Introduction Rewriting Early Chinese Zaju Song-Drama for Transnational, National, and Local Contexts

Abstract

In his 1930 preface to the first comprehensive history of classical Chinese drama in any language, Aoki Masaru (1887–1964) described an initiatory moment of textual seduction:

When I was a child, I was already extremely enamored of [Japanese] puppet theater (jôruri). Around 1907, … I came across Sasagawa Rinpu’s History of Chinese Literature [1898]. The book quoted the “Startling Dream” scene from [Jin Shengtan’s version of the] Xixiang ji (Story of the Western wing) [in which Student Zhang dreams that his beloved Cui Yingying, from whom he is temporarily separated, follows him while she is simultaneously being pursued by a bandit]. I did not yet fully comprehend what I read, but I was already thoroughly entranced. Later on, when I obtained a book that contained several annotated scenes of the Xixiang ji, I was even happier. This was not only the beginning of my knowledge of, but also of my love for Chinese drama.¹

Aoki, an internationally influential sinologist, presented his love affair with Chinese drama as an intimate and aesthetic affair of the heart.