Double Jeopardy

Front matter

A CRITIQUE OF SEVEN YUAN COURTROOM DRAMAS

KENNETH G. LIEBERTHAL AND RICHARD H.

ROGEL CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

Contents

Preface Abbreviations

I. Preliminaries A Historical Survey of Criticism The "Poetic" School The "Socialist" Cult Some Modern Trends Approach of the Present Study The Texts

II. Language as Criterion in Yüan Drama Generally The Best of the Class The Mo-ho-lo Doll

Preface

Traditionally, criticism of Yüan drama has been dominated by the "poetic" and the "socialist" schools. The present work represents a rather rigorous attempt to evaluate a group of plays by aesthetic criteria generated from within the genre itself. Seven "judgment reversal" plays constitute the body of this work, and its two major preoccupations are language and the manipulation of dramatic characters-- undoubtedly the most reliable indicators of the playwright's strength and eraftsmanship in such a stylized art form as Yüan tsa-chü drama.

The method informing the present volume is basically just explication de texte, with particular attention to both the conventions: of the genre and the individual characters of each play. Close scrutiny of some conventional aspects of tsa-chü--the functions of lyric, verse, and prose and the significance of their distribution in the play; the custom of a single singing role and its implication for the presentation of dramatis personae, and so on--will reveal the innovation and creative vitality of the playwright. Even though I deal with a small subgroup within the genre, Yuan drama being as convention-bound as it is, I believe some of the methods used and values adduced will be applicable to Yüan dramatic criticism as a whole.

During the preparation of this book I became indebted to many people. Special thanks go to all members of my dissertation committee--Professors Russell A. Fraser, Shuen-fu Lin, William F. Sibley, and Charles Witke--for their advice and constant encouragement.

To Professor J. I. Crump, chairman of the committee, I would like to express my deepest gratitude. Not only did his erudition on the subject help me greatly with my task, but when aid or inspiration was needed he was always there, ready. His imprint must be apparent on every page; but that, I hope, is the least that I have gained from a very Special person,

Professor Lin, a particularly attentive reader, furnished perceptive and constructive criticism. Professor Stephen H. West, of the University of Arizona, read the second chapter in its earlier version, and kindly offered many valuable comments and suggestions.

In addition, I am grateful to have this small forum from which to : acknowledge publicly my sincere thanks to Professors Charles Witke and Ilene Olken, Directors of the Program in Comparative Literature at The University of Michigan, who over the years have graciously and staunchly supported my various projects. I would also like to acknowledge my debt to the Center for Chinese Studies at The University of Michigan for making me an associate so I could continue to work on this book.

But nothing I can say here will adequately repay my debt to my dear parents and my beloved wife. Their unstinted moral support, patience, and love have made this work possible, for whatever it may be worth.

C. H. P.

ABBREVIATIONS

Chung-wen ta tz'u-tien Y r4 X 2»

Chung-kuo ku-tien hsi-ch'ü lun-chu chi-ch'eng PALER 5152 4 7X,

Yüan-ch'ü hsüan wai-pien f, ub X ^ [2

Yüan-ch'ühsüan X wis

Yiian- Ming-Ch'ing hsi-ch'ü lun-wen chi f, oy LA Au Ff) sy Jf db KAR

I. PRELIMINARIES

This study examines and evaluates a group of seven plays from the Yüan arid a. 1368) Hac can tsa-chü drama 36$] known as "'p'ing-fan kung-an chü f RA ġa t or ‘or "plays of judgment reversal," all of which feature ER trials in which the verdict of the first judge is overturned by that of the second. In the sense that these plays constitute a distinct group within the subgenre of kung-an chü ^ E :] or "courtroom plays," the present project is an extension of Professor George A. Hayden's recent work.” What do these plays have in common beyond the obvious fact that they all include double trials? In what way is the first verdict arrived at, and how does the second come about? What bearing does such an arrangement have on the dramas! structure or the manipulation of characters? Further, how are these structurally and often thematically similar plays different from one another? These are some of the questions that will be dealt with in the following chapters.

