Moving Between Great And Little Traditions

Traditional notion goes that traditional opera belongs to popular literature and thus traditional opera culture is a kind of popular culture. However, it turns to be one-dimensional if the cultural essence of traditional operas is to be explored from the perspective of the integration of the real surviving situation of Chinese classical operas and inner cultural spirit and artistic characteristics in traditional opera. In fact, classical traditional opera is not only a component of Chinese culture but also serves as the major vehicle for Chinese culture. The popular culture is solely one of its features that include permeation of rich Confucianism as well as elegancy of Chinese classical art. This thesis thereby blends the notion of "Great and Little traditions" in the theoretical framework of anthropology, integrates such theoretical resources as popular culture and folk culture, orients at historical studies on traditional operas, and combines mechanisms like traditional opera adapting and traditional opera prohibition and destruction in an attempt to illustrate the surviving state, cultural essence and functions, artistic features of Chinese classical opera and to reveal the positioning of Chinese classical opera in traditional culture. The paper consists of three parts:introduction, body and conclusion. The introduction presents the research background of the subject. This part consists of the proposal of the concept of Great and Little traditions, different interpretations when the cultural analytic tool is utilized, the aim and theme of the research in the paper, the status quo of existing researches, major sources of references, analytic framework and research methods etc.Chapter one describes and analyzes the multi-dimensional moving features of traditional operas and the influence on artistic characteristics brought by the moving features. The multi-dimensional moving features are double-layered, i.e. literature and art plus external survival. The layer of literature and art manifests itself by "moving of the majority" in traditional opera activities and "the moving of stages" in traditional opera performance. In the meantime, the layer of external survival exhibits in "the moving between regions","the moving among social strata" and "the moving of functions". The "moving of the majority" reveals the phenomenon of traditional opera s moving among the social strata in ancient society; The "the moving of stages" exerts far-reaching influence on such aesthetic features of traditional opera as being visual and impressionistic, formulism along with consummate skills including singing, acting, recitation and acrobatics. The "moving between regions" not only influences the formation of unique artistic style and features of traditional opera, but also depicts exceedingly vibrant vitality of traditional opera; The difficulties during "moving among social strata" have shaped the rich and exquisite traditional opera culture; and "the moving of functions" reflects the changes of social functions of traditional opera activities.Chapter two statically analyzes the essence and positioning of Chinese opera culture. As the major vehicle of traditional culture, on the one hand, traditional opera culture contains Great tradition and Little tradition synchronously; on the other hand, traditional opera culture also contains the converging content and common ground between Great tradition and Little tradition. Hence, traditional opera is unable to be categorized into the Great or the Little tradition. Instead, it is the "intermediate stage" between the two. In this sense, it shows the unique cultural essence and individuality of classical traditional opera.Chapter three aims to research on the surviving situation of the mobility of traditional opera. That traditional opera move between Great and Little traditions has two layers of meaning——In terms of cultural conception, traditional opera plays duet of loftiness and recreation while with regard to aesthetic taste and style, traditional operas are capable of suiting both refined and popular tastes. Probing into the reasons for surviving conditions of traditional opera mobility, the author of the thesis finds that it is the relation between literati and artists that dominates the mobility track of traditional opera. Chapter four investigates surviving mechanism of traditional opera’s mobility from the perspective of traditional opera adapting, together with traditional opera prohibition and destruction. Traditional opera adapting shows the process of blending and permeating between Great and Little traditions while opera prohibition and destruction and anti-prohibition-and-destruction depict that Great and Little traditions have been vying with each other for survival. The complication of traditional opera prohibition and destruction and the lofty motif of traditional opera adapting jointly create flexible space. In other words, it is the conspiracy between the mentioned two that establishes regular "mobility mechanism" of traditional opera.Conclusion, makes a summary of core view in the paper:traditional opera is an intermediate state moving between Great and Little traditions.