The Tang Xianzu Memorial Hall in Fuzhou is a comprehensive cultural venue built to commemorate Tang Xianzu, one of the world’s hundred great cultural figures and a master of Ming‑dynasty drama in China. It is also one of Jiangxi Province’s ten major memorial halls dedicated to historical luminaries.
Appreciation of a Fine Essay | A Brief Discussion of Tang Xianzu and His “Four Dreams”
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2023-04-14
By Guo Hancheng
Editor’s Note: This issue features Mr. Guo Hancheng’s essay, “A Brief Discussion of Tang Xianzu and His ‘Four Dreams,’” which was originally presented at an academic symposium commemorating the 366th anniversary of Tang Xianzu’s death in 1982. The full text offers an in-depth analysis of the philosophical significance of “emotion” in Tang Xianzu’s plays, systematically elucidating the inner meanings embedded in the vivid characters of the four works—The Purple Hairpin, The Peony Pavilion, The Story of Handan, and The Story of Nanke—and articulating hopes for the inheritance and innovation of classical drama in contemporary times.
Adapting and staging all four of Tang Xianzu’s “Four Dreams” is a truly remarkable achievement. To date, across the country, only The Peony Pavilion has been adapted and performed by certain theater troupes; the other three—The Story of the Jade Hairpin, The Dream of the South Chamber, and The Dream of Handan—remain largely unexplored. The comrades in Jiangxi have shown great courage, undertaking pioneering work that expresses their pride in and reverence for this distinguished fellow townsman.
Adapting a classical literary masterpiece is no easy task. To grasp a work, one must first understand its author; and to understand the author, one must situate him within his historical context—a principle often summed up as “know the man, know the times.” Only by appreciating the era in which Tang Xianzu lived and the character of the man himself can we truly appreciate his works.
Tang Xianzu was not only a great dramatist, poet, and thinker in Chinese history, but also a courageous fighter who opposed the darkness of feudalism. During the Ming dynasty, in which he lived, feudal society had already begun to decline, and the prosperity that had characterized the Han and Tang dynasties—those golden ages of feudal rule—was long gone. As a defining feature of this late feudal era, the feudal system resembled a patient suffering from severe complications: the contradictions it harbored—class conflict, ethnic tensions, and internal divisions within the ruling class—erupted all at once. In the final years of the Ming, a new contradiction emerged: with the nascent development of capitalist relations of production, a rift arose between urban citizens and merchants on the one hand, and the Ming court on the other. This tension relentlessly undermined and weakened Ming rule, precipitating a grave political crisis. Tang Xianzu advocated for political reform as a means to avert the dynasty’s collapse. In his work “Zhao Ziming Xuan Lu,” he likened the Ming regime to a gravely ill patient, arguing that only a powerful “strong medicine” could offer any hope of recovery. Some feared that if the Ming state were already so weakened, administering such a drastic remedy might not only fail to cure the illness but even prove fatal. Yet Tang maintained that the use of “strong medicine” would inevitably provoke a reaction; while this reaction did carry the risk of death, it also held the potential for a turning point. He cited the political reforms of Wang Anshi during the Song dynasty as an illustrative example. In Ningbo County, Wang Anshi’s reforms succeeded, but when extended nationwide, they ultimately faltered. In Ningbo, as the local magistrate, he faced no significant resistance; across the empire, however, he encountered fierce opposition from entrenched rivals, causing the reforms to founder midway. Through this historical analogy, Tang sought to warn the hardline establishment—those clinging to the autocratic rule of large landowners and high-ranking bureaucrats—that stubborn adherence to the old order could lead to disastrous consequences.
Tang Xianzu
Tang Xianzu was also a philosopher. What set him apart from ordinary writers was that his works were guided by philosophical thought, endowing them with profound philosophical depth. Consequently, it is crucial to approach Tang Xianzu’s oeuvre from the vantage point of his philosophical ideas. As noted above, in an effort to stave off its own demise, the Ming dynasty vigorously promoted Confucian orthodoxy; yet Tang Xianzu opposed this orthodoxy by positing “emotion” (qing) as antithetical to the “Way” (dao) of feudal morality, thereby igniting a major controversy over the conflict between “emotion” and “principle” (li). This struggle unfolded through divergent interpretations of such philosophical categories as “nature” (xing), “principle” (li), “Way” (dao), and “emotion” (qing). According to the Confucian scholars, “nature” is innate—manifesting the ultimate truth of the “Way” within human nature. The “Way” they espoused was, in fact, the feudal ethics and moral codes that governed actual feudal patriarchal relations. In this way, feudal ethical norms were elevated to the status of immutable, absolute truths, while “emotion,” which expresses human desires, was cast into opposition to the “Way” and deemed something that must be banished from the inner realm of the individual. By contrast, Tang Xianzu argued precisely the opposite: he maintained that nature itself is neither good nor evil, whereas emotion does possess both good and evil.
