As a literary style, miscellaneous drama is derived from life and higher than life, and behind the prosperity is inseparable from the nourishment and nourishment of the times. Political changes, economic development, cultural integration, exchange of ideas, improvement of aesthetic taste... All of this makes it gradually perfect, ripe and mature, and move towards stereotype.
Political environment: Killing and conquest and social unrest
In 1115, the Jurchens conquered the Central Plains with the power of destruction and decay, forcing the Song court to retreat to the south; In 1234, Mongolia united with the Southern Song Dynasty and unified the north; In 1279, the Battle of Yashan was defeated, and the Southern Song Dynasty was completely destroyed..., and the turmoil of more than a hundred years before and after made the originally stable and peaceful society full of holes. As a result, the development of metadrama has produced a view of "political decline and cultural prosperity", that is, in the social background of political darkness and national conquest, people's lives are often more miserable.
At this time, literature and art became the best way to express grievances. However, some people believe that the darkness of society is not something unique to before and after the Yuan Dynasty, and from the content of the meta-drama, the reflection of the reality of social contradictions only accounts for part of it, and it is more of the general reflection and cognition of history.
Therefore, it is not accurate to interpret the development of art purely from the relationship between political change and people's lives; But we must also acknowledge that successive social unrest and frequent regime changes are indeed inextricably linked to the flourishing of miscellaneous drama.
This is mainly divided into the following two aspects: first, the migration of people brought about by the war. The frequent wars at the time of the Song and Yuan dynasties led to a constant social turmoil, and in this situation, theater artists moved from exile to aggregation, and from aggregation to various places. At that time, the flow of actors and even opera classes was very frequent, and they contributed to the spread and prosperity of vaudeville art.
There is no doubt that both actors and writers have unwittingly pushed the art of vaudeville to a climax in the midst of displacement. However, from another level, the frequent changes of regime have led to the continuous settlement of ethnic minorities in the Central Plains, and many excellent miscellaneous playwrights have emerged among them.
The second is the inter-ethnic problems caused by the war. You know, in the years of conquest of the Liao, Jin, and Song dynasties, the land of the Central Plains has long become weak, and it is on this basis, relying on strong military strength, the Mongols bid farewell to the past glory years and opened up a new era. This is not only an era of unprecedented vastness, but also an era of multi-ethnic exchanges, but also an era that brings nomads and farming peoples together. In the ups and downs, contradictions between ethnic groups and national integration have always grown in parallel, thus achieving the unique characteristics of meta-miscellaneous dramas.
In general, inter-ethnic confrontation and conflict ran through the entire Yuan Dynasty. From the founding of Genghis Khan to the demise of the Yuan Dynasty, the intensity of ethnic contradictions rose and fell, and there were three climaxes. In addition to the peasant uprisings at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the peak of the two inter-ethnic contradictions occurred in the process of eliminating foreign regimes.
After conquering the Jin Dynasty in 1234, the Mongols launched a war against the Song Dynasty, from Wokoutai to Kublai Khan, while attacking the plains, the Mongol conquerors also carried out inhumane killing and ravaging of the weak Song people. If political interests aside, the impact on a nation's emotional tendency can be imagined, and the feelings of resentment and resentment are bound to be reflected in miscellaneous works.
For the Han Chinese, this is just the beginning. Because in feudal society, ethnic relations are, in the final analysis, the expression of social hierarchical relations. So once the Mongols came to power, they quickly moved to the bottom of society.
In order to facilitate governance, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty implemented a hierarchical management system, that is, the population was divided into four categories: Mongols, Semu, Han and Nan; They not only have completely different social status, but also have vastly different treatment in politics, economy, culture and education. For example, important officials in state institutions must be held by Mongols, and if the Mongols are insufficient, they will use the Semu people, and the Han and Nan people will become very few high-level officials, and even if there are, they can only be ordinary lower-level officials.
