Ming And Qing Drama With Garden Culture Studies

In the viewpoint of garden culture, this paper is an interdisciplinary integration research about the drama development and garden culture which are regarded as a whole in Ming and Qing Dynasties. The innovation of this paper is not an interpretation from art and architecture, but a spiritual phenomenon, trying to explain how the gardens in Ming and Qing Dynasties were treated as the poetic dwelling by scholars, why the drama in Ming and Qing Dynasties were conformed to the cultural and aesthetic tastes of scholars, how the opera in gardens and gardens in opera reflected each other in the sense of life and aesthetic spirit of scholars, and how flourish and decline of garden culture affected the drama development in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Thus, the discussion of each chapter was developed by the main line with cultural tradition, historical background, scholars'life inclination and spiritual pursuit.This paper contains five chapters with a preface and a conclusion.The first chapter, titled "the social characteristics and lifestyle of scholars in Ming and Qing Dynasties", reveals the factors of time and cultural background in the synchronous development of the drama and literati garden in Ming and Qing Dynasties.The synchronous development of the drama and garden in Ming and Qing Dynasties is not accidental, which is closely related to the trend of elegant literati life at that time. The atmosphere of elegant literati in Ming and Qing was stronger than that of previous dynasties, which was characterized in obvious regional features. In Ming and Qing Dynasties, the idle rich in literati group were bred by the charming landscape, affluent economy and poetic culture in the South of the Yangzi River. Some of them were tired of official life because of suffering from political pressure, and then indulged in the elegant spices of life. Others were frustrated by the defeat of imperial examination, and then became elegant literati attributing to their strict skill of literature and artistic accomplishments. These elegant literati showed self-indulgence in life and had a consciousness of resisting social system gradually by developing literature and artistic activities in gardens.In Chapter II,"the development of Ming and Qing opera and literati garden culture", the author studies the status of Ming and Qing opera and the development of literati garden culture.Owing to the thorough development in Yuan dynasty, drama strengthened lasting bonds with scholars in Ming and Qing Dynasties. More and more scholars express their ideals and beliefs through drama creation, which affects the aspects of drama in inherent implication and formal system by its aesthetic standard and artistic taste. In this way, drama itself changes in nature-from the vulgar art of urban column hook to the elegant arts contained scholar's ideals and taste. At the same time, with the popular craze of designing and building gardens, combined with the traditional previous and cultural situation at that time, the scholars of Ming and Qing Dynasties introduced the colorful world into the landscape of mountain-water garden by using particular artistic originality so as to hide the historic and cultural system in it. Finally it completed the aesthetic pattern of the classical garden art. To the scholars in Ming and Qing Dynasties, choosing beautiful scenery and collecting songs were the important contents in their life and mixing both together was the ideal realm for their desire. In the lead of scholars' taste, the drama performance in urban was transferred to private and niche locations. Therefore, the drama began to step into private gardens in scholars'life. Kun Opera was bred from scholars'private gardens, and drama performance style altered from noise to calmness. Under the push of drama performance in scholars'private gardens, Ming and Qing's drama achieved unprecedented rapid development. Thus the scholars'gardens were participated in the formation of drama art as the resource and symbol of eco-drama in Ming and Qing Dynasties and the drama's development has firmly rooted into Chinese garden culture.Chapter â…¢ "dramas in gardens" and Chapter IV "gardens in dramas" discuss the relationship between drama art and garden culture in Ming and Qing Dynasties based on the literati subjective spirit and aesthetic taste.The drama performance in Ming and Qing gardens had distinctive literati features. As far as the main performance location is considered, the scholars usually chose private gardens instead of staying with townspeople at stores and canteens, which contained the identity and cultural confirmation. On the aspect of the main performance types, we see that there were four types:self-entertainment in leisure, garden gathering in social, auspicious celebration and filial piety. In those things like the above-mentioned, the aesthetic function, recreational function, social function and ritual function of drama performance were brought out fully by composition, appreciation, direction and performance of Ming and Qing scholars. On the aspect of the literati taste, the tune of Ming and Qing scholars most favorite was Kun Opera, the most popular subject of repertoire in literati private gardens were romance dramas, ritual dramas and literati original dramas. These sorts of characteristics had gradually deposited the way of performance and aesthetic norms that exclusively belong to the literati hierarchy.Scholar gardens were the places that contained literati consciousness of life and aesthetic soul in the cultural society. By participating the drama performance in gardens for a long time, Ming and Qing scholars had developed a parallel system about garden literature. Therefore, garden imagery began to enter the literati dramas. In the narration and lyric in drama works, the mental structure and cultural connotations of literati gardens were emphasized constantly. In the writing of garden dramas, literati garden was increasingly far from being physical space and deposited a spiritual symbol through the transformation between reality and imagination in scholar conscious world.Chapter V takes "North-South gardens'vicissitudes and North-South dramas' development" as its title, with scholars'garden and royal garden as an example, trying to study the growth and decline of drama in Ming and Qing.In the late Qianlong period, scholars began to return to there studies from gardens so as to concentrate on their academic career. Their pursuit of life and value orientation also changed. Social intercourse in the middle of literati hierarchy altered from recreation and entertainment to academic exchange. As a result, literati garden culture and their elegant lifestyle had declined gradually since the Mid-Ming Dynasty in Jiang Nan region of China, and the influence exerted by scholars to development of drama had weakened greatly. At the same time, drama performance in northern royal palaces and gardens was booming. The refined and popular tastes of the palace aristocrats led the melody of dramas. From late Qianlong period to Daoguang period in Qing Dynasty, the local dramas had flourished in Beijing theatrical circle, meanwhile it entered northern royal palaces and gardens solemnly. In the course of vicissitudes and transformation between North-South gardens culture, Peking Opera replaced Kun Opera and sang loudly in northern royal palaces and gardens. It indicates that a new era for Chinese drama was coming. From Jiangnan literati gardens to northern royal palaces and gardens, North-South gardens exerted a crucial influence on the vicissitudes of the Ming and Qing drama through drama participants and the existence condition.Conclusion:As a kind of comprehensive art, Chinese drama has been promoted by the joint force coming from the contradiction and the integration among all sectors and various cultural elements in the society. So we can not simply attribute the development of garden culture to the vicissitudes of Ming and Qing dramas. Although the literati garden's vicissitudes could not completely determine the trend of the development of Ming and Qing dramas, it somehow reflected the transformations of Chinese dramas' singing principles. Therefore, based on the discussion of literati garden culture in Ming and Qing Dynasties, we see some aspects of the drama development in details with the literati garden culture as a peculiar perspective.