How, then, can we distinguish between good and evil in human emotions? Tang Xianzu proposed a criterion: humans need food and clothing, they must survive, and they must strive for development. Any emotion that accords with these basic needs is deemed good; conversely, any emotion that obstructs human survival and progress is regarded as evil. This standard is of paramount importance: it affirms all the legitimate demands of ordinary life—clothing, food, shelter, transportation, marriage, and love—while condemning the ruling class’s exploitation, oppression, corruption, decadence, and asceticism as forms of “evil emotion.” Thus, this “struggle between emotion and reason” is, in essence, a reflection of the class struggle of that era within the realm of ideology. Tang Xianzu spoke up for the common people, and therein lies his profound progressiveness and greatness.
Based on Tang Xianzu’s philosophical thought and political ideals, a re‑examination of his “Four Dreams” reveals that these four works are unified—not only in their progressive spirit but also in their limitations. To study Tang Xianzu’s oeuvre is to examine all four of his plays together, approaching them as an integrated whole.
Book illustration from “The Collected Dramas of Tang Xianzu”
“The Story of Handan” takes a negative stance, critiquing the vices that pervade human life. “The Story of the Southern Bough,” by contrast, is more complex, depicting how virtuous sentiments ultimately succumb to malevolent ones. The first two dreams, which extol goodness, largely articulate Tang Xianzu’s ideals, while the latter two, which denounce evil, focus primarily on a critique of contemporary reality. Only by considering the “Four Dreams” as a unified whole can one discern their full thematic arc. Below, we shall examine in detail the archetypal characters found in Tang Xianzu’s works.
In “The Purple Hairpin,” the character who stifles genuine affection is Grand Secretary Lu. Tang Xianzu’s portrayal of Grand Secretary Lu is laden with symbolic meaning: his patrons are eunuchs and prime ministers, and his family embodies the fusion of eunuchs, bureaucrats, and military commanders—essentially a microcosm of Ming‑dynasty politics. By contrast, the ideal figure is the man in the yellow robe. Thus, “The Purple Hairpin” already bears the seeds of Tang Xianzu’s later works, though it remains, of course, an immature piece.
It is worth clarifying the ending of “The Purple Hairpin.” The original work, “Huo Xiaoyu,” concludes as a tragedy, but Tang Xianzu rewrote it to a happy reunion, thus transforming it into a non‑tragic outcome. Critics have deemed this revision far from ideal—wasn’t it merely a whitewashing of reality? In my view, the matter is not so simple; it is deeply tied to the spirit of the times. As early as the late Yuan and early Ming periods, a trend emerged of composing “revising‑the‑case” plays; from “Zhao Zhennü and Cai Erlang” to Gao Ze Cheng’s “The Lute,” these represent quintessential examples. By the time of Tang Xianzu, such re‑interpretations had become a widespread intellectual current. The tragedies penned by scholars often focused on individual destinies, and these works were indeed commendable. Yet in the Yuan era, extreme, brutal ethnic discrimination and class oppression had become pervasive social problems, leading people to recognize that reactionary rulers were the root cause of life’s tragedies. Accordingly, Gao Ze Cheng directed his critique toward powerful figures like Lord Niu while granting clemency to Cai Bojie. This marked a significant advance in awareness, carrying profound social implications. During the Ming dynasty, political corruption and official malfeasance were equally grave; Tang Xianzu, by turning his critical gaze toward the bureaucracy and the Ming court, was continuing and developing this tradition of dissenting discourse. Moreover, the addition of an idealized character—the Yellow‑Cloaked Traveler—represents a far more progressive approach than relying on karmic retribution or the “repentance” of those in power. The Jiangxi opera adaptation of “The Purple Hairpin” has been very well performed, with Comrade Huang Wenxi’s script handling the material admirably. Certain passages, however, still merit further consideration—for instance, the scene in the original where Grand Preceptor Lu kills Qiu Hong, which is ingeniously conceived; might it be worth reintroducing? Likewise, Li Yi appears somewhat too passive.
