The New Literature of Sanjin Opera- Reading the "Shanxi Opera Inscription Examination"
Excerpt from Jinyang Academic Journal, No. 2, 2003, Zhou Huabin
Feng Junjie edited the "Shanxi Opera Inscription Examination" (a project of the National Philosophy and Social Science Foundation. The whole book collects 100 ancient stele in Shanxi, from the Northern Song Dynasty to the 27th year of the Qing Dynasty Guangxu, spanning nearly a thousand years. The so-called "loss of etiquette and seeking the wilderness", in ancient times, opera was regarded as a trail, and there were many shortcomings in the literature. These ancient monuments, which stand silently among the countryside, although eroded by the years, are "carved in stone history" and record the development process of folk opera culture.
The focus of the whole book is not only on the "series", but also on the "examination". On the one hand, through field investigation, the full text of the stone inscription is recorded; on the other hand, the cultural background and opera events involved in the inscription are analyzed in detail in combination with ancient documents, local chronicles, customs and folk customs. Its multi-faceted humanistic perspective, as well as the scientific research method of combining cultural relics, literature and fieldwork, marks a new academic approach in the field of Chinese theater history research. The ancient stele of Belden, which looks through the millennium, embodies the whole process of the maturity and development of Chinese opera, and can make up for the lack of documentary records, thus providing a large number of unprecedented precious materials in the field of Chinese opera history research.
Shanxi is a major province of opera cultural relics. People said: "Shang Zhou cultural relics out of Henan, Han and Tang cultural relics out of Shaanxi, Song and Jin cultural relics out of Shanxi", since the Song Dynasty, the number of ground cultural relics stored, the essence, is not Shanxi. Its architecture, murals, sculptures, corresponding folk ——— those oral, unrecorded, tangible or audible cultural heritage, making Shanxi an important base for examining Chinese history and culture. After the Fall of the Song Dynasty, civilian opera matured, and the Ming and Qing dynasties became more widespread, and even became an artistic treasure of the Chinese nation. Since Wang Guowei, most scholars who study the history of Chinese opera have focused on the examination of texts and documents, and have paid little attention to the characteristics of the drama on the field and the folk opera. After the "May Fourth" period, intellectuals went to the people, and some people of insight began to pay attention to the dramatic phenomena that have spread and integrated into folk customs for thousands of years. However, due to various reasons, most scholars rarely have the opportunity to conduct in-depth and meticulous investigation, and the overall research of Chinese opera history has long stayed at the level of bookish copywriting and text.
My father, Zhou Yibai, spent his life studying the history of Chinese theatre. He has always attached great importance to the creation of drama on the field and in the folk, and attaches great importance to the collection and research of related cultural relics, data pictures, records and even small record books, believing that "the field of drama is not played on the field" is not meritorious. Since!" At the beginning of the century, there were successive discoveries of opera cultural relics in Shanxi and Henan, and my fathers had written articles to explain, such as the "Zhongdu Xiu" opera murals of the Yuan Dynasty of Guangsheng Temple in Shanxi, the model of the opera stage and the figurines in the tombs of the Houma Jin Dynasty, the miscellaneous drama carving bricks in the Tombs of the Song Dynasty in Henan, and the silk paintings of the Southern Song Dynasty. In the early years, when I was continuing to study the history of opera, Mr. Yu Cong, a disciple of my father's sage and an expert in the history of opera, told me: "To engage in the history of opera, we must go to Shanxi." In 2008, I went to Shanxi to participate in the Academic Seminar on Zizi Vocal Cavity, from Taiyuan to Yuncheng, all the way to observe local opera performances, all the way to investigate opera cultural relics, Jinnan opera figurines, theaters and customs made me have a strong interest. Since then, he has traveled many times and traveled to more than a dozen counties in southern Jin and central Jin, and has gained a lot. Some scholars say: "Jinnan is the cradle of Chinese opera." In the past 20 or 30 years, shanxi has continuously discovered new opera cultural relics, such as the Song Jin miscellaneous drama figurines in Jishan County, the miscellaneous drama line carvings of the Yuan Dynasty sarcophagus in the Yongle Palace in Ruicheng City, the image of Lu Qiren in the yuanming water and land paintings in Youyu County, the manuscript of the "Yingshen Saishe Forty-Qu Palace Tune" in the Shangdang area; the temple drama building and the Shehuo drama that have been continued in the Song, Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. After the field investigation, I felt more and more that this statement was true: "To engage in the history of drama, we must go to Shanxi." "In particular, the opera relics and opera buildings and customs throughout the land of southern Jinnan are rich and concentrated in other regions. From another point of view, Shanxi's opera relics and documents are promising, and have also created a group of well-known scholars with outstanding achievements. Among them, several professors and middle-aged and young students from the Institute of Opera and Cultural Relics of Shanxi Normal University have come out with many achievements, which is quite eye-catching.
