A Study Of The Narrative Art Of Chuan-Qi Operas In Ming And Qing Dynasties

Chuan-Qi Operas in Ming and Qing Dynasties not only succeed the lyricism and will expression tradition of Chinese poetry, but also embody vivid narrative characteristics in several major style elements, such as theme choosing, plot structure designing, figures making and time-place managing, etc.. Benefiting from both big volume of Chuan-Qi plays reading and the preceding research success, this thesis tries to analyze and unscramble the narrative art of Chuan-Qi Operas systematically, and an organic combination of classic Chinese opera theory and modern narrative theory is also introduced in the process of study. There are five chapters excluded in the thesis:Chapter one will discuss the Narrative theme choosing. We can line up a history of how Chuan-Qi varies in choosing different themes to express the care on civilization, conflict between affection and Confucian reason, thinking on nation's rise and fall, and writer's concern on ordinary people. It also discusses the influence the themes exerts on the narrative structure design and figures making and other elements.Chapter Two focuses on the narrative structure designing and divides the structure of Chuan-Qi as two parts. Physical structure majors in discussing main external prototypes appeared from the plays such as two-line structure and dual structure. Psychological structure pursuits odds and fantasy of plots, which indicates the writer's aesthetic thoughts. What's more, the relationship between two structures certainly affects the styles and features of each play.In Chapter Three the thesis discusses the organization of temporality and place in the scope of narration. Two kinds of time-shapes in Chuan-Qi, story time and plot time, are actually unequal thus the writers can take its advantage to arrange freely the time omission and extension in Time-order, beforehand and backup narration,so that they can embody the free and imaginary characters .All these basic elements affect the rhythm of narration.In Chapter Four, Chuan-Qi takes advantage of many Narrative patterns such as Ghost-dream pattern, coincidence-misunderstanding pattern, and property pattern to narrate the story and provide great help to the play. So we can see the abundant plots with romance, precise structure with logicality and free and imaginary time and place.In the final chapter Five, the thesis mainly probes into Chuan-Qi's characterization. Though the tendency of plots categorization can be favorable in play-creation prosperous, the formation of role categories, and widely accepted by the audience, it can also slide into the result of plot-formulation. Fortunately, Chuan-Qi has paid more attention to emphasizing different characters portraying. Especially lifelike and assemble methods have been used in the creation process so it is a sufficient way to make up the characterization. The thesis also work on the part and role project in the field of narrative so that we can understand how Chuan-Qi can realize their the narrative target through actors'action.