Now let us turn to The Peony Pavilion. This play portrays genuine emotion, and the love between Liu Mengmei and Du Liniang stands as a quintessential embodiment of such sincerity. Genuine feeling is not abstract; in Tang Xianzu’s writing, it takes the form of benevolent sentiments that “broaden life” and “benefit all beings.” The character of Du Liniang represents a remarkably luminous archetype in Chinese dramatic literature—unprecedented before—and this is one of Tang Xianzu’s most outstanding contributions. In her dream, Du Liniang encounters her ideal lover; moved by love, she dies, only to be reborn through it. As Tang Xianzu puts it, “From love arises the dream, and from the dream springs the drama”—love is aspiration, and the dream is an ideal. Du Liniang’s fervent pursuit of love serves as a stark contrast to the harshness of real life. Thus, her love simultaneously embodies both idealism and critique; the more intense her passion, the more pronounced these two dimensions become.
I remember last year, when I saw “The Dream of the Red Chamber” in Suzhou, the stage design and set pieces were truly beautiful. When Du Liniang, unable to find her dream, was overcome with sorrow beneath the plum tree, the blossoms began to fall one by one, creating a deeply evocative atmosphere. At the time, a fellow audience member remarked, “This is an example of contrast—using the withering of the plum blossoms to highlight the intensity of Du Liniang’s emotions.” But I think it could also be read as a case of positive reinforcement: the vibrant bloom of the plum flowers serves to underscore the extremity of her passion. For death, after all, is not the waning of feeling, but rather its most extreme manifestation. If her love had not burned so fiercely, she would never have died; and if it had not reached such a pitch, even in death she could not have been brought back to life. Such a scenario may seem implausible in our everyday reality, yet when we watch the play, we accept it—this, precisely, is the power of Du Liniang as an artistic archetype and the very essence of Romanticism. “The Peony Pavilion” also presents three negative figures: Du Bao, Chen Zuilang, and Judge Hu. All three are Confucian moralists, yet each is distinct. Du Bao genuinely believes in feudal morality and enforces it with unwavering rigor; his actions are resolute and unshakable, making him the quintessential stubborn, inflexible moralist. Some readers have misunderstood him, portraying Du Bao as someone who uses his daughter as a stepping stone to climb the social ladder, arranging her marriage to some high-ranking official. Others even suggest he does not care for his daughter at all; when Du Liniang dies, he neither weeps nor shows the slightest emotion, not even glancing at her. Such interpretations reduce Du Bao to a mere abstraction—a moralizing stereotype—rather than a living, complex human being. People are inherently complicated, the sum of myriad social relationships, and they inevitably harbor contradictions. One cannot simply dismiss him as a hypocritical, shameless, utterly inhuman figure. On the contrary, Du Bao is often depicted as an upright, incorruptible official; in the scene “Admonishing the Farmers,” Tang Xianzu even imbues him with an idealistic political dimension of concern for the people—something entirely consistent with his role as a paradigmatic moralist in “The Peony Pavilion.” After all, dramatic writing is fundamentally about people; it must take human beings as its foundation, not abstract concepts.
Still from “The Peony Pavilion”
Judge Hu was another kind of moralist, wielding the power of life and death. His standard for judging right and wrong in the world was feudal morality, making him a moralist who treated human lives as mere weeds. During the Ming dynasty, such moralists were numerous; as we know, Li Zhuowu, Monk Daguan, He Xinyin, and others were all put to death for opposing feudal Confucianism.
