Study On Sun Yu-A Dramatist In The Early Qing Dynasty

As a unknown dramatist in the early Qing Dynasty, Sun Yu’s drama works have a certain significance in the whole drama history. This thesis focuses on the textual research of Sun Yu’s birth year, style names, pseudonyms, native place, friends and works, and the discussion of his theory of poetic and traditional opera. At the same time, the ideological content, artistic features and influences on the later plays of Three Kinds of Legend of Shuyutang are analyzed and explored.This thesis is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, Sun Yu’s birth year, native place, style names, pseudonyms, family, life story and friends are investigated and verified. The textual research of his native place is mainly based on the inconsistent records of the present works, for many scholars directly regard the ancient place names, such as Weibo, Wulu, Tianxiong, etc, as the native place of Sun Yu. The textual research of the style names and pseudonyms focuses on "Xueya" and "Youhan", investigating which is his style name and which is his pseudonym, and the nuptial issue of sharing the alias "Sumenxiaolv" with Li Yu, a contemporary dramatist. Besides, it also differentiates the style names and pseudonyms which are actually not belong to him, such as "Heshuoqishi", "Tianxiong" and "Xuelan". The family history research inferences the family environment Sun Yu grew up in, based on the short records in the local chronicles about his father, Sun Zhiwu. The life story research separates his life as exam phase, travel phase, officer phase, drama phase, etc, among which the striking features, like residence outside the city and hospitable disposition, are specially related. The friends research mainly investigates the reviewers who were related in his legendary works and his friends who wrote the inscriptions and prefaces for him. The second chapter is about research of his works and his theory of poetic, literary and traditional opera. The research of his works is mainly about the source of name and the spread of manuscript of Three Kinds of Legend of Shuyutang. His theory of poetic mainly derives from the introduction of Sun Yu in Hundreds of Famous Poems by Wei Xian, and the theory of literary is scattered in Zhenjiangtang Anthology by Wei Xian. The theory of drama mainly aimed at the thoughts in Fanli, which was written before Shuangyupei and Tianbao Song History, mainly including the system theory, subject theory and performance theory. The third chapter analyzes the ideological content and artistic features of Three Kinds of Legend of Shuyutang. As to the ideological content, this thesis talks about Sun Yu’s legendary talent, the ideological content and characters of Three Kinds of Legend of Shuyutang. As to the artistic characteristics, it mainly analyzes art of language, art of plot and the art of scene. The fourth chapter gives the inheritance of later dramatists to Sun Yu’s legendary works and the influences of the opera works with the same theme on the performance and communication of Sun Yu’s legends, mainly about the inheritance and influences of Palace of Eternal Life and Tianbao Song History, and Fuhutao and Embroidery curtain lamp.