On Ye Xianzu And His Drama Creation

Ye Xianzu is a distinguished dramatist in the late Ming Dynasty and a major member of the Wu Jiang School. Until now, thoroughgoing studies on his works have not been made in the academic circles. This paper will make full use of the researches done by the predecessors, together with his life experience and the influences of the common practices of the late Ming Dynasty's dramatic world to make a systematic study and reading of his dramatic writings and to make a research into his creative theory of drama as well as the implications and the characteristics of his romances and zaju ( a poetical drama set to music, flourishing in the Yuan Dynasty, usu. consisting of four acts called Zhe, with one character having the singing role in each Zhe.)In the introduction, this paper sorts out the historical reviews of the researches on Ye Xianzu and his dramatic creations since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with its focus on the analyses of the status quo of the researches. The first chapter lays its stress on Ye's life experiences and the brief investigations on his works. All his life is divided into two phases: the first is when he was 54 years he was successful in becoming a candidate in the highest imperial examinations during which he was working hard for seeking for an official rank; the second is the 20 years when he was struggling in the ups and downs in the officialdom. While trying hard for that, he was actively putting himself into the writing of dramas which had produced a great influence on the time.The second chapter makes an exploration of his circle of friends and his thoughts. In the late Ming Dynasty, under the influence of the social vogue and the setup of drama circles, Ye's social ideology was greatly moved and he threw himself into the rank of writers who wrote dramas. Ye's ideas of writing were deeply influenced by Wu Jiang , the leader of the Wu Jiang School, but he had his own new creative ideas. He adhered to the strict rules and forms of versification in his drama writing, giving much stress on the native flavor of language but insisting on the overflow of true feelings of the contents. He strongly criticized the injustice of the reality to ignite the sparks of progressive ideas. The third chapter makes an analysis of Ye's romance writing, which mainly deals with his romance masterpiece " The Story of Luan Bi" to investigate its source material and edition. The major focus of the chapter is on digging up the deep and profound ideological implications of the play and analyzing its rather artistic structure. His another romance " The Story of Gold Lock" which is adapted from the play " the Injustice Done to Dou E" by Guan Hanqing. Compared to this, Ye's play has obvious gains and losses both in its contents and artistic features. Chapter 4 analyzes his writing of zaju plays. Many of his plays have been handed down, which can be sorted into social, love, historical and Buddhism plays according to their subjects. They show Ye's ideological trend from different points of view. His artistic achievements in zaju plays are mainly made in the changing of the structure, the treatment of subjects, the portraying of dramatic images and language characteristics. The conclusion evaluates the place of Ye and his plays. Though there are flaws in the contents and structure of his plays, he has made his positive contributions to the development of dramas of the Ming Qing Dynasties.