Research Of Zhu Youdun's Drama In The Zaju From Mangwangguan

Zhu Youdun is a well-known theatergoer in the literature of the Ming Dynasty, and forms a connecting link between the preceding and the following in the history of Ming Zaju. He committed to the creation of Zaju for life, and existing 31 Zaju spread so far. It is worth to study the status and value of his works.The poetry is more prevalent than drama in Chinese classical literature, which lead to the developing time is terminal and the collection is regardless in terms of drama. The version situation of Zhu's Zaju is complicated after several hundred years of spread. "The Zaju from Maiwangguan" conserved by Zhao Qimei in the period of the Wan Li includes 20 kinds of Zhu's Zaju, which collects Zhu's Zaju most after "The Original Edition of Xian Fan". Based on the analysis of large amount of document literature, we have founded that current Zhu's Zaju is derived from "the Zaju from Maiwangguan" and "The Original Edition of Xian Fan", thus a comparative study of the above two versions is significant."The Original Edition of Xian Fan" scattered carved in the period of Xuande(1426-1435) and Zhengtong(1436-1449), and "Ancient and Modern Drama Transcript at Mai Wangguan" gathered by Zhao Qimei in the period of Shengzong (1563-1620), which exist a time interval of two hundred years between two documents. In order to achieve the needs of stage performance, there has been great changes taken place in "the Zaju from Maiwangguan" in terms of script content and performance system, thus the dialogue and plot has changed many times on the basis of retaining words. Therefore, Not only "the Zaju from Maiwangguan" retains the style of "The Original Edition of Xian Fan", but also shows the unique characteristics when Zhu's Zaju was used as stage performance.As a whole, two versions have particular advantage in different places. "The Zaju from Maiwangguan" is not good as "The Original Edition of Xian Fan" in terms of retaining the style of Zaju in early Ming Dynasty, but is more valuable in the aspect of revealing stage performance of Zhu's Zaju. "The Zaju from Maiwangguan" shows us a series of changes clearly when scripts be used for stage performance. Retaining the original book and stage book like Zhu's Zaju is rare in the history of literature. Therefore, it is significant to compare "the Zaju from Maiwangguan" to "The Original Edition of Xian Fan", explore the unique when former used as stage book, increase the research of Zhu's works.