The Ming dynasty was the era that produced the greatest number of virtuous, chaste women; and the true culprits behind their deaths were a group of moralizing scholars—akin to Judge Hu—who treated human life with callous disregard. If you read the aria describing Judge Hu’s arrival in office, you’ll find it shrouded in chilling, ghostly gloom, as though the entire Hall of Yama were piled high with the bleached bones of the innocent. I believe the scene of “Judgment in the Underworld” is the pièce de résistance of The Peony Pavilion, the one that most vividly captures Tang Xianzu’s central ideas. I’d like to offer a brief discussion of this pivotal scene, for it will help us grasp the play as a whole. Judge Hu has just taken his post—“a new official lights three fires”—and sets out to clear the backlog of cases, for the gates of hell are clogged with too many souls, and ghosts have overrun the realm. First come four male offenders—Oriole, Swallow, Bee, and Butterfly—known as the “Four Friends of the Flowers.” In the mortal world, they indulged in lust and debauchery, and so Judge Hu consigns them all to the cycle of rebirth. Next appears Du Liniang; upon learning that she died of longing for beauty, Judge Hu flies into a rage and summons the Flower Goddess, accusing her of having seduced Du Liniang. The Flower Goddess protests that flowers bloom and fall of their own accord, not to lure anyone. Just as Judge Hu is about to condemn Du Liniang to hell, a little demon interjects: she is, after all, the daughter of a prefect. At this, Judge Hu, realizing she is the magistrate’s daughter, rules that she be restored to life. This may seem like a mere flourish of penmanship, yet it carries profound meaning. Consider how Judge Hu equates Du Liniang’s death from yearning for beauty with the unrestrained carnal desires of the “Four Friends of the Flowers”—isn’t that precisely what we might call a “Hu‑style” judgment? He conflates genuine emotion with base passion. Finally, when Judge Hu orders Du Liniang’s return to the living world, the author’s casual stroke of the brush turns into a telling satire, cutting deep into the character of such figures as Judge Hu.
Performance by the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe / Photo by Liu Xiaohui
The central theme of “The Tale of Handan” is clear: it is a critique of Lu Sheng. Lu Sheng is a down-and-out scholar who, by leveraging his wife’s family connections and bribing with money, manages to climb all the way to the post of Grand Chancellor. Consumed by insatiable greed and indulging in boundless extravagance, he epitomizes the high-ranking bureaucrats of the Ming dynasty.
What I find rather difficult to grasp is “The Story of the Southern Bough.” Who exactly is Chunyu Fen in this work, and how does he differ from Lu Sheng? This is a crucial question. In my view, Lu Sheng and Chunyu Fen represent two distinct archetypes. Although Chunyu Fen, too, leverages his wife’s connections to ascend onto the political stage and eventually becomes the governor of Nanke, he harbors certain ideals and ambitions, aspiring to achieve something meaningful in politics—unlike Lu Sheng, who seeks only promotion and wealth. Yet he ultimately fails; his ideals and aspirations wither, and he himself ends up falling into the same mold as Lu Sheng. Tang Xianzu had encountered figures like Chunyu Fen—in fact, Zhang Juzheng was one such example. Earlier, we noted that Tang Xianzu analyzed the failure of Wang Anshi’s reforms during the Song dynasty, drawing on historical lessons to warn the Ming court. In “The Story of the Southern Bough,” Chunyu Fen assumes governance of Nanke County in the Ant Kingdom and initially achieves notable success. However, within the imperial court, certain factions conspire against him; year after year, he must bribe high-ranking officials, yet even this fails to secure their support. His subordinate, Zhou Bian, is hot‑tempered and belligerent, leading to a disastrous defeat that nearly costs him the entire county. With such a superior and such subordinates, Chunyu Fen’s “ideal realm” was doomed to collapse. Upon returning to the capital, the princess dies, leaving him without a patron, and his aspirations vanish. In the end, he is drawn into the vast, corrupt maelstrom of Ming politics, following the same path as Lu Sheng. Through the figure of Chunyu Fen, “The Story of the Southern Bough” objectively heralds the demise of the Ming dynasty—a tempestuous upheaval that sweeps away even the Ant Kingdom itself. Twenty years after Tang Xianzu’s death, that very storm arrived: Li Zicheng’s peasant rebellion erupted, toppling the Ming regime. Thus, Tang Xianzu’s prophecy was fulfilled, revealing the inherent logic by which feudalism inexorably crumbles.
Tang Xianzu’s “Four Dreams” are truly monumental, yet, like all classical works, they also bear certain limitations. As I have previously noted, we must assess the “Four Dreams” both in terms of their progressive aspects and their inherent constraints; the root of these limitations lies in Tang Xianzu’s own thought. He divided emotion into good and evil—a theory that, at the time, was highly progressive, realistic, and combative, and which itself contained elements of materialist philosophy. But whence do these emotions of good and evil originate? The moment one touches upon this question, one inevitably veers toward idealism. Tang Xianzu could not link human feelings—whether good or evil—to the social conditions of production, class relations, or other concrete historical contexts; instead, he could only explain them in terms of subjective human cognition. This is a pattern shared by many great thinkers and philosophers of antiquity—even those who were thoroughly materialist, such as Feuerbach, whom Marx praised. There is nothing surprising about this, for history had not yet afforded Tang Xianzu the conditions to transcend the level of “anthropology” and address social problems from a broader, more comprehensive standpoint. Whenever social issues are broached, the discourse inevitably turns to idealism.
