, revealing his special spiritual quality or his characteristics. The setting up of the circumstances of characters in the legendary historical drama of the Ming Dynasty is a process of developing from few to many and from simplicity to complexity, which reveals 1) the narrative art in the legendary historical drama is getting better, namely, the development of plot is getting complicated, the incidental dramatic conflicts are gradually inereasing and strengthening, and the art structure design of play series is becoming more perfect; 2) the carving description of characters is getting much finer, the single-dimensional connotation of the leading characters is getting much richer; 3) the setting up of the circumstances of characters in the legendary historical drama of the Ming Dynasty is a developing process of becoming complicated gradually (the circumstances description of the same type appear competitively, or the circumstances description of different types occur alternatively). This also indicates the development of the creation of legendary historical play in late Ming Dynasty has reached the ultimate climax, focusing on the complexity of the plot structure of the play itself instead of the features of dramatic forms and finally bringing closet drama into existence, which is more suitable for reading than performing.The ancients used the methods of "eight observations and six examinations".This means evaluating people from multiple perspectives, such as the thought of desire, knowing people, understanding their habits and behavior and applying different methods and ways to different people by observing them closely, which is adopted wisely to manifest the characters'traits by putting them in certain circumstances and the relationships among people. The same is true of the basic methods and way of thinking of increasing realistic circumstances of characters in the Ming Dynasty legendary historical play for the purpose of assessing their traits. Such methods of observing and judging people are dynamic, in which there exists the way of thinking of surveying and criticizing the characters according to their behaviours in the constantly shifting circumstances of characters.As far as the methods of setting up the circumstances of characters to display their traits are concerned, before 1587, the methods of externally observing and thinking were chiefly adopted; however, after 1587, the internal approaches of observing and thinking were likely to be considered more and more in this respect. That is to say, the content of circumstances in the Ming Dynasty legendary historical play tended to be plebeianized and popularized.The artistic functions of increasing realistic circumstances of characters are shown as follows:1) the functions are enabling the connotation of characters to get richer. "One-dimensional character" refers to merely depicting and giving prominence to a single dimension or aspect of the intended character instead of presenting the multiple traits from different angles. As to the aspect of increasing circumstances of characters in the Ming Dynasty legendary historical plays, the value concepts roughly followed the traditional idea of Confucian Benevolence and were realized within the meaning scope of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, trust, and then further, on this basis, made the single dimensional character connotation richer. It was reasonable to focus on displaying a single trait connotation from a certain aspect in the legendary historical drama, which also proved the success of such historical dramas of that time.2) The functions help to identify the "essence meaning" of characters easily. Along_with the increasing of character circumstances, there exist two conditions:that is, on the one hand the activity of the leading character is extending comparatively, on the other hand the roles of the leading characters in different circumstances interact in between, the results of which will make the essential meaning in the traits of the leading characters salient.3) The functions help to produce the art tension of drama plot. For the legendary historical play of the Ming Dynasty, in the process of creating historical characters, the new circumstances of the characters must be repeatedly described, which aim to put the described ones in larger circumstances to reveal their spiritual connotation, and identify the "essential traits" as a result. In this way, the whole plot is characterized by the wanted art tension as well. There exists such a kind of phenomenon, i.e. a plot description involves the realistic circumstances of the historical figures, and meanwhile it also intermingles a non-realistic circumstance with the realistic circumstances and then the former is likely to be treated as the crucial point of the plot development. The unrealistic circumstance refers to the unrealistic events the characters in the plots experience, which more often occur in certain notions and impossibly exist in the real world. In the whole developing process of Ming Dynasty legendary historical drama, the ratio of the description of unrealistic circumstances is on the rise, which is reflected not only in its frequency but also in the extension of its usage. The functions of depicting the unrealistic circumstances of the characters varied accordingly at different stages, that is, initially it was employed for expressing a kind of notion or demonstrating a part of weird content for the plot development, later it was widely applied in the crucial turning points of the plot development, serving as a narrative device for resolving conflicts and promoting the reversal of plot developments. In the plots of the Ming Dynasty legendary historical plays, putting the circumstance descriptions of two different types together relied on the spiritual eye from which the substance (noumenon/ontology) and function (phenomena) originate.The aesthetic functions of description of unrealistic circumstances have employed such conceptions as resolving conflicts, being devoted to moderation and harmony and strengthening the traditional concepts of ghosts and gods for self discipline, comforting others, entrusting emotions, and providing narrative devices/short-cuts/methods for the reversal of plots and so on. The former two have impact on the traditional Chinese poetic thoughts and are related to the native traditional ideas of ghosts and gods, meanwhile, the latter two are associated with the regularities of the art of drama.As to compilation style, there exist rational "stipulated form" and a tight calligraphy style applicable to express meaning, in legendary historical drama. Essentially such meaning-expressing compilation style in legendary historical drama, a set of evaluation methods with interior and exterior strengthening function, is beneficial to evaluate the positive