A Study On The Comment On The Western Chamber In Qing Dynasty

As far as the found documents till today, The West Chamber, may be one of the earliest literature and drama works that selected to the field of criticism by punctuating and annotating. Earliest criticisms to The West Chamber appeared in Wanli era, Ming Dynasty, and disappeared at the end of Qing Dynasty. It was an epitome for criticism to Chinese ancient drama. It will help us to understand ancient drama criticism clearly and deeply by grasping the feature of punctuation and annotation to this works. Unfortunately, so far almost all scholars centered on criticisms in Ming Dynasty. In Qing Dynasty only Jin Shengtan’s The sixth Talented Scholar’s West Chamber was fully discussed and expounded. Therefore, this thesis will make a comprehensive investigation to the real situation of the criticisms on The West Chamber, especially works besides Jin Shengtan’s, and use proper theoretical thought, which was based on objective history, to make detailed analysis and just comments on criticisms by punctuating and annotating in Qing Dynasty.The thesis is made up of Introduction, ArticleⅠand ArticleⅡ.Introduction makes a definition for punctuation and annotation, and describes the background of it to The West Chamber in Qing Dynasty. As for the former, the thesis points out that collation is another presentation of criticism in certain circumstances on the basis of understanding criticism as a combination of literary comments and punctuation. Even adaptation in some criticism versions is also an important assistive method to criticism. As for the latter, firstly it describes the development of criticism to The West Chamber in Ming Dynasty, then analyzes it in four angles:intension, method, content and aesthetic features of criticism. Then it draws the conclusion that criticism of Ming Dynasty, which originated from the intension of entertainment, gradually made a steady criticism method. This made narration the center of criticism and reality the main aesthetic pursuing.There are five chapters in Article I. It’s a general probe to Qing Dynasty’s criticism to The West Chamber in different angles, which are the same ones that used to investigate Ming Dynasty’s criticisms in Introduction. This distinguishes the great change of time sequence, so as to embody the unique value of criticism in Qing Dynasty.Chapter 1 makes a general view to Qing Dynasty’s criticism to The West Chamber. It investigates each criticism version of The West Chamber of Qing Dynasty in the angle of document analyzing. These versions could be brought into earlier stage, middle stage and later stage by time sequence. There are more criticism versions in the earlier stage and this made it a prosperous age that created various criticism versions include The Sixth talented scholar’s book. But they declined in the middle stage and later stage. And in these eras all researchers selected The Sixth talented scholar’s book as the original version. The most different feature in document is that all criticism versions are made by scholars’own research independently. This makes them the carrier of scholars’thought.Chapter 2 is made as the research for the subjective intension when criticizing behavior happened. There are five intensions from which Qing Dynasty scholars used to criticize Western Chamber, as follows:(1) thoughts expressing; (2) detailed methods teaching; (3) arising of nihilistic thoughts; (4) document sorting; (5) performing on stage. All those intensions are very practical though there are great differences between them. In criticism to The West Chamber at this stage, with popular taste diminishing, this works was gradually pushed from original narrow path of drama and adopted as one of elegant works.Chapter 3 makes a research to the methods of Qing Dynasty’s criticism to The West Chamber by investigating concrete path along which criticism carried out. Inheriting achievements from Ming Dynasty, scholars in Qing Dynasty use different criticism methods in different intensions, such as commenting mode that used by criticism versions that pay attention to subjective opinions, sorting mode used by relevant versions that pay more attention to documents sorting, etc. A criticizing and correcting mode was used by a unique version that cared about stage life of The West Chamber. In practice of those methods, Qing Dynasty’s scholars made the external form more complete and precise, and widened the scope to comment on texts from different angles. This enriched criticizing methods and made a splendid legacy.Chapter 4 is the research into theoretical achievements of criticizing The West Chamber. Different from other field of criticism in Qing Dynasty, The West Chamber was defined to a works as formal as ancient mode articles or eight-part essays. Almost in all criticism versions except Stage Performance of The West Chamber, critics would firstly illuminate sensitive content to make it following rules of etiquette, so as to embody a civilized and serious thought like other formal literatures. On the basis of this, critics turned to the main topic and made further narration understanding, then positively probe the works’ guiding function to formal essay writing. Then they got some practical writing techniques. Chapter 5 is the research to aesthetic features of Western Chamber criticisms. It embodied obvious systematic features both in intrinsic comments and in external forms. A perceptual and lingering style of writing language was gradually replaced by a rational and precise one, which was the mainstream of aesthetic feature. With changes of age and public moral, elegance of Qing Dynasty took the place of reality in Ming Dynasty and became the aesthetic pursuing of criticisms to The West Chamber. There are intrinsic connections between these aesthetic features and theoretical achievements. Their integration indicated that criticism to Western Chamber, as a literary criticism, was highly developed at that time.ArticleⅡ, which include four chapters, makes specific study to four criticism versions which have high value for literary criticisms but attracted less attention of academia normally.Chapter 1 researches into Zhu Lu’s the West Chamber criticized by Zhu Jingzhao. It firstly investigated all this unrecorded author’s life from clues provided by this criticism version itself, so as to deduce when this book was written. As the version used plenty of comments from Jin Shengtan’s The West Chamber, this part analyzes theoretical achievements of Zhu Lu’s version by a comparative study between his version and Jin’s, and then we draw the conclusion that his version established a writing theory, which made writing structure as its center. If we put this conclusion together with its spirit of valuing rules of etiquette and pursuing for elegance in language style, it could explain that the style of criticisms to The West Chamber in Qing Dynasty was taking shape quickly in that period.Chapter 2 makes a research to Dai Wenshan’s Criticism to The West Chamber. At the first part of the chapter we deduces the life of this unknown critic, and finds his consciousness of The Western Chamber’s theme, which was mentioned as "changing but insisting on its central thought", closely related to his unique life. Furthermore, this thesis analyzes this criticizing version’s aesthetic pursuing for "properness", and some of The West Chamber’s writing techniques could be utilized in writing eight-part essays in this version.Chapter 3 researches into Mao Xihe’s Criticism to The West Chamber. Firstly we make a further analysis to Mao Xihe’s criticizing behavior by the materials including his life. Then we detailedly discuss two of Mao’s main methods to comment literary works, which were called "to prove drama by drama" and "to analyze drama by drama", and point out the two methods as a performance of Mao’s spirit of "concrete study", so as to discourse his criticism to Jin Shengtan’s version. The specific achievements that Mao’s version got in documentary and literary research are discussed in the last part.Chapter 4 makes a research to Stage Performance of The West Chamber written by Li Shuyun and other authors. Firstly we carry out a textual research to the four critics’life and how they undertake their divided work. Through the textual research to Li Shulou, we clarify various opinions and draw the conclusion that he and Li Shuyun are actually the same one. Then we focus on the fact that this version held to analyzing The West Chamber in the angle of stage performance, even in the background that the most scholars viewed it as formal articles, and in order that we dissect the unique artistic pursue of this version.