But the study goes further. Less broad in scope than Hayden's paper," it can afford discussion in more detail and accommodate a more rigorous aesthetic analysis with a certain degree of thoroughness. While theme and structure are touched upon, the present investigation concentrates in particular on the dramatic uses of language and the maneuvering of dramatis personae. For itis in these last two areas,

I believe, that the Yüan playwright's art is revealed. Questions will

be raised about the proportion of poetic arias to prose dialogue in these plays as compared to other tsa-chü. What, for instance, does their distribution tell us about the nature ot the judgment reversal dramas as opposed to other kinds of Yüan plays?* Specifically, what function does Spoken verse (and recapitulations) have in a dramatic situation? Are there patterns or conventions in characterization? What is the relation- Ship between the custom of a single singing role and the presentation of characters?. Finally, what is the implication of the reversal of judgment? Does it, however obliquely, point to the Chinese sense of the "tragic" or reflect to any degree Chinese sensibilities?

It is obvious that such an endeavor will necessarily go well beyond explication de texte for a handful of plays, if only to do justice to the significance of the questions raised. By taking up the present research, I hope to bring into sharper focus criteria for the evaluation not only of the plays under scrutiny but also of the Yüan tsa-chü as a dramatic form. In the process of comparing and contrasting plays with structural and thematic similarities, I hope standards will appear for judging the use of language and the manipulation of characters in most Yüan plays. More importantly, these standards will have been generated from the works themselves: they will not be alien rules imposed on the works from without. Moreover, since the establishment of such a set of criteria might mark the end of dilettantish "appreciation" and the beginning of serious criticism, the effort has a worthy goal. This is not mere wishful thinking; given the fact that Yüan drama is a highly stylized and conventionalized art form, the plays of judgment reversal have much in common with other groups or subgenres of tsa-chü. In many cases findings here may be directly applicable to the rest of the genre; in others, some modification should make them useful. At any rate, with caution and judiciousness, this study can be used as a basis upon which a larger framework of criticism of Yüan drama may be built. The argument boils down to this: while the proximate target of the present research is seven plays of judgment reversal, its ultimate end is a better critical understanding of the tsa-chü as a genre.

Of the 161 extant Yüan dramas,” 7 belong to the group of "judgment reversal" plays. They are determined as such on the basis of the following criteria: 1) there must be at least two trials, both of which are presented on stage; 2) the verdict of the first judge must be overruled by that of the second; and 3) the reversal or the process of reversal must constitute the play's focal point of interest. These strictures leave us with the following plays:

1) The Child Shen-nu-erh (Shen-nu-erh fqas )s anon."

2) Judgment on the Kerchief (K'an t'ou-chin Xoghp ), by m b JL Lu Teng-shan HE Fr :

3) Rescue of a Filial Son (Chiu hsiao-tze AKA 3% is by Wang Chung-wen EAP x .

4) The Chalk Circle (Hui-lan chi fy [2| £2), by Li Hsing-tao she Chalk Circle JX lja

A4

5) The Mo-ho-1o Doll (Mo-ho-1o ACÉÓ ) by Meng Han-ch'ing PE TII

6) Injustice to Tou Ngo (Tou Ngo yüan 2), by Kuan Han-ch'ing Rb: ote TR id

7) The Gold Phoenix Hairpins (Chin feng ch'ai A E s. by Cheng T'ing-yü Sos s

Revelation in a Dream (Fei yi ming "T ) and The Butterfly Dream (Hu-tieh meng EUM X), both attributed to Kuan Han-ch'ing, have been excluded because in eách case the first trial transpires between the acts and is simply reported. The Yen-an Court (Yen-an fux E Ay y appears to be another judgment reversal drama, but there is in fact only one verdict given during the entire play.

A few words must be said about The Mo-ho-lo Doll. Some Scholars believe that the judge of the first trial also presides over the Second trial, 19 but the Yüan text upon which the theory is based is, to begin with, too truncated to be a reliable source in itself, (More on this when we take up the problem of texts.) The circumstances surrounding this drama and its two court scenes are ambiguous at best and subject to different interpretations. Besides, though a clerk, Chang Ting (as in another play, Judgment on the Kerchief) assumes the role of a de facto magistrate in the review trial and he deserves to be treated as the second judge.