and negative sides of the characteristics of the historical figures and also to define the characteristics of the single-dimension figure, thus forming the dual-contradictory structure pattern. Such evaluation methods involve mainly three types, namely, marking, gist-of-the-section and narrative evaluation, which are used to realize the evaluation and judgment on a certain historical figure and event in an integrated way. However, the artistic functions of the three methods and their significance in the literary works of historical drama differ widely.The marking of appraisal is mainly applied to that of the content in the legendary drama, so the implication of each content is virtually to define the described personages and events, namely, serving as the appreciation or depreciation of the evaluation. That is to say, the diction in the marking appraisal indicates directly the positive or negative meaning. With the features of summary of figures or events, the marking of evaluation is an important link for the potential readers to understand the plot of the drama or the intensity of the figures'positive or negative side. According to the Chumu (the content of the section in a drama) involved, the readers can grasp roughly the plot and the likely theme tendency of the drama.This marking appraisal mode and method is also adopted in the official history. The difference between them (referring to the legendary drama and the official history) lies in the marking of "Zhuan mu(the content in the history presented in a series of biographies)". In the historical records the figures was classified unnaturally for a certain political purpose and then their events also were narrated accordingly for the purpose of evaluating them. However, the marking in legendary historical drama (usually commented accurately with two key words), is to refine the connotation and to seek something summative and then to make a reasonable evaluation based on the concluded agreement, which functions as revealing the characteristics of the historical figures and summarizing the connotation of the events.As to the gist-of-the-section appraisal, its methods and forms are to focus on evaluating the major figures of the whole drama or one plot section, which also can be subdivided into smaller categories and differentiate slightly, for instance, summative evaluation, cohesive-coherent evaluation (i.e. a connecting link between what comes before and what goes after) and synthetic evaluation (for instance, self-evaluation, self-introduction type) and so on. The characteristics of these appraisal methods are centralized and explicit, which are a kind of rational thinking outside the development of plots, namely, it can not promote or improve the plot development. However, it can strengthen the instructive enlightening function of dramas and is an important form of expressing the meaning of judging the historical figures directly, with the function of alienation effect and making people think deeply. When it is combined with the related drama plots respectively, the characteristics concerned differ, the investigation of which can offer a certain inspiration for the creation of the legendary historical drama.The summative appraisal is one used after the plot, in which improper arguments or redundancy may occur frequently. Cohesive-coherent appraisal is one of prediction which is a connecting link between the preceding and the following, namely, summarizing the above drama plot and guiding the coming plot, the form of which is extremely flexible and able to insert limited words alternatively and flexibly through the whole context, the form of which is dealt with in the writing of legendary historical plays. Synthetic appraisal is one which is comprehensive to judge the historical figures and events from multiple angles, which is helpful and convenient for the audience to understand the plot roughly, to grasp the basic train of thought of the plot, and then to make right comparisons with the related history. But, the use of it is a bit excessive in the legendary historical plays of the Ming Dynasty.Apart from the function of directly revealing the drama theme, the gist-of-the-section appraisal of the legendary historical dramas, has the role of producing alienation effect, which will help the audience foster the analysis and critical standpoint and make them have rational thinking away from the swirl of emotion temporarily. It is known that the legendary historical drama is a narrative-style stage art, easily leading the audience into the plot circumstances.On the whole, the books with official history records and the legendary historical dramas of the Ming Dynasty both strictly stick to the basic rules of interaction between doctrines and forms to elucidate definitely its doctrines of Confucian moral philosophy(义理)But the role of the gist-of-each-section differs in the above two types of texts (referring to the official history and the legendary historical drama), of which the former is for revelation, while the latter is chiefly for enforcing appraisal.The usage of the gist-of-each-section appraisal is vital and so its proper application should be taken into careful consideration. Otherwise, it will run counter to desire due to the excessively improper dealing.In addition, although both the marking appraisal and the gist-of-each-section appraisal are all apparent and conducted by the narrators directly, their impact on the narrative arts of legendary historical plays differ greatly, of which the former plays a positive role mainly, while the latter may exert a negative influence on the historical recognition and literary taste of historical dramas if it is dealt with improperly. So the authors of dramas are likely to make comments by adopting the form of on-stage or off-stage poems, and then avoid overreaching as a result.The narrative appraisal, an implicit evaluation method with nature on narrative texts, is one of embedding the concluding judgment in the narrating process which can make readers aware of the good and evil of the text itself. To the creation of the legendary historical plays, the narrative appraisal is right for use, for it can help let the authors' various feelings, covering both positive and negative inclinations penetrate, into the process of narrating history, and then let the readers themselves distinguish and perceive so that they can obtain their own evaluation eventually. It is obvious that such an evaluation can be realized by both of the authors and the readers.Such an evaluation method is also the main way of expressing the meaning in the books with official history records where the author's inclination of evaluation has been expressed in a natural way. In other words, this appraisal method dominates over others. Between the drama text with creativity and the documentary text reflecting