Huang Xie Qing Drama Study

In the literary world of the early 19^th century, Huang Xieqing, who wrote great deal of poems and plays, is a quite remarkable figure. His Seven Operas of Yi Qing Pavilion, Yu Tai Qiu, Ling Bo Ying are the most famous works known to us all. These nine plays were quite a hits in the playhouse of that time when legend and drama wring were not so popular as the past periods and even were going the way backwards, so they also had very important influence upon the play writing of later times. Therefore, it is of great importance to study his plays as to help us have a general idea about writers'mentality in late Qing dynasty and about the development of literature at that time.The first part of this thesis focuses on the historical background of Huang's time, and discusses the prevalent and representative writing states of the men of letters under that background. Late Qing Dynasty is a special and complicated period when the majority of literary men suffered harassments in their inner hearts from both national hardship and governmental troubles. Under the cruel realities, a great many of literary men started to take their own special ways to explore the society and its people. Huang Xieqing, as a member of those men, wrote his plays with a worrying heart and the intention to help rescuing the society.The second part, taking the view of arts and ideology, examines thoroughly Huang Xieqing's personal life and his play writing. Huang, who always wanted to succeed in political circle, did not forget providing remedies to the world for a moment, even when he could not hold a post in his late years because of illness. He participated the official selecting examinations for six times, and wrote legends to awaken people nationwide as well as to advise the government to pay attention to common people's sufferings. His thinking mode made he write in the most refined and standard way of the ancient dynasties. Of course, this refined and standard way of writing both in the art sense and in the content, owns its credit to Huang's habitude as a man of letter and to his profound ability of poem and opera writings.At the end of this thesis, characteristics and tendencies of Huang's play writing are generalized, some ideologies in his works are cleared up, and a summary is provided.