Early Song-Drama Collections, Examination Requirements, and the Exigencies of Desire: Li Kaixian (1502–68), Zang Maoxun (1550–1620), and the Uses of Reproductive Authorship

Abstract

In The Theater and Drama of the Chinese (1887), the first European language history of its kind, Rudolf von Gottschall (1832–1909), a then well-known figure in German theatrical, journalistic, and belletristic circles, described what he presumed to have been the process of composition of the plays contained in Zang Maoxun’s One Hundred Yuan Plays (Yuanren baizhong qu, 1615/16): “The classical repertory of the Yuan period seems to have been composed in a very workmanlike fashion. The [imperial] Conservatory of Music was the workshop where the assembled talents of the monarchy collectively satisfied the needs of the Chinese stage.…”¹