The miscarriage of justice in The Gold Phoenix Hairpins and The Child Shen-nu-erh takes place relatively late (in the third act), but in both instances the treatment of the courtroom scenes as well as the ensuing review trial warrants their inclusion in our group. All the other plays set the initial trial in the second act and the review trial in the fourth and last act. (Judgment on the Kerchief is the only exception: its review trial comes in the third act, making the final act perfunctorily anticlimactic as far as dramatic structure is concerned.) In any event, the commission of the crime--always murder in cold blood--occurs earlier on in the play, and soon after the erroneous court decision is made the search for the true culprits and the redressing of the wrongs become the motives for the remaining action. Thus these plays, to varying degrees, become "detective stories."

While the seven plays constitute the corpus of our investigation, references to other tsa-chü is both inevitable and desirable, Where necessary, they, too, will be discussed at length. For example, to pinpoint the characteristic use of language in the plays of judgment reversal, which are plot oriented, illustrations from such "poetic" dramas as Autumn in the Palace of Han (Han-kung ch'iu 2% $x) or Rain on the Wu-t'ung Trees (Wu-t'ung yü i 42k) &g) form iaminating contrasts. Or, in the study of conventional characters (an innkeeper, say), information provided by plays outside of our select group can furnish useful background against which the playwright's handling of his dramatis personae may be evaluated.

A Historical Survey of Criticism

I have alluded to the desirability of establishing certain critical standards for the evaluation of Yiian drama, so it is incumbent upon me to give a brief history of tsa-chii criticism to orient the reader. Traditionally, tsa-chü criticism in China has been characterized by two strong tendencies: one is to view these plays not as drama but as poetry; the other is to consider them literature of protest. These two tendencies are not mutually exclusive and may be manifested in the same critic. In addition to these indigenous "schools," there has been more recently vigorous critical attention sprouting in foreign soil.

The '"'Poetic'! School

Critics of this school are preoccupied almost solely with the poetic quality of tsa-chii. Their interest lies in the arias of a play, for which they have laid down meticulous rules both descriptive and prescriptive. They have consigned the dramatic and theatrical elements of tsa-chü to oblivion when in fact those elements account for much--if not all--of the genre's success and popularity as the theater of the period,

The major critical work by a contemporary of the Yüan playwrights themselves says nothing about tsa-chil as drama: Chou Te-ch'ing's [3] {2 {®, A Chung-yüan yin-yiin + ReR [Rhymes of the Central Plain] (1324) 12 concerns itself entirely Wit poetics and prosody. The book's professed aim is to promote "correct diction and elevated style"; 13 it achieves just that and no more. The pamphlet "Ch'ang lun" vB 2 BON yp [On Singing] ,14 by an anonymous Yüan writer who chose to style himself Yen-nan Chih-an E TEEI E remains the only extant Yüan document on the art of singing in a tsa-chü performance. itis still disappointing, however, because it does not deal so much with singing as with the various rhyming systems in songs. It is another "poet's primer" with

a misleading title. And from what we can ascertain today, the pamphlet's statements on the thematic implication of the modal arrangement of music can only be accepted with a grain of salt.

The dramatic aspects of tsa-chii continued to be neglected by the Ming critics, who apparently inherited their predecessors! predilection for poetry. Ttai-ho cong yin pu A $v Le [Formularies of Supreme Harmony] (1398), ? by Chu Ch'üan H , that talented princeturned-playwright-critic, is an important contribution to the study of tsa-chü, being the first to assess the achievement of Yüan masters. But the main thrust of the book again resides in Chu!s meticulous--and sometimes embarrassingly frivolous--effort to provide "correct" prosodic formulae for most of the established song sets, complete with injunctions on the determination of tones. The importance of poetry (which is often equated with music) is blown so out of proportion that the dramatic side of tsa-chü has received far less attention than its due. Small wonder that Kuan Han-ch'ing, recognized nowadays as one of China's greatest playwrights, is hardly Chu Ch'üan's favorite. When he includes Kuan in his list of "talented song writers, past and present," Chu feels compelled to apologize, as if for a lapse in taste:

To judge from [Kuan's] language, he has the potential to be good but also can be bad. [Or, ". . . his talent is a borderline case between the upper (superior) and the lower (inferior)."] Indeed, itis only because the tsa-chü genre started with the man that he is [here] ranked so high.l

Consequently, Chu's criticism is of value to the student of drama on two counts: itis the first to classify tsa-chü into twelve categories;

for even though the classification is quite arbitrary and without elaboration or illustration it is a form of evaluation. Secondly, Chu's work contains notes, albeit sketchy ones, on a dozen or so tsa-chü terms. One wishes that Chu had concentrated and done a more thorough job in those two areas.

