Character Design in The Peony Pavilion

CHARACTER DESIGN IN THE PEONY PAVILION WeiHua Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica Among writers of classical Chinese drama, Tang Xianzu ~~*l3. (15501616 ) has distinguished himself not only as an outstanding poet and thinker but also as an admirable creator of lifelike characters.l Especially in his masterpiece, The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting ~±ft~), almost all characters with personal names are uniquely unforgettable. This play, known as The Soul's Return (Huanhun ji m;l~c), recounts the heroine Du Liniang's experience of love-in a dream, in spirit form, and following her miraculous rebirth. Her defiance of death as well as her persistence in making her dream a reality has endeared her to generations of readers, especially women. For almost four hundred years, scenes of her spring strolling in the family garden and her subsequent dream of a young scholar have enjoyed wide popularity on the Kun Opera stage. Understandably, discussions of this play's dramatis personae have so far been focused largely on individual characters like her, and on their psychologies, but generally have not included the overall character design as a crucial part of Tang Xianzu's dramaturgy. There have only been a few succinct remarks to date: for example, the early Qing woman Qian Yi ~ 1i (1671-?), chief editor of the well-known Three Wives' Commentary on The Peony Pavilion (Wu Wushan sanfu heping Mudan ting huanhunji ~~l1J-=. ~WEtW~±ft~m~~c), noted that the play involved many characters in a very complicated plot, though Tang successfully employed a troupe of only eight actors, arranging their appearances with great ingenuity? Wu Mei ~t~, a modem authority on classical Chinese drama, commented, from a thematic perspective, on the character design in all of Tang's works: 1 See, for example, Wang Siren 3:JGIJf, "Pidian Yumingtang Mudan ting ci xu 1lt~~.=G. 15~4tft~ ~~~" in Mao Xiaotong ~~~[QJ comp., Tang Xianzu yanjiu ziliao huibian ~~ f£l.Wf%~*'4~~ (hereafter HB) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1986), pp. 856-57. 2 Her comment appeared in the space above the page titled Mudan ting huanhunji semu 4tft ~ ~;m~2'ES § in theThree Wives' Commentary on The Peony PavilioY4 reprinted in 1870. In this page are all the dramatis personae in the play listed under eight different role-types: mo*, sheng~, wai )t~, lao dan :£EL dan H, tie ~~, chou TI, andjing 1~. CHINOPERL Papers No. 20-22 (1997-99)© 1999 by the Conference on Oral and Performing Literature, Inc. CHINOPERL Papers No. 20-22 Outwardly speaking, the protagonists of the "Four Dreams" are Du Liniang ~±fi~~, Huo Xiaoyu tf/J\JS., Lii Sheng l1i~, and Chunyu Fen ~~T~. Those who understand deep meanings in the texts simply say that The Peony Pavilion is about spirit (gui .5l), The Purple Hairpin, heroism (xia 1~), The Handan Dream, celestial joys (xian 1ill), and The Nanke Dream'. Buddhist enlightenment ([0 15f}). They are unaware that Tang Xianzu had in mind Judge Hu of Hades (Hu panguan tt)]*U1§), the yellowrobed knight-errant (Huangshanke jfi*3~) , Lu Dongbin g1~ ~, and Chan master Qixuan ~~ as his protagonists .... The first-mentioned four characters are like puppets on the stage, whereas the latter four are puppeteers who control the strings .... Since gui, xia, x ian, and /0 are the themes of these plays, the "subjective" (zhuguande ±D13'9) or intended protagonists are Judge Hu and so on; Du Liniang, Huo Xiaoyu and others are mere "objective" (keguande ~DI3'9) protagonists. 3 Wu then concludes that "in this lies the reason why Tang Xianzu is more ingenious than ordinary chuanqi 1I.J1§t dramatists." 4 It is unclear whether Wu considered Tang exceptionally great because the latter invented two sets of protagonists in his plays, or because Tang objectified his ideas in such a complex fashion. At any rate, Wu insightfully pointed out that Tang created his characters with great care and that there was a close relationship between the disposition of characters and thematic presentation in his drama. My purpose in this paper is to discuss further this relationship in order to reveal the fundamental principles underlying Tang Xianzu's character design. The Employment of Eight Role-Types In his own treatise on dramatic...