A Study On The Reception Of Pipa Ji

A mature work of the Southern Drama, Pipa Ji was a landmark in the history of Chinese drama. Since the beginning of its introduction, it has been a vogue among Chinese readers and translated into foreign languages. It is of such unique aesthetic interest that it still enjoys wide readership in modern times. On the other hand, critics have praised this play pretty highly.The present thesis attempts to appoach the reception of Pipa Ji, which the author belives to include two integral branches of enquiry: study on the author Gaoming and the reception of the work by readers and critics in different periods of time. After a literary work is created, its value is only to be actualized in the process of reception. There are different rules, however, in the reception of the opera and other literary genres, say, poetry, which involves such systems as the world ,the author, the text and the readers. What is unique to the reception of the opera lies in the stage where it is put on for the audience, in a procedure as shown in the graph: The world→author→text↗ Readers↘Actors→audienceThe above graph reveals the main elements in the reception of an opera. Other elements are adaptors, compilers and publishers. In the performance of the opera, there exists a bilateral relation between the playwright/ actors and adaptors as one side and the audiences as the other. The audiences'feedbacks will exert influences upon the author and adaptors'work. Based on the above-stated theory, the present study discusses the reception of Pipa Ji in four chapters. The Introduction is a literature review on the reception study on Pipa Ji in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.The first chapter introduces the story of Pipa as transformed in Chinese literature, especially its archetype of Zhao Zhennv.Chapter two studies Gaoming as the author of Pipa Ji, his imitation of and departure from folklores.The emphasis of the whole work is on Chapter Three, which discusses the reception of Pipa Ji during the Ming and Qing dynasties, specifically its adaption, selection and criticism.The last chapter explores the reception of the play in modern times, especially after the founding of People's Republic of China in 1949.