See The Jiangnan Society Since The Ming And Qing Dynasties From The Traditional Novels Of Suzhou Tanci

Suzhou Tanci is a folk art which spreading widely in Jiangnan region.The center is Suzhou.The story is the most important carrier of the Tanci folk art.Tanci artists select some stories for performance.These stories are come form the popular literatures which are thrving from Late-Ming Dynasty.After a series of artists'performance for many years,a batch of traditional stories which could represent the Tanci folk art being born and inheritance.These stories continued the way of the popular literatures through the Late-Ming dynasty.The social relationship novels and romantic legends had made a clear sign in these stories.At the same time,the Qing dynasty artists had enriched many details from the real world.So the Tanci stories were nice materials which could reflect the social situation,public values and social mentality in Jiangnan region from the Late-Ming to Qing dynasty.The relative similarity of imperial examination?black-and-white and romance subject widespreadly appear coming from the factors of history and society.It means the Tanci stories not only can reflect the public how to judge the official and the gentry,but also can express the ideas and value-oriented about some social situations,such as imperial examination and marriage.Meanwhile,the aritists could bring all the advantages about describing the social relationship into full play in their performance.So these stories also can supplement much more details which we can not see deeply in the historical materials,for example,the describing for folk customs and the public living.Tanci story is a kind of special literature form which includes two aspects—performance and publication.But these two aspects have their own character.The flexible and exquisite describing is the advantage for performance which is better than publising editions.But publising edition form also has it own significance.Because the publication is the carrier of the compiler and publishers' opinions and it is the record of the Tanci performance.Form the publication,we can see the Qing dynasty publishing market situations.It also shows us the government policy how to influence the Tanci folk art in a sort of way.Nevertheless,these two aspects constantly interacted and transformed.For example,there were the more famous performance stories,the more edtions appearing.In the same way,even though the govermant had different inhibit entertainment policies in different time,but performance and publising editions were all being injured.Before the Late-Qing period,the government prohibiting novels and drama books would impair the Tanci performance.But at the Tongzhi period,because of the Tanci performance flourishing,the government prohibition points turned to parts of Tanci stories publication.