Dale R. Johnson - Yuarn Music Dramas: Studies in Prosody and Structure and a Complete Catalogue of Northern Arias in the Dramatic Style

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

MICHIGAN PAPERS IN CHINESE STUDIES
NO. 40

YUARN MUSIC DRAMAS: STUDIES IN PROSODY AND STRUCTURE AND A COMPLETE CATALOGUE OF NORTHERN ARIAS IN THE DRAMATIC STYLE

by

Dale R. Johnson

Ann Arbor

Center for Chinese Studies

The University of Michigan

1980

Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

Copyright 1980

by

Center for Chinese Studies

The University of Michigan

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Johnson, Dale R.

Yuarn music dramas.

(Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies; no. 40)

Bibliography: p.

Includes indexes.

1. Chinese dramaYan dynasty, 1260-1368History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series.

PL2384.J6 895.12409 80-25372

ISBN 0-89264-040-5

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-0-89264-040-9 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-472-12752-8 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-472-90147-0 (open access)

The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

To my pioneer ancestors who made a trek of their own on foreign soil

CONTENTS

As all of us were launched on our first important scholarly ventures during the years that we busied ourselves with the research and writing of dissertations, this study, too, evolved from dissertation labors. During those years, it was the encouragement and stimulation of Professor James I. Crump, Jr. , who introduced me to the early music dramas of China, which kindled my interest in the subject. I was the fortunate recipient of his advice and guidance throughout the various developmental stages of the present work. For his generosity and unflagging concern, I owe him a great debt of gratitude.

I would like to remember here George (Jyh-jih) Chern and his wife Jenny (Yih-jen). Through them, life in Taiwan took on flesh and blood proportions. Their companionship made living in Taiwan not merely a scholarly sojourn, but an experience full of meaning and friendship. By sharing their lives, their friends, and their families with me, they taught me much of what I know about human relationships across cultural chasms which are never bridged by some. I would also like to pay tribute to the memory of Jang Wuh Shyuarn-chern. She, too, shared her home and family, her garden, her food, her piano, her knowledge of Chinese cuisine, wines, medicines, fruits and vegetables, the music of the shiau, and furthered my understanding of what it is like to be a Chinese wife and mother.

Thanks is also due my wife Molly, who helped this study on its bumpy and uneven course in Ann Arbor, Oberlin, Kyoto, and Shanghai, and who made some major personal sacrifices so that my work could be completed.

My work has benefited from the helpful suggestions and criticisms of Professors Hans Frankel, Tanaka Kenji, James I. Crump, Jerome Cavanaugh, Vivian Ling Hsu, and others. This study might never have been completed had I not enjoyed a year of support from the American Council of Learned Societies, which enabled me to use the libraries and facilities of the Kyoto University Research Institute of Humanistic Studies. There I enjoyed the warm friendship and scholarly advice of Professor Tanaka Kenji and the generosity of Kominami Ichiro, who shared his crowded office space, his motorcycle betimes, and lunch on many, many occasions at the Silver Fairy in Shita-shirakawa.

I would like to express my appreciation to the Committee on Grants in Aid at Oberlin College for several small grants which helped the work along the way, and to Robert Longsworth, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Oberlin, who was generous in his support when I needed funding to help prepare the final manuscript for publication.

I owe many thanks to Lyn Boone and Joanne Thodt, who shared the typing of the final unedited manuscript. A special blue ribbon is due my editor, Barbara Congelosi, under whose careful guidance and watchful eye this manuscript assumed its present form. She endured many hours of proofreading and was deft at spotting countless inconsistencies in style, editorial policy, and romanization. Scott Hauser typed the camera-ready copy and made some ingenious improvements in the flow charts for the suites. I myself am solely responsible for any errors or omissions which remain in the text. The artful calligraphy which graces this volume is by the hand of Yiu-fong Dew, and the Chinese characters on the title page were written by Professor C. S. Chang. I thank them much for their elegant brushwork.

Brackets. Brackets are reserved for expressing base forms of arias or the structure of single verses within an aria. [2 2 2] represents three two-character verses. Italic brackets and numerals, e.g. , [22], are used to represent the internal structure of the individual verse. [22] denotes a four-character verse whose internal structure consists of two units, each structured [2].

Hyphens. Apart from normal orthographic usage, hyphens are used to connect romanized syllables into meaningful units: Jung-guorlaur-huu . Aria titles ( e. g. , Hurng-shiouh-shier) and mode titles (e.g. , Huarng-jung-gung) are hyphenated throughout without regard to that principle.

. A Chinese graph underscored by this symbol is a padding word.

!. A Chinese graph underscored by this symbol is an apostrophe.

The superscored ligature. This ligature links two syllables and indicates that they are metrically equal to [1]:

The underscored ligature. This ligature links three syllables and indicates that they are metrically equal to [2]:

Underlined numerals [ 3 3 ]. Simple parallelism between two or more verses is expressed by underlining. [ 3 3 ] indicates that these two verses, each structured [3], are parallel. Parallel elements within a single verse are also designated by underlining; for example, the primary verse type [6] may be broken into two parallel units: [].

+. This symbol is used to indicate identical parallelism. For example, signifies that not only are the first two units [3] parallel, they are also identical:

Romanization. All romanization of Chinese in this work follows the simplified version of the National system* used by Lin Yutang in his dictionary Dang-daih hahn-ying tsyr-diaan