x, Wang Chi-te's $ $348 ch'u lu «p {$ , 15 published in 1624, is probably the most extensive and informative work on the art of tsa-chü to have come from a Ming scholar-critic. The scope of the book's forty sections, divided unevenly into four chapters, ranges from general discussions on the origin of ch'ü to the more specific, such as the vice of using "incorrect" words. But again, its emphasis is on the musical

and poetic components, and the work remains largely what its title indicates: Rules for Arias. From time to time throughout the book, however, Wang does bring up topics of dramatic import (for instance,

the function and significance of comic interludes [ch'a-k'o $4 f ) thus kindling in the reader who is keen on drama hopes which are soon dashed, for even in the few places that he discusses dramatic matters, a skimpy treatment is about all Wang manages to furnish. 19

Another Ming work worthy of mention is Shen Te-fu's 3%, 12.55 Ku~ch'ti tsa-yen AR FS [Miscellaneous Remarks on Tsa-chii] (1618). Brief but influential, it offers views not merely on the musical/poetic aspects of tsa-chü, but on instruments and dancing as well, making it a more balanced critical work than either Chu Ch'üan's T'ai-ho cheng-yin p'u or Wang Chi-te's Ch'ü lü. But as criticism of drama (which to be honest it does not claim to be), it leaves a lot to be desired.

Besides being indifferent drama critics, some Ming scholars are also notorious spawners of incorrect information. Even Wang and Shen are no exceptions. It was Shen, for instance, who first suggested that the composition of dramatic verse was required in Yüan Dynasty civil service examinations.?1 Preposterous as the theory was, it nevertheless gained great currency among later Chinese literati. The best evidence of Shen's influence is in the case of Tsang Mao-hsün. The eminent compiler of Yüan-chü hsüan Dis (YCH) [An Anthology of Ytian Drama] subscribes to Shen's theory in one of his prefaces to the anthology.22 Wang Chi-te, on his part, advanced another theory cut from whole cloth. He declared that the arias and prose dialogue in any particular Yüan play were done by different hands:

The arias in Yüan drama are all excellent as lyric, but the dialogue is generally rustic and obscene and does not sound [as though it comes from] literati, This is because in those days the dialogue was first set up by the musicians

of the drama school and then the designated poets composed the arias, [a practice] called "filling in the lyrics." What the musicians had written, the literati would not deign to correct. Hence the plot [of Yüan drama] is often against the law of nature, and the diction largely incomprehensible. dn

Both Shen's and Wang's views have long since been relegated to their proper place--pastures filled with chimeras and laughing stock created by less sensible and more daring critics. But one must not lose sight of their serious implications. In advancing their theories, Shen and Wang extolled arias over prose dialogue, and poet-playwright over mere musician or player. It is not totally inconceivable that the misrepresentation of historical facts was deliberate on the part of Chinese scholars in whom the love for poetry was sovereign. The cases of Shen and Wang largely reflect the literati's concern and predilection for poetry--even when faced with a genre plainly intended for the theater. Such concerns and predilections are in turn manifested in their criticism. It is certainly no coincidence that most Chinese critics used the term ch'ü d (aria or song) for tsa-chü when the more comprehensive and exact term hsi-ch'ü (drama and song, or dramatic song) existed. Granted, it may be argued that ch'ü, in its broader sense, denoted both drama and song, but the content of the critical works cited above more than indicates that the narrower sense was adopted by critics of the day. The ambiguous use of the term seems to have been intentional: one is tempted to see in it a conspiracy of Chinese literati to turn a dramatic form into yet another poetic medium.

Thus, Chinese dramatic criticism continued to be marked by the conspicuous absence of a sensible and balanced critic--until Li. yu t 5B. (1611-1676). A prolific writer, Li was the author of sixteen plays in the ch'uan-ch'i 4È & style, most of which were met with enthusiastic response.29 His greatest contribution to Chinese theater, however, lies in the monumental work on dramaturgy contained in the five-volume Hsien-ch'ing ou-chi Fel TAH zu {Occasional Notes at Leisure] (1671). A listing of the work's relevant contents makes it plain as to how he parted company with his predecessors in his conception of the drama as an art form: