“Yet a Stranger in the World” 1 : The Poetics of Love in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1597) and Tang Xianzu’s The Peony Pavilion (1598) 2

Background: "The Peony Pavilion" by Tang Xianzu is a classical Chinese play renowned for its profound cultural and literary significance. Over the centuries, it has been translated into English numerous times, each rendition reflecting the translator's interpretation and cultural context. Materials and Methods: This reflective study examines a selection of English translations of "The Peony Pavilion" spanning different time periods and translators. Utilizing textual analysis and comparative study, we assess linguistic fidelity, cultural nuances, and the translators' approaches to bridging the gap between the source and target languages. Results: Our analysis reveals varying degrees of linguistic and cultural fidelity across translations. Quantitative metrics indicate a spectrum of fidelity, with scores ranging from 1 to 10, reflecting the extent to which translations capture the essence of the original text. Cultural nuances are often lost or altered, reflecting the influence of the translator's cultural background and the target audience's expectations. Conclusion: English translations of "The Peony Pavilion" present a dynamic interplay between linguistic accuracy and cultural interpretation. While some translations excel in preserving the original text's nuances, others diverge significantly, reflecting the translator's creative license and cultural context. This study underscores the importance of considering both linguistic and cultural fidelity in translating classical works, enriching cross-cultural understanding and appreciation.

PUTTING ON A PLAY IN AN UNDERWORLD COURTROOM: THE ‘‘MINGPAN’’ (INFERNAL JUDGMENT) SCENE IN TANG XIANZU’S MUDAN TING (PEONY PAVILION) THOMAS KELLY University of Chicago This article is an attempt to present a new way of thinking about courtroom trials in traditional Chinese theater. I look at how one playwright, Tang Xianzu 湯顯祖 (1550–1616), used meta-theatrical devices to comically deflate and satirize judicial authority. At the same time, however, I argue that he used the scaffolding of the courtroom trial to experiment with theatrical scene composition in the chuanqi 傳奇 drama form. Tang not only used a theatrical idiom to parody the procedures of the courtroom, he looked to the format of the trial to stretch the representational possibilities of the dramatic medium. Questions of what constitutes juridical authority and what grounds an act of adjudication are equally pertinent to the role-playing of the courtroom and the illusionary domain of the stage in his most famous play, Mudan ting 牡丹亭 (The peony pavilion; preface dated 1598). I focus specifically on how these themes are treated in the complex courtroom scene in the twenty-third scene of the play, ‘‘Mingpan’’ 冥判 (Infernal judgment). The scene as Tang wrote it, I suggest, displays a heightened awareness of how dramatic representations of the law in both the world of the living and the dead can call into question the nature and artifice of the theater itself. THE ‘‘MINGPAN’’ SCENE IN TANG XIANZU’S MUDAN TING Tang Xianzu’s Mudan ting returns time and again to question the verifiability of characters’ testimonies and the disputed status of actions taken within the world of the play.1 The burden of proof falls on the two lovers, Du Liniang 杜麗娘 and Liu Mengmei 柳夢梅, who each must justify and corroborate their testimony before juridical authorities and also prove to family and friends who they are from Scene 16 on. Liu not only has to prove his credentials as a promising scholar to Miao Shunbin 苗舜賓 when the latter is inspecting jewels (Scene 21) and metropolitan 1 As Tina Lu has argued at length, questions of personal identity are at stake throughout the play: Are characters who they claim to be? Can we trust their outward appearances? These questions assume an added urgency in the underworld trial scene, which Lu only discusses in relation to issues of counterfeiting and slippage between material and nominal worth in the determination of monetary value (see Tina Lu, Persons, Roles and Minds: Identity in Peony Pavilion and Peach Blossom Fan, [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001], pp. 106–13). CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 32.2 (December 2013): 132–155 # The Permanent Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Inc. 2013 DOI: 10.1179/0193777413Z.00000000010 civil service examination candidates (Scene 41), he also has to prove that he is not guilty of robbing the grave of Liniang, the daughter of (the play’s chief patriarch) Du Bao 杜寶. Liu is arrested (Scene 50) and undergoes harsh interrogation and physical torture by Du Bao (Scene 53). It is not until the final scene (Scene 55) that Du Bao’s charges against him are finally dismissed by the emperor, even if this does not lead to Du Bao recognizing Liu as his son-in-law. Du Liniang never suffers judicial torture,2 but she also is required to repeatedly prove that she is who she claims to be and that her love—a love that both kills and resurrects her—is genuine. Although the final scene is initially presented as a contest between the counterclaims of Du Bao and Liu Mengmei, and it seems that Du Liniang only attends as a witness (she even arrives unescorted), after her arrival the key question becomes whether she is presently a ghost or not.3 Prior to that, however, Liniang is the main ‘‘defendant’’ in ‘‘Mingpan,’’ the play’s most elaborate and complex courtroom scene, a scene that appears almost half-way through the drama and marks an important turning point in the narrative.4 Earlier, Du Liniang encountered her lover in a dream (Scene 10), was unable to repeat the experience (Scene 12), became love-sick enough that she felt the need to paint and leave...

Contributors

Mudan ting (Peony Pavilion), written by Tang Xianzu (1550–1616) in the late sixteenth century, remains one of the most read and frequently performed Chinese drama nowadays. Best known for its depiction of qing 情 (love, emotions), the play is replete with allusions, topoi, and words of love. Building on my earlier work on reading Mudan ting as an intertext of love in Passion, Romance, and Qing (Brill, 2014), in this paper I discuss the complex concept of love in Mudan ting, focusing on the terms and concepts of love associated with the meanings of spring, and the difficulty in speaking about love as expressed directly by the playwright and through his female protagonist Du Liniang in the play. The paper also explores the strong presence and function of literary tradition in the process of discovery and communication of the meanings of love in Peony Pavilion.

In 2004, from April 29th to May 2nd, the young actor's version of The Peony Pavilion debuted at the National Theater, attracting a large number of audiences whom have never seen Kunqu Opera to flock to the theater. The debut was a huge success. The author of this essay, who was in the revision team for The Peony Pavilion, recorded the principles and themes involved in the revision process for the young actor's version, which was first inspired by Bai Xianyong(白先勇). The author first takes the reader through the history of The Peony Pavilion performances in Taiwan from 1951 to the 1990s, explaining why the audiences are familiar with the classical story of the classic play. Mr. Bai Xianyong's motivation in doing a young actor's version of The Peony Pavilion is to cultivate new young actors, and to attract new interest in Kunqu Opera in the younger generations. He wished to connect classical opera with modern theater performance and breathe a breath of fresh air into Kunqu. It is with this believe in mind, that the author points out in chapter two, that the main theme in The Peony Pavilion is the perseverance and greatness of love, and the adaptation should also include this central theme. Chapter three of the essay gives a summary of the principles and themes in the adaptation: 1. The entire play must be preserved in its entirety from the resurrection to the reunion; 2. The role of Liu Mengmei should be further emphasized so that both the main male lead and the main female lead may develop fully; 3. The original dialogs by Tang Xianzu should only be shortened, merged or removed with no additions and some sequences may be changed; 4. Lastly, for dramatic purposes, and to please the young audiences, an opening dance for the flower god is added. The author concludes that a good play should have both literary and theatrical elements and that is precisely the goal of the young actor's version. The youthful elements included in the adaptation will definitely attract young audiences and inspire a successful revival of the 500-year-old Kunqu, giving future traditional theater a new direction to think about.

The youth version of Kungu Opera「The Peony Pavilion」 is adapted from the classical 「The Peony Pavilion」 from a Chinese playwright, Tang Xian-Zu, of the Ming Dynasty, and is promoted by a distinguished scholar named Mr. Pai Hsien-Yong, now living in United Sates. Elitist of the traditional opera culture in Greater China are gathered to perform in this youth-oriented play. The play has been performed since 2004 in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and United States for nearly 200 times; it attracts lots of people to watch in every single time and leads to a great success. In addition, the play for the innovation and development of current, research, preservation and heritage of great significance and value.In this paper, the youth version of Kunqu Opera ”The Peony Pavilion” music tradition and innovation practices, research and analysis to explore how to retain creative drama music tunes and the institutional norms and create new features and performance style, continuation and development of traditional opera new look. The study includes analysis of the opera singing style, theme music, theme choral and music, orchestration approach, hoping that through this study, sorted out some of the musical content, providing music researchers and composers reference.

Bai Xianyong confessed that the creation of Garden Tour, Startling Dream is inseparable from The Peony Pavilion. However, very few scholars have compared and contrasted the two. Therefore, this paper tries to compare and analyze the two from the perspectives of narrative and theme. The purpose is to explore the success of Garden Tour, Startling Dream in becoming a modern presentation of the play The Peony Pavilion. From the narrative level, Garden Tour, Startling Dream has similarities and differences with The Peony Pavilion. Moreover, Bai modernizes its creative techniques by incorporating stream-of-consciousness techniques. From the level of theme, Bai Xianyong explains the theme that life is like a dream in the modern context. Bai also pursues the loss and pursuit of the decline of Kunqu at a deeper level. This paper explores the creative mechanism of Garden Tour, Startling Dream, and the intrinsic connection between the two, to fill the gaps in the corresponding fields.

In this essay, the author examines the portraits that are featured in Tang Xianzu's The Peony Pavilion. The textual portraits are mixed in nature. They contain semiotic elements that can be readily described in language and understood through iconographical interpretation. But other elements in the textual portrait cannot be fully captured by words. The latter apparently fascinated Tang Xianzu, for he explained the source of inspired writing by comparing a writer to a painter. In The Peony Pavilion, the ambiguous and unfinished pictorial marks in Du Liniang's self-portrait—its “antisemiotic elements,” a phrase borrowed from James Elkins—are prominent. This picture thus conveniently partakes in the play's comedy of errors, for at times it cannot be fully or even partially recognized. Without discounting the representational potential of pictures and other ritual objects, such as imperial portraits, Tang probes in The Peony Pavilion the mimetic and the nonrepresentational elements of writing and picture making.

University of Otago, Donghua University This article is an attempt to analyze the dramatic structure of the Mudan ting 牡丹 亭 (Peony Pavilion) as a piece of fantasy which Tang Xianzu 湯顯祖 (1550–1616) created through the utilisation of structural devices and techniques of magic tales. The particular model adopted for the textual analysis is that formulated by Vladimir Propp in Morphology of Russian Folktale. This paper starts with a comparison of Russian magic tales Propp investigated for his morphological study and Chinese zhiguai 志怪 tales which provide the prototype for the Mudan ting with a view of justifying the application of the Proppian model. The second part of this paper is devoted to a critical review of the Proppian model and method in terms of function versus non-function, tale versus move, and character versus tale / theatrical role. Further information is also given in this part as a response to challenges and criticisms this article may incur as regards the applicability of the Proppian model in inter-cultural and inter-generic studies. Part Three is a morphological analysis of the dramatic text with a focus on the main storyline revolving around the hero and heroine. In the course of textual analysis, the particular form and sequence of functions is identified, the functional scheme of each move presented, and the distribution of dramatis personae in accordance with the sphere(s) of action of characters delineated. Finally this paper concludes with a presentation of the overall dramatic structure and strategy of this play.

Focusing on two late-Ming or early-Qing plays central to the Chinese canon, this thought-provoking study explores crucial questions concerning personal identity. How is a person, as opposed to a ghost or animal, to be defined? How can any specific person (as distinguished, for example, from an impostor or twin) be identified? Both plays are chuanqi, representatives of a monumental genre that represents Chinese dramatic literature at its most complex: Tang Xianzu's Peony Pavilion is a romantic comedy in 55 acts, and Kong Shangren's Peach Blossom Fan narrates the fall of the Ming Dynasty in 40 acts. No reader of Chinese literature would find a sexual encounter between a young man and a female ghost surprising. In Peony Pavilion, however, the lovers actually marry and join human society—a possibility that invites speculation on the nature of personhood and agency. By contrast, Peach Blossom Fan addresses the question of identity in an explicitly political fashion. After the fall of Beijing, many men put forward imperial claims. Who, in a time of turmoil, is truly the Emperor? In a Confucian society, where hierarchy and identity are so interdependent, how does the lack of certainty about the Emperor's identity affect all human identities? The question of personal identity is intrinsically bound up with questions of agency, legal responsibility, and participation within a polity. Confucian patriarchy, in particular, implies an anxiety of identity: in order to serve one's father appropriately, one must first know who he is. Drawing on related contemporary sources, the author combines a range of perspectives, including literary criticism, philosophy, jurisprudence, and art history.

Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare, born in the same era, penned the timeless works “The Peony Pavilion” and “Romeo and Juliet” respectively. The Chinese scholarly community has often compared these two plays’ cultural philosophies and dramatic creations. Yet, there is a lack of in-depth analysis of the plot connotation at the micro level. This paper aims to address this gap in research. Through a close reading and holistic, dialectical examination of the narratives, this study focuses on how to plot design influences dramatic effects, compares the presentation of tragedy in both works and attempts to interpret the differences through the lens of dramatic concepts. It was found that, as love dramas containing both tragic and comedic elements, both plays share thematic similarities in their pursuit of love, freedom, individual liberation, and opposition to feudal ethics. However, when examining the narrative plots from a holistic perspective, both works reveal different tragic effects in the two levels of feeling and degree in their romantic plots, which carry comedic undertones, and in their conflict plot with the same central conflict, which is brought about by the differences between Chinese and Western dramatic traditions and the tragic spirit.

Literature, as an important part of culture in terms of ideology, is the most convenient material to study the characteristics of different cultures. This paper selects the masterpieces "Peony Pavilion" and "Romeo and Juliet" of the two great Chinese and Western dramatists, Tang Xianzu and Shakespeare, and compares and analyzes them in four aspects, namely, the background of the creation, plot design, main characters' image, and the ending of the love, so as to analyze the differences between the two works in the spirit of the Chinese and Western cultures, the way of thinking, the concepts of human beings, and the understanding of tragedy.

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. 《牡丹亭》以寫“情”爲核心，湯顯祖在《標目》中明確表達了“世間只有情難訴”的感慨。這一感慨牽涉到陽明心學對情的開拓以及湯顯祖情觀的特殊性問題。在晚明，情與欲混淆，對情的理解差異歧出，導致真情難辨。心學思想在不斷發展中，拓展了談情的空間，情變得可訴。湯顯祖繼承心學傳統，對情進一步發揮，所闡發的情自有其獨特性。湯顯祖在《牡丹亭》中對訴情有著複雜的設計，並進一步提出至情的理論。理解以上諸問題，才可深入理解湯顯祖爲何説“情難訴”。 Mudan Ting (The Peony Pavilion) is centered on the writing of “qing” (love), and Tang Xianzu clearly expresses the sentiment that “only love is hard to tell in this world” in “Clarifying the Title.” This sentiment involves the pioneering of Wang Yangming’s philosophy of qing and the distinctive quality of Tang’s view of qing in the late Ming. Qing and desire were mixed concepts in the Late Ming, and the different understanding of qing made it difficult to discern true qing. The continuous development of the Learning of the Mind (xinxue) expanded the space for discussing qing and made its expression possible. Inheriting the legacy of xinxue, Tang further developed his understanding of qing, and his interpretation of qing has its own uniqueness. In The Peony Pavilion, he had a complex design for the expression of qing and further proposed the theory of “ultimate qing”. It is only when we understand the above issues that we can have a deeper understanding of why Tang said that “qing is difficult to express”.

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.
 從茅暎評點《牡丹亭》出發，可總結出八項內涵：（一）印象批評；（二）對湯氏主情之說之評點；（三）對湯氏寫作技巧之批評；（四）對臧懋循改本之批評；（五）對湯劇與元雜劇關係之評點；（六）對明代流行語“當行”、“本色”之觀點；（七）對湯劇與唐詩、宋詞之關係之評點；（八）雜評等。將茅暎評點與其同時代之曲家作比較，亦可發現當代曲家大多以“場上演出”之角度著眼，而茅暎則從“案頭欣賞”之觀點出發，所以產生了不同的結論。茅暎之評點觀在明代並非普遍，然就湯顯祖所主張“文以神、色、意、趣爲主”之立場而言，茅暎無愧爲湯氏之知音。而茅暎以案頭文字爲觀點之批評，雖非當代主流，然若從文學史角度看，絕對可與唐詩、宋詞所形成之韻文史相銜接，而成爲文學史在明代韻文中與唐詩宋詞相銜接之關鍵，從而擴大明代文學史之討論範圍；就此點而論，茅暎之評點《牡丹亭》居功厥偉，亦爲其評點中，意義非凡之所在。
 This study of Ming-dynasty critic Mao Ying’s comments on The Peony Pavilion consists of eight aspects, namely: (1) impression critique; (2) comments on Tang Xianzu’s (1550-1616) emphasis on love; (3) criticism of Tang’s writing skills; (4) critique of Zang Maoxun’s (1550-1620) revision of the play; (5) comments on the relationship between Tang’s play and Yuan drama; (6) views of the Ming-dynasty popular terms danghang (“professional”) and bense (“original colors”); (7) comments on the relationship between Tang’s play and Tang shi-poetry and Song ci-poetry; and (8) miscellaneous comments. This study compares Mao Ying’s comments with those of his contemporaneous playwrights, arguing that playwrights of his time mostly focused on stage performance while Mao treated the plays (i.e., the scripts) as “readers for enjoyment” and, thus, they came to different conclusions. The approach of Mao Ying was not common in the Ming Dynasty. However, Mao’s sharing in Tang Xianzu’s advocacy that “the cores of literature include spirit, guise, idea, and aesthetic appeal” shows that he was certainly a true fan of Tang. Although Mao’s comments on the play as a reader were not mainstream at the time, from the perspective of literary history they certainly can be regarded as a continuation of the poetic history formed by Tang shi-poetry and Song ci-poetry and a crucial link that connects Tang-Song poetry with Ming poetry. Hence, the contribution of Mao’s comments on The Peony Pavilion is exceptional and significant.

The American premiere of Peony Pavilion, as directed by the iconoclastic Peter Sellars, is a high-tech, postmodern reimagination of the sixteenth-century kun (Shanghai) opera by Tang Xianzu. Like Romeo and Juliet, Peony Pavilion tells the story of a prosperous young girl, Du Liniang, who dies for love. Starving herself to death, she paints a self-portrait and buries it in her garden. A poor student, Liu Mengmei, finds the portrait and falls in love with Du's ghost. Through the restorative power of love, Du is resurrected and unites with Liu. Translated by Cyril Birch, and performed in Chinese [End Page 131] and English, this avant-garde production is vastly different from the twenty-hour interpretation of the traditional kun opera recently performed at New York's Lincoln Center.