A Study On Meng Chengshun’s Opera Theory

The opera theory of Meng Chengshun, which is mainly contained by five articles such as The Preface of Ancient and Modern lyrics, The Preface of Ancient and Modern Opera Selections, The Inscription of Zhenwen Biography, The Inscription of Jiaohong Biography, The Inscription of Wu Zixu and Shen Baoxu Biography, and649pieces of comments about operas, is a precious wealth in the history of Chinese traditional opera theory and ideology. The theory of the points in-depth, is not clear and logical, but has already formed the basic system of the opera theory and ideology. This paper mainly studies the three aspects of opera theory and ideology about Meng ChenShun, that is, the theory of Emotional and rational, the theory of distinctive character and the theory of style.The first chapter of article mainly discusses background about opera creation and opera theory of Late-Ming. Firstly, describe the summary of opera creation of Late-Ming, which is mainly including two strands of creative thought that is,romantic trend and realism trend. Secondly describe the summary of traditional opera theory and ideology of Late-Ming. In this period, there were many opera theoreticians such as Wang Shizhen, Tang Xianzu, Xuwei and so on,who created lots of theory works.The second chapter mainly describes the careers and opera creation of Meng Chengshun. There are two sections in this chapter. In the first section, describe the life stories of Meng Chengshun, knowing that he is an upright man and his learning is profound and immense, which would be profit for his Opera review. In the second section, describe his opera creation.Chapter three is a key part, where discusses his opera theory and ideology about Emotional and rational. Firstly describes his understanding about the origin of the emotion. Secondly, discuss the emotional connotation, which is both inheritance, and innovation.He inherited the emotional thought of Tang Xianzu, and brought forth new ideas. Last but not list, discuss his perspective about the relationship between emotional and rational.Chapter four mainly discusses his theory of distinctive character. In the first section, describe his view about literary form and his view about opera. In the second section, discuss his theory of distinctive character. Last but not list, describe how to make distinctive character come true.The fifth chapter discusses his theory of style. Firstly, describe the details of his theory of style. Secondly, discuss the methods when he do some criticism about style.