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  • The Generals of the Yang Family: Four Early Plays by Wilt L. Idema and Stephen H. West
  • Regina Llamas
Wilt L. Idema and Stephen H. West. The Generals of the Yang Family: Four Early Plays. Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific, 2013. Pp. xxxviii + 228. $39 (cloth). ISBN 978-9814508681

The Generals of the Yang Family is the product of a long-term partnership in translation of early Chinese plays between Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema that began with Chinese Theater 1100–1450: A Source Book (1982). Their collaboration continued with the translation of Wang Shifu's 王實甫 The Story of the Western Wing (19911 and 1995), and has more recently delivered four large collections of translations: Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals: Eleven Early Chinese Plays (2010); Battles, Betrayals, and Brotherhood: Early Chinese Plays on the Three Kingdoms (2012); The Generals of the Yang Family: Four Early Plays (2013); and The Orphan of Zhao and Other Yuan Plays: The Earliest Known Versions (2014). Many of the plays translated in these collections have never been translated before, and they are an invaluable source of information to anyone interested in Chinese theater.

This collection contains a selection of four plays on the Yang Family Generals saga. It opens with an introduction explaining the source of the stories and the dates and origin of the plays and the collections in which they were included, and concludes with four appendices. The first two are very useful [End Page 408] summaries of two Ming novels: one, the Expanded Account of the Loyalty and Bravery over Successive Generations of the Yang Family, and the other, summaries of the relevant chapters of the Account of [The Prince] of Southern Song and of An Account of the Northern Song. The appendices—which the reader would profit from reading first—describe the sequence of the stories of the plays. The third appendix is a summary of the chuanqi 傳奇 play The Three Passes on the Yang family saga, and the last appendix is a translation of two versions of the Theft of Bones taken from two Ming novels, which the authors believe may have derived from an earlier zaju 雜劇 northern play. Because of the similarities between all the accounts, the authors have attempted a division into acts of the chapters in the novels. For the student interested in dramatic narrative and its differences with the novel, this section could well provide a starting point. The four plays under review are, to my knowledge, here translated for the first time into English.

Although the plays may not originally have had one definite order, Idema and West have organized them in a logical manner, so that the deeds and adventures of the Yang family generals have sequential coherence. The first play, The Eighth Great Prince Opens a Proclamation, establishes the background for the other three plays. It informs us of the gnawing resentment that the traitorous Grand Preceptor Pan Renmei holds towards the loyal Lord Yang, who once in the past had struck him with a single arrow. Preceptor Pan's grudge towards the loyal Yang clouds his judgment to a degree where his appetite for revenge foregrounds the survival of the dynasty and his loyalty to the Song emperor. Rather than help General Yang defeat the enemy forces and save the country, he would choose to have Yang killed.

In this play, General Yang is besieged by barbarian troops and sends his son Seven to break though enemy lines to ask Pan for help. Pan refuses to acquiesce, kills Seven in a most gruesome and violent manner, and General Yang is defeated, eventually committing suicide by banging his head against the stele of Li Ling's tomb. This symbolical gesture underlines the differences between Yang and Li Ling who surrendered to the enemy and was later considered a traitor. Six, our hero in this story, manages to escape and reaches the court in time to inform the emperor of Preceptor Pan's treason. Eventually, with the help of two clever officials and the protection of the Eighth Great Prince, Six avenges the deaths of his father and sibling.

The second play in this collection, At Bright Sky Pagoda Meng...

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