historical records, it is apparent that the former is stronger than the latter comparatively regarding the consciousness of appraisal that the former is more helpful for the ruling class in China's feudal era to exert their tactics to control the spirit of people in the literary art field rich in creativity.While adopting this kind of appraisal method, the authors of the books with history records are narrating the history by themselves, but the authors of the historical dramas are vividly narrating the story and demonstrate the authors'standpoint, attitude and feelings by the speaking of characters in the drama-both the opposite sides, friends and relatives etc, that is, so-called "Speaking-for-others" style or mouthpiece style. The "speaking-for-others" style seems more objective with the sense of presence for displaying historical connotation and more convenient for appraising the historical figures naturally with the adoption of historical events in historical dramas. So narrative appraisal approach is characterized with the feature of restoring the history to a natural circumstance in the legendary historical drama.It is obvious that the artistic blendability with the historical dramas differentiates among their different forms when several kinds of appraisal modes and methods described above are applied in the legendary historical dramas. The so-called "art blendability" means that when different forms of appraisals are mixed with the plots of dramas, the degree of art blending into the plot circumstances will differ, which is true of the tightness of the art integrity. Therefore, different forms of appraisals are on different artistic levels too.The marking appraisal is chiefly applied to the expression of the content of the section of the legendary drama, which is the interface of the aesthetic course of art for the story content and the whole play. The marking appraisal is also at the surface level, which is necessary for the establishment of historical drama texts. The adoption of the marking evaluation can make the clue and connotation of the dramas clear and facilitate the basic thinking of the development of story in a smooth way.The gist-of-each-section appraisal is applied to the legendary historical dramas, the state of which is at the surface level of art blending, functioning as "alienation effect", which can break the perceptual illusion of plots and then serve for rational purposes. It appears in the explicit form, and is separated from the clues of the plot development with continuity of legendary historical plays, which will make the plot of the play reach relatively static rational thinking. As to the evaluation of historical figures and historical events, it has offered a kind of explicit and direct services with forces for rational purposes.Usually, what narrative literary and art works pursue should be a form of "imperceptibly-influenced" service. The stiff mixture of over-rational expression with the narrating expression form tends to lead to such unwanted phenomenon, namely, the sense of redundancy, which is true of Zheng qiao's idea on commenting historical documentary books in this respect. Zheng qiao, a great historian in ancient China, held that both positive and negative (the good and evil) sides are worth to be mentioned in the process of commenting on historical records too. Such views are also suitable for the creation of legendary historical dramas too. However, the employment of the gist-of-each-section appraisal in many legendary historical dramas of the Ming Dynasty is unsuitable and farfetched, for instance, its use in the 4th section of "Throwing the Shuttle", a zaju drama, is a typical case.As to the form of the narrative appraisal among the legendary historical plays, its state is rooted in the deeper layer of the art blendability in dramas. With such a form, the author's inclination for appreciation or depreciation can permeate through the narration naturally, so it is a main form of expressing the meaning and the integrated component of the art in narrating legendary historical plays etc., namely, the glamour of art of historical dramas too. This form tends to arouse the audience's emotion and rationality frequently, and then become audience's spontaneous behavioral motive force once it occurs. That is to say, the narrative evaluation is the original status quo of the narrative legendary historical play, an inherent combination of rational thoughts and art, which is lying in the deep structure of dramatic art and elucidates the thought instead of the other way round with the use of art.The above-mentioned analysis indicates that among the three kinds of appraisal modes and methods, for the narrative legendary historical dramas, the evaluation of the marking and narrative type are judged in the light of the features of being "explicit" and "implicit" respectively, which helps not only to determine the nature of the historical figures, but also to strengthen the artistic expression force of historical dramas furthermore, the use of which is to raise the artistic taste of legendary historical dramas. Dealing with them in a natural and vivid way is the basic rule for the application of the above two appraisal modes and methods, so whether the author can cope with it properly is the key to the success of dramatic art, in which the dealing skills in the Ming Dynasty go smooth relatively. It is ideal to handle the degree to the point of avoiding the over-rationalization of the plots of dramas in the process of employing the gist-of-each-section appraisal so that the holistic expression force of dramatic art can be kept intact while the expression of meaning and the enlightening function of dramas are being enforced. In this respect, the over-use of the gist-of-each-section appraisal improperly in some plays of the Ming Dynasty legendary historical dramas once spoiled the aroma of dramatic art.In a word, the rational stipulated form of legendary dramas in compilation style, can judge the historical figures and events effectively, thus achieving the goal of disseminating the historical information and inculcating the historical idea. Such expressive modes and methods of interaction between doctrines and forms can achieve the purpose of evaluating the appreciation and deprecation of historical figures internally and externally by the use of the set of evaluation modes and methods available, thus functioning as "putting forward the good with morality naturally while criticizing the evil". However, such problems as redundancy or predicting-prior-stereotype also occur in the Ming Dynasty legendary historical drama, namely, it contains something positive and negative at the same time. Fortunately, the existing beautiful vocal music in a Chinese opera and fictitious artistic performance form remedy certain defects which are counter-arts.