On Qing Court Tribute-themed Repertoires

In the mid and early Qing Dynasty,against the background of frequent tributary activities between the Qing Dynasty and neighboring countries,the rulers used art as a tool to promote the prosperity of the country,so concepts and terms that expressed the political ideals of the rulers,such as All Orientated and Numerous States Coming to Pay tributes,were often used in the forms of Qing palace culture and art such as music,dance,and painting.In this case,as the most important form of entertainment and art in the cultural life of the Qing Dynasty palace,whether or not these ideas were written in the script and how to display this external relationship of ancient China on the stage became a matter of concern in the drama of the Qing Palace.Therefore,this dissertation focuses on the relationship between the tribute system of the Qing Dynasty and drama performance in the Qing palace,and hopes to reflect the external communication phenomenon of the Qing palace drama by exploring the purpose of relevant tribute themed dramas so as to supplement the external communication research of ancient Chinese drama.To solve this problem,this paper,from the perspectives of drama,philology,communication and other disciplines,mainly uses text analysis and other research methods to try to make a comprehensive and systematic review of the Qing Dynasty tribute-themed plays.The emergence of any art form has a certain social and cultural background as a premise,and the compilation and performance of Qing court tribute-themed repertoires also has its specific historical origin.As early as the Han Dynasty,in order to feast foreign envoys,entertainment performances such as acrobatics,music and dance,and Jiaodi(the wrestling dance)were routinely held at the feast ceremony of the ancient Chinese court.During the Song and Yuan Dynasties,when Song-Yuan Nanxi Opera emerged and Zaju was formally formed,the live performances of court tribute banquet ceremonies gradually transitioned from early drama forms with dramatic elements such as Jiaodi Opera in the past to mature drama forms.The large-scale creation of court dramas in the Ming Dynasty and the birth of Long live Congratulations from all Tributary States mark the real maturity of ancient Chinese court tribute-themed repertoires.Since the Qing Dynasty,the emperors in the early Qing Dynasty attached great importance to the ritual and music education function of opera,and included opera in the scope of "necessary music for national banquets at the age of the year",as well as the prosperity and development of the tributary relationship itself in the early Qing Dynasty,which further gave birth to the theme of Qing court tribute repertoires.Qing court tribute-themed repertoires were first created in the reign of Kangxi and reached their peak in the reign of Qianlong.During the reign of Xianfeng,only the renaming of a single repertoire can be seen by Emperor Xianfeng,and only the initial creation of a single repertoire can be seen during the reign of Guangxu.Classified by story theme,these repertoires can be divided into five different types:the sea-crossing story,treasure-rivaling story,treasure-offering story,sightseeing story and conquest story.A script about the plays,according to different purposes,there are various types such as general script,music score script,the cast,Chuantou script,and single-character script.It reflects that while the script retains the content of the text,it also exists as a text witness of the performance.Stage performances of court tribute repertoires in the Qing Dynasty were more frequent in the early and middle Qing Dynasty.With the decline of the Qing Dynasty’s national power and the reduction of the frequency of tribute activities,after the Daoguang Dynasty,only five or six of the more than twenty repertoires were staged occasionally.The two repertoires Smooth Sea and Peaceful Meeting of Envoys are routinely performed every year because they became the banquet dramas of court officials’banquets during the Lantern Festival of the Qing Palace.The envoys to China were important audiences of these repertoires,and there were many of them in the performances of these repertoires.To a certain extent,the stage performances of the court tribute repertoires of the Qing Palace were set up for the envoys to China.Regarding the costumes specially made for the performances of the Qing court tribute-themed repertoires,such as foreign hats and foreign clothes,they present a different kind of exotic style.The text compilation and stage performance of the Qing court tribute-themed repertoires are the specific process for the creators to construct and spread the national image.Starting from the tributary relationship of the Qing Dynasty and based on certain historical facts,the imperial literati shaped the national image of the Qing Dynasty and surrounding countries,which is to a certain extent an artistic reproduction of historical facts.However,it is not difficult to find from these images that while the imperial literati exaggerated the self-image of the Qing Dynasty,they also belittled or vilified the national image of other countries to varying degrees.Affected by various factors,it is a relatively common phenomenon when state actors shape the image of a country.All in all,the tribute-themed repertoires of the Qing Palace was born under the dual background of the development of the tribute relationship in the Qing Dynasty and the ritual and music system of the Qing Palace.In the end,they were all cultural footnotes for the Qing Dynasty to promote its ambition to unify the world.