For more than 100 years, through the hard work of several generations of researchers, many important research results have been obtained, and the rich literature accumulation has built a solid literature platform, promoting the continuous development of the whole discipline of opera research, among which the collection, collation and compilation of opera materials have always occupied an important position.
A compilation of songs from the past dynasties
Overall, this work has gone through three major stages of development:
The first is the start-up stage.
Although since the Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties, opera as a national art has been loved by all social strata, and the relevant literature is very abundant, due to the low social status of opera, there has been a lack of conscious and academic collection and collation, and the literature and materials are seriously lost.
In the twentieth century, with the establishment of the discipline of opera research, some researchers such as Wang Guowei, Dong Kang, Wu Mei and others began to collect, sort out and compile opera materials.
The second is the mature stage.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, marked by the "Collection of Classical Chinese Opera Treatises" compiled by Fu Xihua and Du Yingtao, the collection, collation and compilation of opera literature and materials entered a new stage of development. The related works published during this period also include Fu Xihua's "Classical Opera Vocal Music Treatise Series", Zhou Yibai's "Commentary on Opera Singing", and A Ying's "Late Qing Literature Series: ** Opera Research Volume".
A Collection of Treatises on Classical Chinese Opera
Unfortunately, due to political and other factors, the research work was disrupted and came to a standstill. It was not until the 80s that this work was resumed, and some important compilation of opera materials was published one after another, such as Chen Duo and Ye Changhai's "Selected Commentaries on Chinese Drama in the Past Dynasties", Li Hanqiu and Yuan Youfen's "Guan Hanqing Research Materials", Mao Xiaotong's "Tang Xianzu Research Materials Compilation" and so on.
The third is the stage of new change.
Since the nineties of the twentieth century, with the changes in academic culture, the collection, collation and compilation of opera materials have also entered a new stage, which can be called a new period, which is also a harvest period.
This is manifested in the continuous improvement of the academic research environment, more and more precious opera documents from public and private book collecting institutions at home and abroad are disclosed through film, photocopying, etc., and the retrieval methods are becoming more and more advanced and convenient, and the works related to opera materials are constantly published, and the accumulation of opera literature is becoming more and more abundant.
Script writer of "Southern Opera Ceremony".
Under such circumstances, on the basis of previous research, it is not only of great significance to conduct a comprehensive and systematic summary of the previous opera literature and materials, and to compile a compilation of opera materials with great significance, but also the academic conditions have been met. It not only has the significance of integrating the academic history, but also provides greater help and convenience for researchers.
The Compilation of Chinese Opera Narratives edited by Yu Weimin and Sun Rongrong is such a compilation of opera literature with great significance, which is a comprehensive and systematic summary of the research results of Chinese opera literature since the 20th century, embodies the latest achievements in the study of Chinese opera literature, and meets the new needs of researchers for Chinese opera literature.
The reason why the author has taken the trouble to review the development process of Chinese opera literature research since the 20th century is precisely to put it in the context of academic history and give it a more reasonable academic position.
Compilation of Past Dynasties Songs" edited by Tang, Song and Yuan.
For the collection, collation and compilation of literature and materials, it is a basic law that the latter is refined. Because the department is published later, there are naturally more relevant research results that can be referenced, so the collection should be more comprehensive and systematic, and the quality should be more sophisticated, which is also a basic academic requirement. If measured according to this standard, the "Compilation of Historical Songs" meets this requirement and standard.
The following is a reference to the book "Collection of Treatises on Classical Chinese Opera" to examine the characteristics of various aspects of the book. It should be noted that this article takes the Collection of Classical Chinese Opera Treatises as a reference, and focuses on its shortcomings, but this is not intended to detract from the book, but to see the progress and changes in the study of opera literature in different historical periods through this comparison.
First of all, in terms of scale, the book "Compilation of Past Dynasties" far exceeds the "Collection of Classical Chinese Opera Treatises".
Published in 1959, Treatises on Classical Chinese Opera is a summary of the research on Chinese opera literature in the first half of the twentieth century.
Compilation of Songs of the Past Dynasties" edited in the Ming Dynasty.
However, it cannot be denied that limited to the academic environment and subjective and objective conditions at that time, there were also some problems in the book, such as the small number of opera literature included, the whole book only included 48 kinds of ancient opera works, and some famous opera theorists in the history of opera such as Shen Jing, Tang Xianzu, Li Zhen, Jin Shengxian and others did not include the opera works, and did not include the folk works of close people, which cannot but be said to be a defect for researchers.
In contrast, the scale of the book "Compilation of Past Dynasties" exceeds that of the previous compilation of opera materials, the whole book is divided into 20 volumes, the collection of opera and prose works from the Tang Dynasty to modern times, involving a total of 416 authors (excluding anonymous names), including nearly 1,000 opera works.
Secondly, from the perspective of the scope of collection, the "Compilation of Past Dynasties" has a new expansion and is more complete than the previous works of compilation of opera materials. It is mainly manifested in two aspects:
Compilation of Past Dynasties Songs and Tales of the Qing Dynasty Volume.
First, it is manifested as an addition to the literature.
The book includes some important opera works that have been newly discovered after the publication of the Collection of Treatises on Classical Chinese Opera, such as the General Commentary on Three Moments and Five Legends by Li Zhen of the Ming Dynasty, and the General Commentary on The Legend of Huansha, The Legend of the Ming Phoenix, The Legend of the Jinjian, The Legend of the Pearl and The Legend of the Embroidered Shirt, The Northern Dictionary by Xu Yushu of the Qing Dynasty, and The Song of Hanshantang by Zhang Dafu of the Qing Dynasty.
