Historicizing Chinese drama: The power and politics of Yuan zaju

Traditional studies of Yuan drama tended to focus either on mere textual analysis or on a sort of vague sociological connection while ignoring drama as primarily a performing art. In view of this, the dissertation proposes to examine the power and politics of Yuan zaju by looking at its materiality: its social functions and its interactions with various cultural components.; The study first explores in theory the various social aspects of popular drama in general and then Yuan zaju in particular as a way to demonstrate the necessity of evaluating the power and politics of Yuan drama. The theoretical explication of the social characteristics of Yuan drama is followed by an examination of Yuan zaju in various aspects. In Chapter Three, the topic of Yuan zaju as voices of political protest is renegotiated in the light of communication theory of encoding/decoding, particularly the encoding process of drama, to demonstrate the subversive function of Yuan drama. In connecting satirical plays with the dramatic tradition of satire and remonstrance and with the social reality, I hope to observe the plays' use of tradition in their specific situation to convey satirical elements; and in comparing the history plays with the historical records and the Yuan reality, I try to show the political significances in their discrepancies. In Chapter Four, I discuss the relationship between Yuan zaju and religion. In comparing different presentations of the concept of xiao (filial piety) in a play, in a story from Ershisi xiao (Twenty-Four Exemplary Cases of Filial Piety) and in a historical incident, I try to tease out a sort of "social energy" at work in fashioning the concept of filial piety during the Yuan. For Taoist conversion plays, on the other hand, I intend to see their emphasis and then to explain the reason why they want to show the might and force of Taoism in that historical context. Chapter Five deals with the presentation of women. Here I make use of cinefeminist theory of male gaze in film making and the issue of body and subject to investigate two plays where the portrayal of women lends itself to feminist reading. Related to the gender issue is a sort of discursive conflict between reason and emotion on the part of the spectator/readers. Applying Bakhtin's theory of heteroglossia to an analysis of the language used in the two Yuan plays in question, I explain the reason for the discursive conflict in terms of a realistic portrayal of languages employed by the literati and the merchants.; By uncovering the various roles Yuan zaju played and sorting out the dynamic relationships between Yuan zaju and other political and cultural institutions, I conclude the study by a brief discussion of the reason for the blossoming of theater during the Yuan.