The Comparative Study On Ghost Revenge Drama In China And Britain

Looking over the dramas in various countries, almost all have the ghost role. Among them, the ghost written in Chinese operas and English dramas has become the representatives of the ghost drama on account of the large quantity and high-level artistic standards. By employing the view of categorization, this paper focuses on the most prominent ghost characters in the "ghost revenge drama" as the research object, integrating the criticism methods of parallel study, close reading, social history and psychoanalysis, and trying to discuss deeply as well as systematically in the intercommunity (similarities) and dissimilarities between the two. Moreover, based on the research above, this paper is going to further explore the deeper source of the dissimilarities from the perspective of culture, art, and psychology. On the selection of specific scripts, it centers on the Yuan-zaju, Dou E Yuan, and the British Elizabethan revenge play, Hamlet, also touching upon the dramas with similar type, such as Hou Ting Hua, Sheng Jin Ge, The Spanish Tragedy, and The Antonio's Revenge. There are two mainly reasons for selecting the dramas above:firstly, the Yuan dynasty and the Elizabethan era are the unprecedented flourishing periods of art in China and British, during which the dramas own a high artistic value and research value. Secondly, due to the large quantity of the same type of drama, only those with high artistic achievement, complete reserve and great influence are selected as the specific research objects, by considering the representativeness of the drama and the feasibility of the research.This main body of this paper is divided into the following four parts:Chapter 1 analyzes the internal causes and the external impulses of the creation of ghost roles in the Ghost Revenge Drama from three aspects, the cultural source, the creating motivation and the writing paradigm, laying the foundation for the specific comparative study afterwards.Chapter 2 explores the intercommunity of the ghost roles in the Ghost Revenge Drama from image depicting and role function, discussing the universality, humanization and symbolic meaning of the ghosts, as well as the conformance of ghost roles in plot development, atmosphere building, abstract and concrete description, and life and death study.Chapter 3 also mainly analyzes the dissimilarities from image depicting and role function. It attempts to elucidate the dissimilarities comprehensively and systematically from the social identity, character traits, interpersonal communication, action lines, assistance pattern for revenging and the leading to the revenge result, which helps to precisely grasp the Chinese and British ethnic and cultural traits.Chapter 4 goes to a further analysis on the reasons leading to the dissimilarities above. It digs the culture, art and psychology between the two counties from the cultural elements, esthetic principles and differences of created objects.The Conclusion makes an exploration on the research value and significance of the common literary phenomenon under the different culture, with the basis of emphasizing the comparability of the dramas in the two countries, highlighting the dialogicality of the literature creation and manifesting the uniqueness of the culture. Besides, it puts forward the author's personal views on the existence value of the ghosts in the drama.