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Loading... Six Yuan Playsby Jung-en Liu (Editor)
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Although their Mongol overlords (beginning with the founding of the Yuan dynasty by Kublai Khan in 1280) tyrannized the Chinese in nearly every area of life, the arts enjoyed a new-found freedom. On the one hand oppressed, on the other released from the straight-jacket of Confucianism, the Chinese made the most of recent developments in poetry and drama. Yuan plays were a tonic, an amazing spectacle--colorful outbursts of singing, dancing, music, acting and mime. They poured new life into old stories--oppressors were ridiculed, servants became masters, scenes changed, day followed night in the twinkling of an eye--and audiences flocked to enjoy what must have been complete entertainment. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)895.12408Literature Literature of other languages Asian (east and south east) languages Chinese Chinese drama Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing dynasties 960–1912LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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These plays were developed during a societal and cultural shift that occurred during the Yuan Dynasty and represent the finest Classical drama in Chinese literature.
However, these are not the Yuan originals for many of them were lost to time; extant copies of Yuan plays rarely date from the Yuan period but rather from the Ming. This is because drama then became a scholarly pursuit rather than a popular entertainment. This does not impinge on the enjoyment of these plays because during the Ming dialogue and stage directions were also preserved, giving more context to the song suites that often only survived the Yuan. ( )