Motif Research Of Zou Shijin’s The Third Edition Of Drama

The Qing dynasty is a crucial period in drama history, leaving toomuch space for future research. The research of the Qing’s drama has achivedfruitful result in recent years, mainly in its literature, history, works and soon.However, few researchers conduct research on drama macroscopically from theview of motif. Besides, the research of Za ju in the early Qing periodhasn’t beenstarted yet.“The Third Edition of Drama by Zou Shijin”(also referred to as“The Third Edition of Drama”) is an important anthology in this period. And themotif research of it has a unique value and significance.The thesis is divided into seven parts. The main contents are as follows:Chapter1is introduction. To start with, the definition of “motif” is put forwardand the shortage of its academic study is pointed out as well, and secondly “The ThirdEdition of Drama” and its relevant research are summarized in order to highlightthe importance of the “Motif”. The last part of the introduction elaborates thesignificance and approach of this study.Chapter2is concerned with the characteristics of each play and the overview ofmotif on “The Third Edition of Drama”. This chapter also generalizes the categoriesand nature of motif as well as characteristics of the drama such as its version,annotation, China ancient opera theories and so on in the form of chart from theperspective of philology so as to sort out some regular characteristics of drama moreclearly.Chapter3is about motif analysis of each play in the “Drama”(One). Thischapter aims to sum up the motif of a specific play and a series of related plays basedon the rise and fall of the dynasty and literati experience from the perspective oftypology in order to find out the relationship between motif and plot, structure,character image.Chapter4is about motif analysis of each play in the “Drama”(Two). The research method of this chapter is the same as the chapter three’s, including the themeof social customs and that of ghost Buddha.Chapter5is about case studies of motif in the “Drama”. This chapter isrepresented by cases to expand the discussion about the “door-god motif, harmonymotif and cherry motif” to outline the three motifs in the history of drama evolution,and meanwhile dig out the connotations of these motifs in drama, folklore andsociology.Chapter6is about the motif features of the “Drama”. This chapter is based onthe foregoing five chapters from the overall analysis of motif features to explain sometendency and regularity properties of literati drama creation under the influence of thelate Qing and early Ming era.Chapter7is conclusion. The close relations between motif in the “drama” andprevious literary works play an essential role in drama, which embodies the charactersof the early Qing drama.Motif approach to the study of ancient drama can change the way of traditionaldrama studies which lay emphasis on investigation, art analysis and introduce theexploration of drama to the cultural morphology, comparative literature and otherdisciplines. Meanwhile, the approach is a breakthrough for cross-cultural studies andcross-traditional studies of classical drama research. Therefore, it is also a pavingstone for the future direction of the Chinese drama study.