A Study On The Issue Of "Peony Pavilion"

The Peony Pavilion, once published and disseminated, has become an immortal masterpiece with household name, and has been enjoying a high status in the history of Chinese drama and Chinese literature. Even after it is being performed on the stage, it has also held its artistic value and reputation, “almost devaluing the West Chamber” in the literary world. Since its birth into the world, oceans of commentaries in the form of prefaces and postscripts and other forms of inscription during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, centering on The Peony Pavilion, have come into being, written by their special creatively literary groups and readers. With these commentaries and its own text, the drama The Peony Pavilion has been disseminated widely from generation to generation, holding its text on more profound implication and significance, and even enjoying a much more enduring vitality. These prefaces and postscripts about the drama, differing from other theatrical forms of commentaries, with long or short articles, have transformed into and widely circulated as the independent forms of text dissemination beyond the printed texts. These forms of prefaces and postscripts, comment on The Peony Pavilion from so different perspectives as to deconstruct, investigate into and even enrich the ideological content of the original text of the Peony Pavilion, naturally constructing new text criticism paradigm on their own.As commentary texts perfectly reattached to the texts of the drama itself, in the Ming and Qing dynasties a large number of different forms of prefaces and postscripts centering on the Peony Pavilion brought into their birth and came into surge, reflecting the profound impact of the Peony Pavilion on people’s aesthetic sense and ethical awareness. These different forms of prefaces and postscripts combining into the criticism system of prefaces and postscripts to the Peony Pavilion, may well investigate the ideological content of the drama of itself, or focus on drama theory of the text, or deconstruct the artistic value of original works, covering a wide range of the text, with their distinct forms of eclectic, self-contained wordings, thus naturally and successfully constructing a complete system of critical discourse. The prefaces and postscripts of the original text of the Peony Pavilion, in the process deconstruction and re-review, not only make their efforts to restore the idea of artistic value inherent in the works itself, but also through a multi-dimensional perspective, to different degrees, to amplify the dissemination and impact of the Peony Pavilion. In ancient China, as drama classics with the perfect combination of high stage value and literary art, the Peony Pavilion has turned itself into a unique artistic content with timeless idea. Especially supported and driven by its prefaces and prescripts, it has evolved into the indispensable historical document of Chinese classical drama, attracting today’s people to explore into its permanent value beyond time and space.On the basis of the deeper research on these forms of commentaries, it can follow that the criticism system of prefaces and prescripts to the Peony Pavilion has been conducting interactive dialogues between their drama criticism and the text body of the drama, even between their critical articles and books. It is such a powerful force inherent in the criticism system of prefaces and prescripts that has been promoting a sound circulation of the dissemination of the text of the Peony Pavilion, and has been profoundly exerting influence on the later-formed drama creation and criticism theories directly aiming at researching the Peony Pavilion. Survey or research on the unique criticism system of prefaces and prescripts to the Peony Pavilion is then to further increase awareness of drama criticism with reflection and reinterpretation, to contribute to the dissemination of the value of drama itself, for the sake of the more comprehensive light thrown on phenomenon of Chinese drama and literature in the cultural context of the prosperous dimension of the prefaces and prescripts to specific drama in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and in turn on the important theoretic support of these unique criticism theories.