In addition, the opera works of recent people such as Wu Mei, Wang Jilie, Xu Zhiheng and others are "still in the category of old opera studies, and they are summaries of old opera studies" (see the book "General Ordinary Examples"), so a modern edition has been set up to include them.
First, it is manifested in the expansion of the type of opera literature.
The book "Collection of Treatises on Classical Chinese Opera" mainly includes two types of materials, one is a special book, and the other is a relatively concentrated part of the book that discusses opera, and does not include scattered operas, and most of the scattered operas in other forms such as commentaries, prefaces, letters, notes, and miscellaneous works are also not included.
Compilation of Past Songs" modern edition.
In addition to the special books and the more concentrated parts of the special books, the Compilation of Historical Songs has greatly expanded in this regard, and also includes a large number of loose opera literature, including commentaries, prefaces, rulers, notes, poems and songs, and other types. Specifically, "the songs and phrases in the miscellaneous works, anthologies or notes are compiled separately, and the songs in the commentary book are selected to be compiled in independent paragraphs and well-commented" (see the "General Rules" of the book).
As for the theory of loose opera, because "the melody and the melody of the opera are of the same origin and different currents, and the two are closely related" (see the book "General Rules"), a part of it is also selected. This treatment is reasonable and appropriate.
Thirdly, from the point of view of the collection and collation of materials, the "Compilation of Ancient Chinese Opera Treatises" has a great improvement compared with the "Collection of Ancient Chinese Opera Treatises".
Although a lot of effort has been put into the collection of ancient Chinese opera treatises, it is limited by conditions, and the selection of editions of some works is not perfect, such as Wei Liangfu's "Qu Lu", Lu Tiancheng's "Qu Pin", "Ming Xinjian", etc., are not the original engraving or the best books. Later, with the discovery of new literature, the Collection of Treatises on Classical Chinese Opera could hardly meet the needs of researchers.
Song and Yuan Southern Opera Communication Examination".
In view of this, the "Compilation of Historical Songs" has made many improvements in this regard to ensure the credibility and authority of the data. The book tries to use rare books as the base, such as "Recording Ghost Book" using the Tomorrow Yige Blue Grid Banknote as the base, "Qinglou Collection" using Zhou Miaozhong's later discovery of the Qing Zhao Wei copy school book as the base, "Nanzi Yinzheng" using the later discovered "True Records of the Second Collection" as the original text as the base, "Qupin" using the Qing Yang Zhihong manuscript as the base, "Liyuan Yuan" using Wu Xinlei's later discovery of the original "Ming Xinjian" as the base.
For those who have different versions of the collected songs, in addition to using the original engraved version or the rare book that has been revised by predecessors as the base, other versions are also used for proofreading, and the version is indicated**, with a proofreading note, so that readers can easily review and choose.
In addition, there are also some errors in the correction and sentence breaks in the "Collection of Classical Chinese Opera Treatises", especially limited to the knowledge of melody, and there are many mistakes in the sentences about melody in the original book, which can easily cause readers to misunderstand the original work. In this regard, some improvements have also been made to the Compendium of Songs of the Past Dynasties.
As mentioned earlier, the compilation of literature and materials from the back to the back has many previous research results for reference, which is an advantage, but it does not mean that future generations can be lazy and do not need to pay any labor, and it is enough to simply put the previous data together, on the contrary, it means that the compiler has to pay a greater amount of labor, otherwise it will not be able to reflect the word "fine". Here is only the author's reading, with the arrangement of the arrangement of the style as an example.
Due to the large scale and rich content of a large-scale compilation of literature and materials, how to make readers easily and quickly search and use it is also an issue that needs to be seriously considered.
In this regard, the "Compilation of Past Songs" has done a relatively good job. The book is arranged in chronological order, and the whole book is divided into four parts: Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing, and modern times. Within the same series, they are arranged in chronological order according to the author's time. This arrangement is not only more convenient to use, but also actually clarifies the context of the production and circulation of ancient Chinese opera literature, giving people an overall look.
General Theory of the History of Ancient Chinese Opera Theory List of Outstanding Authors The songs and phrases collected in the book are listed according to the author, and there is a short biography of the author in front of it, which briefly introduces his life deeds, main works and the basis of the version. In order to facilitate readers' retrieval and use, the book also includes indexes such as "Index of Names", "Index of Drama Titles", "Index of Names of Songs", "Index of Important Terms" and so on, which is quite convenient to use.
Naturally, as a reader, the requirements for a compilation of literature are endless, and we always want it to be as complete as possible. As far as the author is concerned, although the collection of this book is quite complete and systematic, if we use electronic retrieval methods and use large databases such as the Basic Database of Chinese Ancient Books, we can add some opera literature and materials. It would be great if we could do all the work and publish a supplement in the future.
Some people say that there are two kinds of academic research, one is learning for oneself and the other is learning for others, and this division is still very reasonable. The work of collecting, collating and compiling literature is a typical study of human beings, and it requires a spirit of dedication to scholarship through personal efforts to provide convenience for other researchers. We should pay our respects and express our gratitude to those scholars who have worked silently and engaged in the study of human beings.
A Study on the Rhythm of Ancient Chinese Folk Literature
In short, the book "Compilation of Chinese Opera Stories of the Past Dynasties" is a compilation of opera materials with great significance, and its value and significance will become more and more prominent in the retrieval and use of opera researchers.