Showing Cantonese Features,narrating Familiar Events And Interpreting Sadness

The Cantonese dulcimer is a form of folk music from the linguistic region of Guangdong.In the early days,the Cantonese dulcimer score recorded not only the tunes but also the lyrics of the songs.It is the result of the fusion and innovation of Chinese opera,foreign literature and art with the popular culture of Guangdong,and has become a common cultural memory and a carrier of cultural identity for the people of Guangdong because of its openness and wide dissemination.Based on the support of Li Yu’s opera theories,this paper examines the traditional and regional characteristics of the lyrics of the cantonese dulcimer published between 1916 and1939 through a close reading of the text,contrast and historical tracing.This paper focuses on three questions: what to sing,how to sing,and what to singing out.From the perspective of the content of the lyrics,we focus on the events described in the lyrics and classifiles the sources of the stories in Cantonese opera lyrics.From the perspective of expression form of the lyrics.The paper dissects the narrative and lyrical modes of the lyrics of the Cantonese dulcimer,analyzing how the characters and plots work in the lyrics,and focusing on linguistic expression.Finally,we explore the formation,identification,and internalization of the "Yue" quality in the lyrics of Cantonese dulcimer on the basis of folk carnival and communication theories.This paper argues that there are two main sources of the lyrics of Cantonese dulcimer:first,they are mostly based on classical Chinese literature,mainly folk tales from mythology and realistic folk tales,literary stories from historical biographies,and in addition to these two categoreis,the adaptaions of classical texts such as novels,poems,and dramas;second,a few of them contain ideology from foreign religions,such as Buddhism and Christianity,and absorb Western folk tales to express reflections on the society at that time.Besides,the Cantonese dulcimer lyrics follow the tradition of opera composition in narrative,using a single plot as the backbone of the story,shaping typical characters,making emotional expressions figurative and superficial in various ways,such as using allusions,rhetoric,rhyme,and scattered panels,focusing on people and reality,and basing on sadness as the main emotional tone.Finally,The paper analyzes the whole production process of the cantonese dulcimer lyrisc,finding that:the lyrics takes shape from drawing on forms and content and incorporating local scenery and news etc.;The conscious use of offcial language and Cantonese dialect in composition and singing reflects the soical groups’ recognition of the cantonese dulcimer;From the perspective of dissemination result,the cantonese dulcimer lyrics is compatible with elegance and popularity as well as popular at home and abroad,and have been passed down to nowadays,because its openness enables it to keep pace with time and breaks the boundaries of time and space,becoming the common cultural memory of cantonese dialect speakers.The uniqueness of Cantonese dulcimer lyrics lies in its fusion of various cultures and the inheritance of traditional national characteristics.And its openness,which transcends traditional opera and other forms of literature and art,making it penetrating beyond classes and time in the face of modernization.This characteristic is the core expression of the regional character of Cantonese dulcimer lyrics,in addition to language and content.