How to Read Chinese Drama : : A Guided Anthology / / Regina Llamas, Patricia Sieber.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022 English
• VerfasserIn: Sieber, Patricia,; Llamas, Regina,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Columbia University Press, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: How to Read Chinese Literature
• Physical Description: 1 online resource :; 13 b&w figures

This book is a comprehensive and inviting introduction to the literary forms and cultural significance of Chinese drama as both text and performance. Each chapter offers an accessible overview and critical analysis of one or more plays—canonical as well as less frequently studied works—and their historical contexts. How to Read Chinese Drama highlights how each play sheds light on key aspects of the dramatic tradition, including genre conventions, staging practices, musical performance, audience participation, and political resonances, emphasizing interconnections among chapters. It brings together leading scholars spanning anthropology, art history, ethnomusicology, history, literature, and theater studies.How to Read Chinese Drama is straightforward, clear, and concise, written for undergraduate students and their instructors as well as a wider audience interested in world theater. For students of Chinese literature and language, the book provides questions to explore when reading, watching, and listening to plays, and it features bilingual excerpts. For teachers, an analytical table of contents, a theater-specific chronology of events, and lists of visual resources and translations provide pedagogical resources for exploring Chinese theater within broader cultural and comparative contexts. For theater practitioners, the volume offers deeply researched readings of important plays together with background on historical performance conventions, audience responses, and select modern adaptations.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Thematic contents -- Preface to the how to read Chinese literature series -- A note on how to use this anthology -- Chronology of historical events -- Symbols, abbreviations, and typographical usage -- Introduction: The Cultural Significance of Chinese Drama -- Part I: Yuan and Ming dynasties: Zaju Plays -- 1 The Story of the Western Wing: Tale, Ballad, and Play -- 2 Purple Clouds, Wrong Career, and The Tiger Head Plaque: Jurchen Foreigners in Early Drama -- 3 The Pavilion for Praying to the Moon and The Injustice to Dou E: The Innovation of the Female Lead -- 4 The Story of the Western Wing: Theater and the Printed Image -- 5 The Orphan of Zhao: The Meaning of Loyalty and Filiality -- 6 The Female Mulan Joins the Army in Place of Her Father: Gender and Performance -- Part II Ming Dynasty and Early Qing Dynasty: Nanxi and Chuanqi Plays -- 7 Top Graduate Zhang Xie and The Lute: Scholar, Family, and State -- 8 The Southern Story of the Western Wing (Nan Xixiang) Traditional Kunqu Composition, Interpretation, and Performance -- 9 The Peony Pavilion: Emotions, Dreams, and Spectatorship -- 10 The Green Peony and The Swallow’s Letter: Drama and Politics -- 11 A Much-Desired Match: Playwriting, Stagecraft, and Entrepreneurship -- 12 The Peach Blossom Fan and Palace of Everlasting Life: History, Romance, and Performance -- Part III Mid–Qing Dynasty: Zaju and Chuanqi Plays -- 13 Song of Dragon Well Tea and Other Court Plays: Stage Directions, Spectacle, and Panegyrics -- 14 The Eight-Court Pearl: Performance Scripts and Political Culture -- Part IV Ming, Qing, and Modern Eras: Ritual Plays -- 15 Mulian Rescues His Mother: Play Structure, Ritual, and Soundscapes -- 16 The Story of Hua Guan Suo: Chantefable and Ritual Plays -- Acknowledgments -- Contributors -- Visual resources -- Glossary-index