The Study On The Use Of Prose In Sixty Melodies

Sixty Melodies is a an important opera collection throughout the history of Chinese opera.There exists a large number of proses in the collection.The study on the relationship between the prose and the opera version is of great help to the understanding of the unique literary tendency and phenomenon of the prose in Yuan and Ming dynasty and the understanding of the relationship between opera and prose.The thesis is composed of four chapters.Chapter One is a brief review of the related research,and on the basis of the review,the research orientiation and originality is put forward.Chapter Two firstly is the statistics of the prose used in Sixty Melodies,namely,the prose of describing figures,the prose of depicting sceneries,the prose of depicting objects and things,the prose of expressing feelings and emotions,the prose of irony,etc.Then the chapter is a brief analysis of the writing features of Sixty Melodies through the combination of specific versions,such as the exquisiteness in describing objects and things,parallelism and hyperbole,beautiful antithesis.Chapter Three mainly analyses the influences of the use of prose in Sixty Melodies on opera works from the positive and negative perspective.Positively,it exerts influences in the structure of libretto,theatrics,characterization,the plot development,etc.The negative aspects are as follows: the conflicts between the elegance of prose and the figure's identity leading to distortion,the interruption of the plot due to inappropriate use of prose,obscure literary quotation diverting the readers' attention,the resemblance of similar genres leading to monotonousness of the content,etc.Chapter Four is an analysis of the causes of the prose used in Sixty Melodies.The author believes that the common use of prose in Yuan and Ming Operas is out of the interaction of many complex factors: it is out of the coreference of the essay and style in Chinese ancient literature,it is also related with the sense of amusement in Ming Dynasty;it is out of the persuading purpose of operas,it is also related with the hobbies and interests of those writers.To conclude: through the investigation of the use of prose in Sixty Melodies,it can be observed that the Yuan and Ming Operas and prose are closely connected and even interacted with each other.The study in the thesis is merely a comprehensive summarization and the further research into the related field is highly appreciated.