On The Origin Of The Three Kingdoms Plays In Beijing Opera

When seeing the title On the Origin of the Three Kingdoms Plays in Beijing Opera, people may think we are discussing The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Actually, that is not the case By comparing with the Three Kingdoms Plays in Beijing Opera and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, we have found that some of the Three Kingdoms Plays in Beijing Opera are not from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. For example, Ma Lianliang’s Libretto in Prosperity Brought by the Dragon and the Phoenix: “A roar at the Dangyang Bridge broke down the bridge and caused the water flowback.” There are many such cases in the Three Kingdoms Plays in Beijing Opera. And these are what we are discussing in the thesis.The thesis is divided into five parts:The introduction briefly analyzed the past research on the Three Kingdoms Plays in Beijing Opera(hereinafter referred to as TKPBO) as well as the innovation.The first chapter defined the origin of the TKPBO. According to the research status, this chapter clarifies the research object — that the TKPBO are not from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and states the research methods, that is through text comparison and restoration, the thesis tries to find the development course of the TKPBO, and combs its development in folk, so as to provide some insight into the Three Kingdoms Plays in Beijing Opera.The second chapter discusses some TKPBO which are not from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Before the emergence of TKPBO, there had been operas rehearsing the Three Kingdoms stories, which provide reference for the TKPBO. Although The Romance of the Three Kingdoms fully absorbed the essence of previous operas by blending much content into the fiction, some contents are abandoned in the process of absorption. Hence, some TKPBO still skip The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and directly adopt some essence of previous operas, such as the form of operas and the structure of stories. Through specific textual analysis of plays such as Yellow Crane Tower, Rolling down the Drum Mountain, Beheading Diao Chan in the Moonlight, Lu Su Asking for Strategies, this chapter tries to find their origins.The third chapter mainly discusses some plays which adopt plots in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms but details from folklore. Although some stories have developed to a certain scale in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, they are varied in the TKPBO with new choices. Through details such as “The bridge is roared broken and the water flows back”, Zhang Fei “bets for the seal with his head”, we aim to identify the deeper origin of TKPBO.The fourth chapter mainly analysis the two reasons why TKPBO don’t originate from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms: secularity and customary. By analyzing plays of Guan Yu and Liu Bei, the thesis reveals the inner world of ordinary people at that time, and tries to illustrate that concepts are part of our heritage. And customary is an important rule for operas. The customary of fork art on plots, details and concepts reflects the deep connotation of operas.