Zhang Long Verse Theory Of History

Zhang Kejiu was the Sanqu writer whose preserved works are the most among his peers in the Yuan Dynasty. He is also the most studied one in the history of Sanqu in prevoious dynasty. In spite of several attempts by some Sanqu researchers to study the previous research results on Zhang's works, there has been no systemic, comprehensive and thorough analysis to date. The author of this paper intends to fill in this gap by comprehensively combing through the research results on Zhang's works in the past hundreds of years, depicting the tract of their rises and falls, analyzing their strengths and weakness and looking into the future research in this field. It is the ambition of the author to build an academic platform for the research of Zhang's works.This paper has three parts:This first part is an overall review of researches on Zhang in the past. The author walks through the history of research vertically and analyzes it by categories horizontally in a' bit to give a comprehensive description. According to different patterns and aesthetics, the author divides the research process into two stages along the line of 1920s: the classical conventional stage and modern scientific stage. The first stage is further divided into three periods of Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. The second stage is further divided into two periods before and after 1949 when the People'sRepublic of China was founded. According to different directions and areas of researches, they are categorized into four groups, namely: researches of Zhang's life, print of selected works and Zhang's works, and theoretical researches.In the second and third parts, which deal with the ancient and modern theories about Zhang's works respectively, the author adopts a micro perspective and focuses on theoretical researches. The style, write and status in the history of Sanqu of Zhang's works have always been the main research topics. This paper studies the related theories in line with their corresponding historical and cultural backgrounds and aesthetic systems of the study of Sanqu and examines the relationship between the evolving and unfolding process of aesthetic values of Zhang's works and changing concepts such as the aesthetic views and literature views on Sanqu at different times.