A Research On The Reception Of Cao Yu's Four Famous Dramas In The 1930s-1940s

The period of 1930s-1940s is the initial stage for Cao Yu's four famous dramas which contain Thunderstorm,Sunrise,The Wilderness and Peking Man to be accepted by readers and audiences,as well as the preparation stage for Cao Yu to establish his identity and status in the history of modern Chinese drama.The reception of four famous dramas is a "second creation" in which the "author's text" transformations to"receiver's text".Under the influence of historical trend,mission of the era and law of drama development,the receivers reshape the texts by means of comment and interpretation.Based on the differences of receivers' ideological and aesthetic level,the "second text" presents various colors and styles.In the strength comparison among the author and the receivers,the left-wing critics who held realistic views gradually grasp the discourse power of text interpretation,therefore the multi-voice parts move towards harmony and unity.Only by returning to the historical site,making the historical details sound and smoothing the evolution of the reception can we clear up the source dispel the shelter caused by elite discourse,and make the dramas show vitality.Chapter 1 returns to the historical context of 1930s-1940s to touch the reception facts of four dramas from historical materials,grasping the reception as a whole.Section 1 restores the original reception of Thunderstorm in the moralists,authorities,urban citizens and realists,accordingly examines how Thunderstorm evolves into incest drama,melodrama and social problem drama in the "second creation".Firstly,this section touches the legacy of moralism in 1930s and uncovers the veil of the authority's political strategy.Secondly,it figures out the aesthetic taste of citizen audiences.Besides,the third part studies how the realism theory was applied to the reception.Section 2 firstly focuses on the "collective criticism" carried out after the publication and performance of Sunrise to investigate its significance appreciation in the development of modern Chinese literature and local drama.Afterwards,this section studies the dispute about the third act and the political factors behind ups and downs of Sunrise in the liberated areas.Section 3 analyzes the reception polarization of The Wildness,which refers to disesteem and praise to the performance and"extreme hate and extreme love" of the comments.The thesis reveals the reasons why the drama was disesteemed at first from the aspect from script,situation and the professional commentators in the first part,then proves that The Wildnes was widely adored by ordinary viewers and other commentators with historical materials to dispel the shelter caused by elite.Section 4 focuses on the debate of the theme,characters and plots to discuss the value evaluation differences of Peking Man in the context of the Anti-Japanese War.Besides,through the small,this section grasps the trend that the realism reception vision was gradually forming in the later stage of the war.Chapter 2 focuses on the receivers with complex composition to explore how the tradition and the era shape the audiences' view of drama.Section 1 traces back to the history of drama construction before 1930s so as to find out the effect of pragmatic reason and the "edutainment" on receivers in the process of drama creation and performance.Section 2 analyzes the social background of 1930s-1940s to grasp the characteristics of reception vision from the periodic features of the drama professionalization,the expansion of urban citizen class and the era background of revolution and salvation.Taking the receivers as the incision,the chapter examines the "individual case" of Cao's drama reception in history and the era by analyzing the tradition and the society,accordingly uncovers the deep reasons for the reception of four famous dramas in 1930s-1940s.Focusing on the creation intention of Cao Yu,Chapter 3 examines receivers'comprehension and misread in the process of reception of four famous dramas,and discusses the complex relationship among the author and the receivers.Section 1 collects materials from Cao's self-narrative and others' memories to make insight into Cao's creation pursuit as a reference for examining the reception of four famous dramas.Section 2 studies the strength contrast and evolution among the author,the general receivers,and the left-wing critics who are the main pulse of Cao drama reception,so as to figure out how the left-wing review held the dominant position of the interpretation step by step.Therefore,the thesis searches for the source of the"Cao Review" which exists for nearly 50 years to put the reception of Cao's dramas in 1930s-1940s into the whole study of Cao Yu.