Chung-Wen Shih (1922–2014)

The Golden Age of Chinese Drama is one of the most comprehensive and useful single-volume books on the subject of Yuan zaju - mediaeval Chinese variety plays popular during Mongol rule in China.

Shih analyses every aspect of the zaju from its historical and social milieu to the prevalent themes, and its language and music. In each chapter, pertinent translations of zaju libretti or dialogue are given to emphasise the point, and to give the reader some idea of the unique role zaju played in the development of not only vernacular literature but also drama.

This is a scholarly work and thus it is well-researched with a bibliography using Chinese, Japanese, and Western sources along with the collected editions of zaju. Its main flaw is that it is now nearly forty years old and current scholarship on zaju has developed, particularly in the study of Mongolian language in zaju dialogue (which Shih dismisses rather blithely as only evidence of local colour rather than part of a cultural and linguistic shift during the Yuan). Nevertheless, this book still offers both the scholar and the determined interested reader much useful information about of the most important and lively genres in Chinese literature.… (altro)