An Introduction To Study Of Chinese Traditional Opera's Ousia

The study of Chinese traditional opera's ousia is a quite weak link in the 20th century's opera study in China. Studying the opera ousia , is not only the need of returning to the opera itself and understanding the opera thoroughly , but also the demand of grasping artistic laws of opera and enlightening the opera art practice. "What does the opera ousia mean? How does the ousia structure of Chinese traditional opera exist? How does the inner elements of the ousia structure affect the opera's developing? And what is the law latent in it?"As the main questions of opera ousia study, these questions are always looking forward to people's answers.The former part of the thesis deals with the dispute of "Drama-Poetry Theory" and " Yue-Ousia Theory". After pointing out the connotations of the two theories, the author puts a stress on clarifying their gains and losses. The author thinks that, "Drama-Poetry Theory" enlightened some playwrights' drama-creating, but it didn't intactly reveal the ousia of opera; " Yue-Ousia Theory"explored the question of Opera origin , but it still didn't work out the ousia structure of Chinese traditional opera. Furthermore, because the two sides both didn't notice prerequisite questions underlying in opera ousia study, their dialogue are not unfolded on the same theoretical level.The latter part of the thesis mainly discusses the prerequisite questions underlying in opera ousia study. Clarifying the range, objects, connotations, nature, purpose and methods of opera ousia study is the basic premise of probing into the ousia of Chinese traditional opera. The thesis maintains that, opera ousia study should take both music-literary opera and stage-performing opera into research ; the key target of it is to make out the ousia structure of Chinese traditional opera , which embraces opera's art form, essence, origin, rootbeing and meaning ; as a kind of art study, opera ousia study is a learning which explores opera ousia from the perspective of art, culture, aesthetics, philosophy, and anthropology, uses the methods of phenomenology, hermeneutics, structuralics, culturepoetics and unifying history and logic, and aims at deepening the self- consciousness of opera, advancing opera theory construction and enlightening the opera art practice.In the end, the thesis treats of some ideas of how to develop opera ousia study.