Kunqu Opera And Status Discourse Expression Of Literati In Jiangnan Area In Late Ming Dynasty

Exploring the development of Kunqu Opera, the academia indicates that its origin dates back to Nanqu Opera and Zaju Drama of Song and Yuan Dynasties. In early and middle Ming Dynasty, the situation of official rites and music went through a transition from steadiness and quiescence to noise and disorder. The Great Rites Controversy of Jiajing period reconstituted the order of aulic rites and then gave rise to the forming of Kunqu Opera, which reached its peak in Jiangnan Area in late Ming Dynasty. Kunqu Opera constituted unique cultural space, demonstrating its ceremonial and status discourse functions. From being composed to appreciated, Kunqu Opera became the exclusive entertainment of the literati class. As an elegant art carnival, the joint performance in Huqiu historically approved the resplendence of Kunqu Opera in Jiangnan Area in late Ming Dynasty.Qi Biaojia was a typical representative of literati in Jiangnan Area in late Ming Dynasty. His whole life had an affinity with Kunqu Opera, which was an important means to express his status discourse. The marriage between Qi Biaojia and his wife Shang Jinglan connected the Qi Family of Shanyin and the Shang Family of Kuaiji, through which a perfect pair was formed and their families’ local status was further promoted. The Qi Family’s cultural tradition along with Danshengtang Library accumulated profound cultural atmosphere of Kunqu Opera, making significant effects on Qi Biaojia. Kunqu Opera played an important part in the Qi Family’s daily life. There were frequent Kunqu performances in the family, and activities like the operas played for promise fulfillment proved its family culture order as well as style and features. Qi Biaojia mainly finished his Kunqu-related work in Yuanshangtang Study Room and Yuyuan Garden, and besides the corporeal space there was intangible space formed at the meantime. Through the composing and recomposing of scenarios like Story of Pure Reputation and Fish Buddha, Qi Biaojia also expressed his allegories and appraisals of the current social affairs then. Out of concern about the heritage of high culture, Qi Biaojia wrote Appreciations of Kunqu Opera in Yuanshantang, and expressed his values and views on the function of opera. Qi Biaojia’s interpersonal circles were formed based on the belt of Kunqu in a manner. He showed the pursuit of opera profession and his elegant interest through the interaction with dramatists. He watched performances with relatives and friends, and there generally formed stable peer groups in the literati circle. Qi Biaojia read Kunqu scenarios, made comments on the plots and also revealed his mentality as an officer. Qi Biaojia held different attitudes towards Kunqu Opera in different aspects. On the one hand, he enjoyed appreciating the performances, through which accomplished the turning of his mindset from the offcial affairs to seclusion. But on the other hand, his supported the government’s measures of abolishing playactors with the initiative of social ethos indoctrination. Ultimately, these were all Qi Biaojia’s status discourses which based on his characters as an officer and a country gentleman. Qi Biaojia participated few Kunqu activities in his last years of life, and gone were the thriving occasions of the past, which reflected Qi Biaojia’s impasse and the end of Jiangnan society in late Ming Dynasty.