The Literary Theory In The Letters By Tang Xianzu

Tang Xianzu exchanges ideas with friends, relatives or other people through his letters.However, in his letters, there are many contents, which are related to the literature. His lettersare considered as the special expression of literary theory. Tang Xianzu exchanges manyliterature theories with friends through his letters, and to some extent, it has special researchvalue.In Academia, they mainly research the life, the literary theory, the group of friends and thecomparative study about Tang Xianzu. But the research about Tang Xianzu’s letters is verylimited.In Tang’s life, letters are the most common way to make friends. In his every stage of life,Tang makes friends with the representative figures in the thought circle, political circle andliterary circle. They exchanges ideas through letters frequently. Thus, among the group ofthinker, politician and litterateur, Tang spreads his special experience of life and uniqueperspective of literary.Tang Xianzu expresses his opinions about literature in his letters, it contains the opinionson the creation of opera, poetry and prose.Tang Xianzu is the outstanding literateur in Ming Dynasty, he has many achievements. Butopera is the most important achievement in his life. He plays an important role in the history ofChinese ancient drama, and even the history of Chinese literature. Tang’s excellent dramaticcreations are closely related to his dramatic theory. Through the letters, Tang exchanges hisperception of opera with his friends in an aggressive or steely way, and shows the specialfascination of his literature theory.In Tang’s life, he creates many poetry and prose, and produces significant effect upon thesociety. In the letters, Tang expresses the views of value, expression, appreciation, educationabout poetry and prose. For the views of value, Tang shows the contradiction between his mindand practice. For the views of expression, in Tang’s opinion, innovation, true love and lifeexperience are very important. For the views of appreciation, he has unique experience andpursues the wholeness of the works. For the views of education, he emphasizes the importantrole of reading and studying. And he is influenced by the education of Confucian’s traditionalpoem. Through the letters, Tang develops and enriches his creation views of poetry and proseTang Xianzu uses the way of the letters to criticize poems, proses, operas and novels,which is called "epistolary literary criticism". The epistolary literary criticism of Tang Xianzu is very advanced, and it is the results of the confrontation between Progressives and Revivalists inthe literature trend of Ming Dynasty. In other words, it is closely related to the politics,economy, and culture of Ming Dynasty. Because of the letters’ practical and communicatingfunction, through the letters, Tang uses a comfortable way to express literary theory. To someextent, it also makes his literary theory have more practical significance. Thus, the epistolaryliterary criticism of Tang Xianzu becomes the most meaningful parts of his letters, and plays animportant role in the history of Chinese epistolary literary criticism and Chinese literarycriticism.