In the autumn and winter of 1984, I went to Jinnan alone to inspect the cultural relics of opera, and stayed for a few days at The Shanxi Normal College (now Shanxi Normal University) in Linfen. At that time, he discussed with colleagues from the Department of Chinese, the Department of History and relevant functional departments, such as Huang Zhusan, Dou Kai, Zhang Shouzhong and Yang Taikang, the establishment of the Institute of Chinese Opera Cultural Relics and the establishment of "Chinese Opera". Soon, with the support of the school leaders, the Institute of Opera Cultural Relics was indeed established, and the "Chinese Opera" was also set up. The Institute first focused on collecting cultural relics materials and pictures, established the Xiqu Cultural Relics Exhibition Room, and edited and published the "Illustration of Song Jinyuan Opera Cultural Relics" in $% & * year $. At the same time, the first series of Chinese Opera was published in June 1986, without interruption, and has reached 27 series so far. Over the past ten years, the Institute has added backbones such as Professor Feng Junjie, expanded in scale, and achieved more and more results, which has produced an important impact on peers at home and abroad.
Colleagues of Shanxi Normal University regard the copying, expansion, reading, and interpretation of monuments as the basic and regular work of the Institute of Drama Research. The copying of monuments was once considered to be a matter of "thick past and thin present", and young students often dismissed it. As everyone knows, the stone stele standing on the land of China stretches for thousands of years, tens of thousands, and is a treasure house in the history of Chinese civilization. Since the Song Dynasty, carving stone monuments is not limited to the imperial court and official palaces, but has become a common custom of remembering temples, ancestral halls, villages and families, and is a public act. The graphic information engraved on the stone is more important, more accurate, and more reliable than the words recorded on paper. It embodies the living conditions and cultural conditions of all fields and classes of society, and is undoubtedly a genuine historical document.
The work of the Shanxi Normal University Drama Research Institute began when the institute was established in the last century, and in the first special work "Song Jinyuan Opera Cultural Relics Illustration", there were already inscriptions and inscriptions amp; chapter. At that time, it was just copied from the original text, and even the punctuation was not added. Although the original local information is provided, the inscription is too mixed, a large number of words and opera are not related, and the selection of useful information from it is almost like panning for gold in the sand, which requires a lot of additional efforts.
Perseverance, gold stone can be skeletonized. Over the years, led by Professor Feng Junjie, the study of the opera materials in the inscriptions has been taken as a project, and hundreds of temples in 80 or 90 counties and cities in Shanxi have been inspected, and the opera phenomenon in the ancestral worship activities of the temples has been clearly taken as the main direction of attack, and finally the "Shanxi Opera Inscription Examination" has been written. The book is about the selected quot; "The inscription is punctuated with broken sentences, and the whole text is recorded. It is also supplemented according to Qing Hu Pingzhi's "Compilation of Stone Carvings on the Right Side of the Mountain". Each inscription is examined to clarify the basic situation of the stone stele and the temple to which it belongs, its folklore historical background and cultural connotation, the life deeds of the relevant authors, seal people, Shudan people, and inscriptionists, especially the opera events involved in the inscriptions.
