Study On The "Handan Dream"

Tang Xianzu (1550-1616), assumed name"Yi Reng", "Hai Ruo", "Jian Weng". Native of LinChuan, JiangXi province. He created five kinds of tales of marvels and more than two thousands of articles and poetries. "Yu Ming Tang four dreams" is his main achievement. This thesis studies on the "The Handan Dream" which is the last part of "Yu Ming Tang four dreams" comprehensively. Its contents included three parts.The first section of part one makes a comparative analysis between "Pillow Note" and "The Handan Dream" in the circumstances of the design, character structure, and language style. Tang Xianzu's "The Handan Dream" not only developed the idea of the "Pillow Note", but also expressed its own meaning. The second section combed the transmutations of the allusion of "huangliang dream" which described in the "Pillow Note", "The Huangliang dream" and "The Handan Dream". The different works which concerned about the same theme in different periods reflected the social outlook and social trends of thought in these times. The third section studies on the value conception of the ancient scholars. Most of them underwent the three courses of pursuit, pain and wake up. Their ideal life mode is to make a living wandering from place to place with their sword when they young, to be officials in the feudal bureaucrat rank in their middle age, to live in seclusions when they were old and retired.The second chapter studies on the drama concept of Tang Xianzu and his changes of creative thinking which can be showed from the drama "The Purple Hairpin" and "The Handan Dream". Tang Xianzu hoped the spirit can join with love, which is his literature intention and aesthetic ideal. The love is the power which can change people, and is the crucial factor because of which, literature emerged and passed down. The concept showing in Tang Xianzu's drama is that the love leaded to the dream, and then the dream leaded to the drama. In other words, he wrote the dream by love, and showed the kinds of life questions by the dream. At last, the love and the dream become the drama. From the drama "The Purple Hairpin" and "The Handan Dream", lasting for about eleven years, it showed the changes of Tang Xianzu's life concept, world view and value concept. With the changing of recognizing the life and the world, Tang Xianzu's aesthetic has changed. We think the social thought and culture thought has some influence on Tang Xianzu.Part three studies on the performance of "The Handan Dream" and its significance to our modern time. It has been performed again and again since the drama was finished. This demonstrated its success doubtlessly. In Ming and Qing dynasty, "The Handan Dream" mainly presented itself to the audience with the form of the highlight from opera. The highlights from opera which have been performed on the platform of Kun opera include SaoHua, SanZui, FanEr, YunYang, XianYuan and so on. But the whole Handan Dream was not performed by the Shanghai Kun dramatic group until 2005.Nowadays, many people consider the pursuit of money as their main task in the market economy, so do intellectuals. They can't immerse themselves in the academics any more. So, to them, the concept of not seeking the fame and wealth too excessively hidden in "The Handan Dream" has some significance.