Still from “Garden Kunqu: The Peony Pavilion,” performed at the Kezhi Garden in Zhujiajiao, Shanghai.
The dichotomy of virtuous and vicious passions that Tang Xianzu articulates in his “Four Dreams” is eminently realistic, and he magnifies these sentiments to their utmost through the medium of dreams. Yet once one returns to the real world, characters like Liu Mengmei and Du Liniang still depend on the emperor’s imperial marriage decree; as for someone like Lu Sheng, whose licentious and shameless vices have reached their extreme, thereby jeopardizing the people’s very survival—how can one expect him to renounce such evil inclinations? The only recourse would be to appeal to human nature itself, urging them to abandon extravagance and insatiable greed, to attain transcendence in accordance with Buddhist doctrine, and thus achieve self‑perfection. Of course, this remains a mere utopia, utterly unattainable in practice. Hence, at the root of the matter, the limitations of the “Four Dreams” are fundamentally the same. Some critics laud “The Story of the Purple Hairpin” and “The Peony Pavilion,” while dismissing “The Tale of Hanzhong” and “The Dream of the South Tree,” on the grounds that the latter espouse Buddhist and Daoist doctrines and adopt an overly pessimistic stance, thereby negating even their otherwise vigorous critical spirit. In truth, the resolution of conflicts in “The Peony Pavilion” by means of imperial intervention, as well as the reliance on the Yellow‑Robed Guest to settle disputes in “The Story of the Purple Hairpin,” both reflect inherent limitations: neither can truly address the social issues raised by the author within the works themselves. Nevertheless, this does not warrant rejecting “The Peony Pavilion” or “The Story of the Purple Hairpin.” For the profound source of these limitations lies in the historical epoch in which the writer lived; reflected in the texts, they manifest as historical concreteness and authenticity—qualities that coexist with progressive tendencies, mutually reinforcing and complementing one another, without thereby undermining the works’ greatness.
It is essential to gain a thorough understanding of Tang Xianzu’s works before embarking on any adaptation, yet such adaptations must be approached with the utmost care. Last night I saw “The Peony Pavilion,” in which the emperor’s role in resolving the conflict was replaced by that of the Flower Goddess. While the Flower Goddess’s resolution may indeed be preferable to the emperor’s, it still amounts to nothing more than the emperor being supplanted by a deity. Of course, I fully appreciate the difficulties faced by my colleagues in making these changes: the play has already run for two and a half hours, and there is simply no room for further development. Bringing in the Flower Goddess allows many scenes to be omitted, thereby resolving the issue of time.
In classical works, limitations are an objective reality; we should not view them as insurmountable. Since the founding of the People’s Republic, I believe there has been a tendency in evaluating classical literature: an overemphasis on the author’s attitude within the work, while paying insufficient attention to the life depicted and its objective significance. If we approach classical works with such a simplistic framework, no classical text can be judged as truly worthwhile, and this often leads to neglecting a comprehensive, artistically grounded analysis. In my view, when assessing classical works, we must adhere to Marxist dialectical materialism and historical materialism—these are truths—but we must avoid reducing them to oversimplification or vulgarization. For when truth is reduced to simplicity or banality, it risks becoming error. We must overcome this flaw by situating each work and each writer within their historical context, conducting a case-by-case analysis for every piece, and never resorting to analogical generalizations. There are numerous instances where two works may appear similar on the surface yet differ fundamentally in essence.
This commemoration of Tang Xianzu, through performance and scholarly inquiry, has deepened our understanding of classical works and will play a positive role in the inheritance of our fine national cultural heritage. China boasts a wealth of classical literary and dramatic masterpieces, yet we have conducted far too little research on them, and their transmission has been scant. Westerners often harbor a bias, assuming that Western drama constitutes the mainstream of world theatrical culture. In my view, beyond this prejudice, the root of the problem lies in our failure to adequately inherit and carry forward these traditions. Shakespeare has become a global phenomenon, but how many people around the world even know of our own Tang Xianzu? That is why today’s symposium honoring Tang Xianzu is not only significant for Jiangxi; it also carries national—and indeed, worldwide—importance.
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