The Rise of Southern Drama and Great Advance of Short Fictions in the Ming Dynasty

Ding Wangdao

Ding Wangdao， professor at the English School in Beijing Foreign Studies University（BFSU） since 1950， specializes in English writing， style teaching， and translating books on Chinese culture. With many influential works， including textbooks， translation works and academic books， he has received a special government allowance since 1992. He was director of BFSU Overseas Training Center， secretary-general of China English Teaching and Research Association and visiting professor at the University of Washington and Moscow Foreign Language University.

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Glimpses of Chinese Culture

Foreign Language Teaching

and Research Press

July 2021

Ding Wangdao

39.00 （CNY）

During the Yuan period， while zaju or northern drama was developing in the north， a different type of drama was taking shape and spreading in the south with Wenzhou， Zhejiang， as its center. Southern drama， as it was called， had its beginnings in the Northern Song. Using southern dialects and folk songs， it was popular among the ordinary people of Zhejiang and its neighboring provinces， including Fujian， Jiangsu and Anhui. Only a few complete works of southern drama have been preserved， partly because literary men of the Song and Yuan looked down upon this form of drama and would not try to write plays for it， and partly because the northern drama was the main trend and attracted greater attention.

If those few southern plays are compared with northern plays， some of the differences between these two types of drama can be seen. In a northern play， there are usually four acts， and only one actor or actress sings in one act， and the other actors and actresses talk but do not sing. Besides， one rhyme is used in all the songs in one act. In a southern play， the number of scenes is flexible： there may be only a few， and there may also be as many as forty or fifty scenes. In one scene， more than one actor or actress may sing， and sometimes two or more of them may sing together， and the songs in one scene may have different rhymes. In short， southern drama has greater freedom in arrangement and form.

Toward the end of the Yuan Dynasty and at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty， there appeared some good southern plays， of which the best known is the Story of the Pipa by Gao Ming. It tells the story of how the filial and faithful Zhao Wuniang goes alone to the capital with a pipa to find her husband Cai Bojie， who has passed the imperial examinations， has become a government official， and married the prime minister’s daughter.

During the Ming Dynasty， northern drama was on the decline and southern drama flourished. Many important writers took an interest in southern drama and wrote plays. The most outstanding among them was Tang Xianzu （1550–1616）.

Tang was born in Linchuan， Jiangxi. Having passed the imperial examinations， he only got a position of a low rank， because he hated to please powerful people. Finally， he had to retire and go back to his hometown to devote himself to writing. He wrote four plays， which are all connected with dreams， so collectively they are called the “Four Dreams of Linchuan.”

The Peony Pavilion， one of the “Four Dreams of Linchuan，” is his masterpiece. Du Liniang， the heroine， is the daughter of a high-ranking official. In her father’s big house， she lives a very dull and unhappy life. The feudal ethical code and the strict rules laid down by her father deprive her of all freedom. One spring day， urged by her maid， she goes to her family garden for a walk. There she is delighted and also surprised by the beauty of nature. As she is tired， she dozes off and has a dream. In it， she meets a young scholar named Liu Mengmei and falls in love with him. When she wakes up， she knows clearly that the dream will never come true. After that， she falls ill with a sad heart， and finally she dies. Three years later， the young scholar she dreamed of comes to her city on his way to the capital to take the imperial examinations. He happens to pick up the portrait Liniang painted of herself， and at night he meets Liniang’s ghost. She tells him that he should open her grave at once. So he does， and Liniang comes out of the grave， a living lady as beautiful as she ever was. They are then married and begin their happy life together.

The plot seems unreal， but it reveals a very bold new spirit： a young woman from an upper-class family dares to love a young man in spite of all traditions. She not only loves the young man， but dies for him and comes back alive again. She is really a woman with new ideas， and Tang Xianzu， in portraying such a splendid heroine， shows himself to be a dramatist who defies old beliefs.

We have talked about two important periods in the development of fiction： the Tang Dynasty， when short stories were written in refined classical Chinese， and the early and middle Ming Dynasty， when long novels like Three Kingdoms appeared. There was another important development in the Ming in the field of fiction： the writing of short stories in plainspoken Chinese.

In the Song and Yuan dynasties， short stories were told and sung by storytellers to crowds gathered around them. There were storytellers’ notes; as they were not written by experienced writers， their language was generally rather crude. During the Ming， certain writers began to polish those notes and write new stories. In the last years of the Ming Dynasty， there was a great advance in short fiction.

During this period the man who made the greatest contribution to the growth of short fiction was Feng Menglong （1574–1646）. He was born in Suzhou， Jiangsu. For some time he was a county magistrate， but all his life he was a passionate lover of literature， especially fiction. He collected， edited， revised and published a great number of short stories， plays and folk tales. The first collection of short stories he edited was originally called Ancient and Modern Stories. When the second and third collections came out， he entitled them Ordinary Words to Warn the World and Lasting Words to Awaken the World. Then he changed the title of the first collection to Clear Words to Illustrate the World. The three volumes were then given a general title： Three Volumes of Words.

In these three volumes are collected 120 short stories based on earlier storytellers’ notes and revised or rewritten by Feng. As a result of his work， those stories are not only interesting but also readable. Most of them reflect life in prosperous cities， and most of the characters are people of the lower and middle classes. Some of the stories describe young people who are faithful to those they love; some describe craftsmen， vendors and small merchants who are willing to make sacrifices to help their friends; others expose the crimes of corrupt officials and big landlords and the conflicts within feudal families. They are like mirrors in which the reader can see what urban life was like and how people of different classes lived and behaved in the Ming Dynasty and earlier periods.

When Feng Menglong was editing his stories， another writer was doing similar work. Ling Mengchu （1580–1644） was born in Huzhou， Zhejiang. Like Feng， he was a lover and promoter of popular literature. He compiled two volumes of short stories called Surprising Stories to Make One Slap the Desk or Two Volumes of Slapping for short. He wrote most of the 78 stories in them， though the material came from earlier folk tales.

Later， a man who called himself the Old Man Hugging the Jar selected 40 from the nearly 200 stories in the “Three Volumes of Words” and “Two Volumes of Slapping” and put them together in a book entitled Wonderful Sights， Ancient and Modern， which was to become more popular than the five original books.