Peony pavilion in the light of carnivalesque = 你方唱罷我登場 : 狂歡化視野下的《牡丹亭》

Abstract

Peony Pavilion has been an object of study as pure literature from the start. Its value as a means against feudal ethics has been overly emphasized, while its humorous and vulgar aspects were harshly criticized. The binary way of value judgement simply ignored the deeper meaning of the text. The dualistic and contradictory aspects of Peony Pavilion, viewed in the light of such value judgement, indeed reflect much more deeply the core meaning of the text. Peony Pavilion is a perfect combination of lofty literary beauty and commoners’ --- even vulgar ---- humor. This coexistence of seriousness and comedic nature is a typical character of a carnival; it is an artistic presentation of the carnivalization culture in ancient China.

In this thesis, we use Mikhail Bakhtin’s Carnivalesque to study the vulgarity and chaos present in the text, choice of materials, characters and language of Peony Pavilion, and reveal the positive meaning therein. We shall see that on the one hand, the idea of commoners’ religious belief used in the text on the world of the living vs the afterworld in fact laid out the cultural background for carnivalization, offering to readers who are oppressed and bound by hierarchical prejudices, etiquettes and taboo an idealistic alternative world. We discover on the other hand that the dualism present in the characters through crowning and de-crowning à la Carnivalesque applied to the characters’ dialogues, even exposing the dualism between reality and ideal in the author himself. We establish a deconstruction of the commoners’ language and official (proper) language in terms of the buffooneries used in the text, leading to the completion of carnivalization. Humor and vulgarity used in the text not only serve the purpose of provoking laughter, they also create an effect of absurdity scrambling and destroying the so-called “normal” order of things, reflecting the re-constructive power of commoners’ language against official (proper) language, and revealing the hidden meaning of renewal and regeneration. This thesis serves as a proper juncture of Western theory and traditional Chinese drama studies. It sheds new light on the study of Peony Pavilion, and becomes a pioneering example showing the possibility, properness and deep revealing power of studying traditional Chinese dramas from a new angle.