As the saying goes, learning and excelling, and gaining fame through hard study, has always been the life pursuit of ancient intellectuals. However, in the Yuan Dynasty, it was difficult for Han intellectuals to realize their ideals and ambitions through their careers, so they inevitably diverged, and some of them became miscellaneous drama creators, and even combined with folk artists to form book clubs.
Although national pain has long been deeply ingrained in the hearts of the Han and Jurchens, the multicultural diversity between foreign races has gradually integrated through increasingly frequent exchanges. As the most representative art form of the Yuan Dynasty, miscellaneous opera itself is a wealth created by different ethnic groups.
From the perspective of writers, many ethnic minority literati have also participated in the creation of miscellaneous dramas, such as Shi Junbao, the early writer recorded in the "Record Ghost Book", who is a Jurchen, and his "Qiuhu Opera Wife" has been passed down to this day. From the perspective of expression, Yuan miscellaneous opera has absorbed many ethnic minority songs and dances in the process of development, such as Yang Jingxian's "Journey to the West" and the sixth "Village Girl's Speech" borrowed Hui song and dance.
From the perspective of language expression, the change and rise and fall of ethnic minorities in the Central Plains have broken the original Chinese system, and different tones and spoken languages have gradually entered daily life, as well as metadramas. For example, the singing sentence in "Lao Juntang": "Badu'er came to report the call of the king" is borrowed from the Mongolian word "Badu'er", which means hero and warrior.
On the one hand, the use of these minority languages enriches the vocabulary of vaudeville performance, making it more popular and popular, and on the other hand, the enhancement of language expression further expands the audience group of miscellaneous opera. From the perspective of the content of the play, the meta-miscellaneous drama also covers a series of works with the theme of expressing the cultural life of ethnic minorities, such as "Moon Worship Pavilion", "Lichuntang", "Moheluo" and so on.
One of the more special is "Tuning the Wind Moon", which tells the story of a handmaid in a Jurchen family who passionately pursues legal marriage and a good life. It is not difficult to see that although the play is based on the Jurchen race, it reflects the desire of all the people to break free and obtain personal freedom. This precisely reflects the common pursuit of different peoples in the same era, and at the same time it is a true reflection of social reality.
Economic environment: prosperous commerce and urban development
Any art form that goes to glory will not be a tree without roots, it must be inseparable from its unique social background. As a popular art that has developed with the needs of urban entertainment, meta-miscellaneous drama is even more so.
In the early Yuan Dynasty, the flames of strife faded away, and political and social stability allowed the long-abandoned commercial economy to be restored, notably agriculture, handicrafts, and foreign trade.
Although as a nomadic people from the steppe, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty had no need for farming, but Kublai Khan was after all a generation of talented and far-sighted emperors, and he believed that farming and sericulture were the foundation of the king's government. On the one hand, he issued the "Nongsang Ji Essentials" to the people to make them admire the agricultural foundation, and on the other hand, he set up the Department of Persuasion and the Department of Agriculture to take charge of the water conservancy of Nongsang.
Through these two paths, agriculture in the Yuan Dynasty was quickly restored. From the point of view of handicrafts, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty attached great importance to craftsmen based on their hedonistic needs, military needs and trade needs. In the course of the war, although they adopted a killing policy for foreigners, they were open to craftsmen.
After the war, they set up workshops to bring together artisans and promote handicrafts. Therefore, until now, we can still feel the superb craftsmanship of the time from cultural relics such as the red lotus bowl in the glaze.
Although the Mongols came from the relatively inhospitable north and their cultural development was relatively backward, they relied on their military strength and acquired an unprecedented vast land. From the Sea of Japan to the Mediterranean, from Siberia to the Persian Gulf, the Yuan Dynasty deservedly became a superpower across Eurasia.
