The evolution of the West Chamber, seeking the author and content of the West Chamber

1. The theme of the legendary "The Legend of Yingying" (also known as "Huizhen Ji") of the Tang Dynasty is the feudal view that Zhang Sheng's chaos was abandoned to "good reform".

2. The theme of Dong Jieyuan's "The Legend of the West Chamber" is the praise of love and marriage in pursuit of freedom and the criticism of feudal etiquette.

3. Wang Shifu's "The Legend of the West Chamber" is the theme of feudal men and women, feudal etiquette, bold struggle for the pursuit of love, and "May all the people in the world become dependents".

1st floor. West Chamber Rheology]:

Yuan Zhen: The Legend of the Ying Ying (Tang Legend).

Zhao Lingzhen: Yuan Weizhi Cui Yingying Shang Tune Butterfly Love Flower Words (Drum Words) Dong Xie Yuan: The West Chamber's Zhugong Tune is also called Jin Xixiang (Zhugong Words were a kind of rap art at that time, similar to modern Pingdan.

Wang Shifu: The Legend of the West Chamber (Yuan Miscellaneous Drama).

The Yuan Dynasty miscellaneous drama "The Legend of the West Chamber", which was called "amazing words and sentences, full of fragrance" by Lin Daiyu in "Dream of Red Mansions", is based on the ** "Huizhen Collection" (also known as "The Legend of Yingying") of Yuan Zhi in the Tang Dynasty, which mainly describes the story of Cui Yingying and Zhang Hui. For hundreds of years, the wish expressed in this miscellaneous drama "May there be lovers all over the world who will eventually become married" has deeply touched the heartstrings of young men and women.

The Yuan edition of "The Legend of the West Chamber" is now impossible to see, and most of the existing ones are revised editions of the Ming people. Since the Ming Dynasty, there have been several different theories about who the author of "The Legend of the West Chamber" was. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhong Sicheng's "Recording Ghost Book" believed that it was Wang Shifu, and Zhu Quan and Wang Shizhen also held the same view in the early Ming Dynasty.

But almost at the same time, some people said that "The Legend of the West Chamber" was written by Guan Hanqing, or by Guan Hanqing, and continued by Wang Shifu, or by Wang Shifu, and continued by Guan Hanqing.

The Legend of the West Chamber has a total of five books and 21 folds, the so-called "Guan Zuo Wang Continuation" and "Wang Zuo Guan Continuation", which means that the fifth book is made up by Wang or Guan. The lives of Wang and Guan are poorly known, so no one can come up with conclusive evidence of who wrote "The Legend of the West Chamber". At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Zhuo Renyue compared the fifth and first four books of "The Legend of the West Chamber" with the "Legend of Yingying", which preached "chaos from the beginning to the end", and believed that "the Legend of the West Chamber" is not a joint biography, if Wang Shifu's work is particularly meaningful, and the original intention of Guan Hanqing's continuation is completely lost", and also advocated that "Wang Zuo Guan continued".

The corrected version of Zhang Shenzhi in the twelfth year of Ming Chongzhen is also edited by Wang Shifu of Dadu and continued by Guan Hanqing. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Jin Sheng's criticism of the "Sixth Book of Talents" was popular, and the theory of "Wang Zuoguan Continuation" was almost a foregone conclusion.

After the liberation, the more popular view in China was that Wang Shifu was the work of Wang Shifu alone. The "History of Chinese Literature" edited by Xie Guoen and others believes that the theory of "Wang Zuoguanxu" is the rejection and scandalization of "The Legend of the West Chamber" by feudal rulers. Mr. Tan Zhengbi also believes that the statement of "Recording Ghost Book" is credible, but he also believes that Guan Hanqing also wrote "The Legend of the West Chamber", but it is not a miscellaneous drama but may be Xiaoling (in the fourth volume of "Yuefu Qunzhu", the general title of "Sixteen Things of Cui Zhang" is "Sixteen Matters of Cui Zhang"), which is the origin of the misinformation that later generations wrote or continued Guan Hanqing.

Mr. Chen Zhongfan not only denied Wang Shifu's theory of independence, nor did he agree with the theory of "Wang Zuoguanxu". He believes that "The Legend of the West Chamber" was indeed created by Wang Shifu, but it is not a miscellaneous drama with multiple consecutive performances. The general practice of Yuan miscellaneous dramas is a four-fold book, and it is sung by one person without folding, but the current "Legend of the West Chamber" has broken these restrictions.

Today's biography "The Legend of the West Chamber" was adapted by composers in the late Yuan Dynasty after the Yuan opera creation position moved south to Hangzhou and was influenced by the Southern Opera.

After the Tang Dynasty, the ending of this love story made many people feel regretful and dissatisfied, and reprimanded Zhang Sheng as "a young man with thin affection". So the ending of this love story changed in the process of circulation.

After the Song Dynasty, due to the development of the economy and the emergence of the citizen class, the concept of feudal etiquette gradually faded among the ordinary people, and the Jin Dynasty appeared in the Jin Dynasty Dong Xie Yuan wrote the palace words "The Legend of the West Chamber", the palace words were a kind of rap art at that time, similar to the modern Pingdan, accompanied by pipa and zheng, while speaking and singing. This "Tale of the West Chamber" greatly increased the content, adding many characters and scenes, and finally the ending was changed to Zhang Sheng and Yingying disregarding the old lady's order, both ran away to General Baima, and they were the masters of the marriage.

In the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Shifu basically adapted "The Legend of the West Chamber" into a drama script performed by many people according to this palace tune, making the storyline more compact, integrating classical poetry, and greatly improving the literary quality, but changing the ending to the old lady compromised, promised her marriage, and had a happy ending. The author of this script has different opinions, some people say that it was written by Guan Hanqing, and some people say that it is Guan Zuo Wang Xu, or Wang Zuo Guan Xu, but it is believed that Wang Shifu made the statement that is more recognized.

In the Qing Dynasty, Jin Shengxi rated Wang Shifu's "The Legend of the West Chamber" as the sixth genius book, and the Chinese lantern riddle often used the sentences in Wang Xixiang as the bottom to guess, and the riddle was called Liucai.