Chapter 20 Section 6 "Dong Zhang Xi Jiang" and the Light of Excerpts

After "Southern Hong and Northern Kong", the creation of legends is at the end of its strength.However, there were still two writers during the Qianlong period - "Dong Zhang" and "Xi Jiang" worth noting. "Dong Zhang" refers to Zhang Jian (1672-1754 A.D.), with the word Qi Yuan, the name Shushi, and the Dongting Mountain Man, who was born in Shangyuan (now Jiangning), Jiangsu.Talented and extraordinary, out of fashion, lonely and desolate all his life, but rich in writings, there are four kinds of legends besides poetry: "Dream in Dream", "Plum Blossom Hairpin", "Huaisha Ji", "Jade Lion Pendant" , engraved together as "Four Songs of Yuyantang". "Dream in the Fate" has the highest achievement, perfunctory the story of the joys and sorrows of two daughters in a lifetime, praises the true love, and criticizes the false Taoism. (Yang Enshou's "Ci Yu Cong Hua")

"Xijiang" is Jiang Shiquan (AD 1725-1785), with the word Xinshe, the word Tiaosheng, the name Qingrong, and the name Cangyuan, and the name Dingfu in his later years.The family education is good, the imperial examination officials are proud of the spring breeze, peaches and plums are all over the world, and Yuan Mei and Zhao Yi are also known as the "three great masters" in poetry. "Confucian scholars embrace the ambition of health and economy, and Wenyuan is also a chivalrous style" (Li Zutao's "Zhongyatang Wenlu Yin"), Geng Jie disdains the powerful.There are 31 kinds of plays, 16 of which are in existence. The most popular publication is "Nine Kinds of Songs in Tibetan Garden" (also known as "Nine Kinds of Songs in Hongxuelou"), including "A Piece of Stone", "Konggu Yin", and "Guilin Frost". , "Four Strings of Autumn", "Man in the Snow", "A Dream of Linchuan", "Xiang Zu Lou", "The Second Monument", "Holly Tree", except for "A Piece of Stone", "Four Strings of Autumn", "The First Except for "Two Monuments" which is a Zaju, the rest are legends, and "Holly Tree" is the most famous.There are 38 episodes in the second volume of this play, which tells the story of the martyrdom of Wen Tianxiang and Xie Fangde.

After the "South Hong Kong and North Kong", the creation of legends entered the so-called "Yu Shi" (Yu Bo) era.However, the stage of Kunqu opera has not only not declined, but has flourished, only the script and performance form have changed.First of all, the script system was greatly shortened. Zhang Jian, Jiang Shiquan, Tang Ying, Shen Qifeng, Xia Lun and others adjusted the layout, language, and style of the legend to make it popular and localized.For example, Shen Qifeng's "Four Kinds of Shen's Family" breaks through the legendary system, with fewer songs and more white songs, the lyrics are easy to understand, and most of the spoken words are dialects.Tang Ying's "Legend of Gubaitang" was deeply influenced by Hanabe, and Kunqu opera was transformed into clapper.Secondly, a large number of excerpts appeared, replacing the full-length performances.

The emergence of a large number of excerpts is not accidental.Because the Qing government prospered literary prisons and set up a bureau in Yangzhou to revise operas, which had a negative impact on the creation of legends, many people gave up the creation of legends.Many literati who are still insisting on creating, divorced from the reality of the stage, only focus on writing lyrics according to scores, and work behind closed doors. The content is outdated, the form is procrastinated, and they cannot reach the level of performance.Therefore, Kunqu opera artists selected and extracted some fragments from a large number of traditional repertoires, carefully processed and improved them, and produced the performance form of excerpts, forming a unique performance system.

There are generally two ways to perform excerpts. One is to condense the original stage, discard the chaff and save the essence, and condense it into the most exciting ones, while still maintaining a complete storyline; a play.The excerpts come from the whole play, and most of them are relatively important key points or passages with certain characteristics in the whole play. After processing and improvement, they are more colorful and fascinating.Excerpts made up for the shortcomings of the low tide period of legendary creation with new content and appearance, and brought a lively situation to the art of Kunqu Opera in the Qian and Jia years.Excerpts have been developed to varying degrees to enrich the ideological content of the original works, making the content more general and compact, and the form more vivid and beautiful, thus opening up a new world for performances and making the art of Kunqu opera last for more than 200 years."Bai Baiqiu" and "Drunken Love" edited by Master Wanhua and continued by Qian Decang reflect the characteristics of the era of excerpts in a relatively comprehensive way, and summarize the performance results of excerpts.

The roles of Kunqu Opera in the Qing Dynasty were adapted from the old legends of the Ming Dynasty and adjusted. Li Dou’s "Yangzhou Painting Boat Record" contains "Twelve Roles in the Rivers and Lakes". In fact, there are generally only ten roles, namely Sheng, Xiaosheng, Dan, Laodan, Tie, Outer, last, clean, vice, and ugly, with Sheng, Dan, clean, and ugly being the most important.Legends generally take one lifetime as the guideline of the whole play, connecting characters in series through their joys and sorrows, and unfolding the story.Huang Fanchuo's "Liyuan Yuan" (also known as "Ming Xinjian") is devoted to the performance skills of Kunqu opera, which can be called an experience talk.Xu Dachun's analysis and description of Kunqu singing in "Yuefu Chuansheng" is more in-depth, detailed and creative than those of Wei Liangfu, Shen Chongsui and others.There is "Jiu Gong Da Cheng Nan Bei Ci Gong Pu", four books and 50 volumes of Kunqu opera scores, which are complete and rich in content.Ye Tang's "Nashu Ying Music Book", Yin Yushen and Zhang Yi'an's "Liu Ye Music Book", Wang Xichun and Li Xiuyun's "Yiyun Pavilion Music Book" have their own characteristics.Anonymous's "Shenyinjian Gulu" not only collects dramas, but also records scores, and also indicates the figure.