Professor Feng Junjie put forward the concept of "temple drama" in the "Preface". The recorded Belden Tablets, at least in the following aspects, provide unprecedented documentary information, which should arouse the thinking of scholars:
First of all, the temple theater ——— inscription shows that from the terrace, dance building, dedication hall, and south building of the Northern Song Dynasty and Jin Yuan Dynasty, to the specialized temple theater building, the passing theater stage, and the Mountain Gate Dance Building (theater room, viewing building, and various variants of the Qing Dynasty Mountain Gate Dance Building, such as the Three Gates of the Mountain Gate, the Three Gates of the Temple, the Three-Way Crossing Platform, the Three-Sided Opening Crossing Platform, the Gate Theater Stage before and after the Entrance Hall, the Street Stage outside the Temple, the Closed Door Dance Floor, etc.), there are a large number of records. Mr. Feng Junjie said in the preface: All this shows that "China's temple theater began in the Northern Song Dynasty, popularized in the Jin Yuan, began to reform after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and developed to the Qing Dynasty to become more perfect", "from an important aspect of the outline shows the evolution of Chinese opera in the past thousand years".
The second is the custom of acting——— temple drama, which is attached to the sacrificial ceremony and distinguished from entertainment activities other than the gods. The inscription shows a variety of information, including dedication plays, punishment plays, discussion plays, and even drama class activities, drama selection and so on. In particular, the drama stele that appeared after the middle of the Ming Dynasty contained more detailed information. Based on this, Mr. Feng said: "If you only need a little bit of work to comb and sort out, these materials can constitute a summary of the history of temple drama, which can also reflect the tortuous course of the development of Chinese opera."
The third is the aesthetic concept——— the inscription, which contains the views on the performance of the gods, the comments on the drama, the records of the folk drama class, the artist, and the level of performing arts, and to a certain extent represents the theatrical concepts and aesthetic attitudes of the government, literati and the public in different eras. Mr. Feng said: Generally speaking, during the Song And Jinyuan period, there was both tolerance and appreciation for the god of drama remuneration, as well as depreciation and rejection. In the Yuan Dynasty, it was more common for gods to perform dramas, and even conservative-minded officials were helpless. In the Ming Dynasty, local officials were more understanding and tolerant of this, and some even began to consciously improve the status of opera culture and seek some theoretical support. In the Qing Dynasty, not only did "acting reward the gods, and the example could not help it", but also the rational understanding of the nature of the drama gradually increased, so that the "huaya dispute" in the drama world was also carried out in the temple theater for more than a century, and finally the situation of "random bombing" winning appeared.
The cultural value of the original text of the inscription does not stop there, different eras, different temples, different uses, different authors involved in different worship and drama activities, showing rich and complex ideological concepts, religious psychology, sacrifice customs, social fire activities, architectural forms, folk culture and so on. The benevolent see the benevolent, and the wise see the wise, which can arouse the multi-perspective and multi-faceted thinking of scholars. The discovery and documentation of literature has eternal value, and its significance lies in this.
In the past ten years, the research field of Chinese opera history has expanded. In particular, the research on folk drama, religious sacrifice drama, ritual drama, and field opera has made more use of the viewpoints and methods of art, drama, folklore, and human culture, and has made breakthroughs in the inherent concept of "opera" and the concept of "sound cavity drama". As a result, new ideas have emerged on the origin, form, occurrence and development of Chinese drama and opera, which can be integrated with international theater studies such as the study of traditional East Asian drama. Feng Junjie and colleagues of the Institute of Drama Research have participated in many international and domestic academic seminars, and the book "Ji Kao", on the surface, seems to be a copy of monuments, reading monuments, and dissolving monuments, "drilling the old paper pile", but in fact, it has made indispensable contributions in the fields of drama, folklore and history, providing little-known precious documents for the academic community. The academic concepts and academic methods reflected in it are advancing with the times and are nothing less than the cutting-edge achievements of the discipline.