It is not difficult to imagine that the convenience of land and water transportation and the strength of politics and military will inevitably promote the development of commodity trade. Moreover, these imported products were not only used for pilgrimage, but also to meet the needs of the entire civic class. The prosperity of commodity trade at that time was naturally self-evident, which also created material conditions for the flourishing of vaudeville art.
Back to itself, the boom in commodity trade brought a huge audience to vaudeville performances in the first place. In the citizen class, there are both rich merchants and rich people, who lack the noble pursuit of art by aristocratic literati, and are more knowledgeable and wealthy than rural villagers, so they have a stronger demand for entertainment. They needed an art form that reflected their thoughts and lives, but was also accessible and funny.
As a result, the miscellaneous drama began to naturally move closer to the majority of the audience, and on the thick mass base, it gradually moved towards a new peak.
Fearing the loss of their lips, the Yuan rulers no longer devalued merchants, but placed them above Shinong, seeking to improve their social reputation and political status. It is true that the emphasis on businessmen has prompted more and more people to want to join the ranks of business, further promoting the development of business.
But on the contrary, those Han Confucian literati, and even well-known elite artists, have since not only indulged in the sadness of the country's destruction and discrimination, but also have a powerlessness and hopelessness for career and status pursuit.
On the other hand, although Yuan Shizu hoped to use China to control and strengthen cultural rule, he emphasized "practicing virtue and not vain writing", that is, he did not advocate elegant arts such as poetry and song. This put forward new requirements for the intellectuals of the old times, either to change their careers to business or study and work, or to strive to adapt to the aesthetic needs of society, send love to the theater, and give play to their talents.
Thankfully, with a large audience and a good artistic environment, most of them choose to devote themselves to the creation of miscellaneous dramas to find a way out of life. Further, they laid the creative foundation for the flourishing of vaudeville art.
The earliest fixed performance venue of Chinese drama appeared in the Song Dynasty, called "hook lan", which is an important medium for theatrical performances to go to the people. But under the influence of regime change and the rise and fall of dynasties, it gradually faded over hundreds of years.
Until the Yuan Dynasty, the prosperity of the city made the daily flow of business travelers endless. In order to meet the needs of public entertainment, the hook bar naturally reappeared in the public's field of vision, and the number of people participating in the performance also showed a significant increase, especially the bead curtain show, shunshi show and other people are quite famous.
These singers who are active on the stage play a prominent role in the development of miscellaneous opera, because only they can connect literati creators with the lives of ordinary people and form more infectious works. For vaudeville art, this is undoubtedly the most perfect performance foundation.
Ideological Environment: Cultural Policy and Style of the Times
The famous literary theorist Danner once put forward the idea that the production and reception of a work of art can never be separated from customs and the spirit of the times. Corresponding to miscellaneous drama, it refers to its inclusive creative ideas, rich artistic forms and diverse cultural connotations.
However, a closer analysis will show that the works created by those aristocratic officials have been handed down very little, and many of them are not even known, while the works created by those scholarly artists with low social status have been passed down. The reason for this is that they have truly stepped out of the shackles of society, have a cross-historical vision and feelings, and their works can resonate in different eras.
From a macro perspective, since the fall of the Song Dynasty, the entire nation has been shrouded in depression, especially those literati with high self-esteem. Some of the choices of the fierce temperament are "cut off their right finger, and they are slaughtered"; Those who are softer in nature use pen and ink to pour out their bitterness in order to achieve internal and external balance. From a microscopic point of view, the Yuan rulers' idea of emphasizing commerce over literature and the imperial examination system, which was intermittently implemented and abolished, had a huge impact on the literati.
In the more than 70 years when their ambitions were difficult to pay, a large number of literati had to go to the market, mingling between official prostitutes and advocating excellence, and seeking survival and development space through miscellaneous drama creation. In the days of interacting with the people at the bottom, they truly saw right and wrong, good and evil, dark and unfair.
I have to admit that all this happens to meet the tastes of the citizens of the Yuan Dynasty. According to Lu Xun, there are only two feudal eras in Chinese history, one is the era of temporary slavery, and the other is the era of wanting to be a slave, and the Yuan Dynasty is the second one. Therefore, whether the work is resentful, poignant, satirical, or humorous, its creative ideas always represent the psychological needs and aesthetic consciousness of the public.
To solve the problem of "the foundation of a play", it is inevitable to talk about the rich artistic forms contained in the miscellaneous operas of the Yuan Dynasty. After all, it is different from Tang poetry and Song poetry, and it is a comprehensive art that integrates singing and dancing, chanting, and performance. If you look at the development of miscellaneous dramas, you can't help but sigh: the Yuan Dynasty is really a too lucky era, because all the power it has accumulated will gush out here.
From a vertical point of view, from the early witch sacrifice to the production of Song miscellaneous opera and Jinyuanben, the inheritance and innovation of history have paved the way for the development of miscellaneous theater art, such as the story expression of drama content, contradictory performance institutions, and the formation of professional performance venues, and so on. From a horizontal point of view, the strife and integration between ethnic groups have brought new artistic vitality to miscellaneous opera, including the intervention of ethnic minority music tunes, the introduction of traditional musical instruments of ethnic minorities, and the integration of aesthetic concepts of ethnic minorities.
All the elements combined together to achieve the miscellaneous opera art of the Yuan Dynasty, because it is a masterpiece, it can naturally be widely circulated and recognized.
In the early Yuan Dynasty, rulers did not attach much importance to feudal ethics and morality. Perhaps because they come from the boundless north and have the most simple customs, perhaps because they do not care about the traditions of the Han people; But in any case, this provides relatively relaxed conditions for writers to create, and promotes the wide circulation of different cultures. On the other hand, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty understood that the grassland culture alone could not stand in the Central Plains, so they never tried to assimilate the culture, but sought to share.
For example, in terms of writing, Yuan Shizu was inspired by the Chinese language, and ordered Prime Minister Basiba to create "Mongolian New Characters" on the basis of imitating the Tibetan alphabet, and guided the Han people to learn Mongolian grammar and words, and finally formed a unique Yuan Dynasty vernacular.
In terms of religion, the Yuan rulers adopted an open and inclusive policy. Taoism is based on the ancient Chinese concept of ghost and god worship, with a secular vision and utilitarian nature based on self and people; At the same time, it incorporated many traditional folk gods and folk gods into its own Shinto system, narrowing the distance with the people at the bottom of society, and thus developed rapidly in the mercantile Yuan Dynasty.
As far as the theme of miscellaneous dramas in the Yuan Dynasty is concerned, an extremely important part of it is the immortal Taoization drama, which accounts for one-tenth of the four hundred plays recorded in the "Record Ghost Book". There is no doubt that the prosperity of Taoist culture also had a profound impact on the creation of miscellaneous opera to a certain extent.
In terms of folklore, whether it is Jurchen or Mongolian, its simple folk customs and open mind have been brought into the creation of meta-miscellaneous operas. For example, the Jurchens have a romantic spirit of actively striving for love, and their young men and women often courtship each other on the way.
So under its influence, a series of meta-dramas praising love were produced, including "Moon Worship Pavilion", "Tuning the Wind Moon" and so on. For example, northern ethnic minorities such as Jurchens and Mongolians have the custom of marriage robbery, and it has also become a unique stage bridge in the development of meta-miscellaneous opera.
All these things show us that miscellaneous opera has finally become an artistic creation that can represent an era under the immersion of the spirit and customs of the Yuan Dynasty.
All these things show us that miscellaneous opera has finally become an artistic creation that can represent an era under the immersion of the spirit and customs of the Yuan Dynasty. For creators, all their creative ideas are actively borrowed and absorbed in the fusion of multiple cultures, and all emotions and aesthetics are passive experiences and choices under the collision of multiple cultures.