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Interactions and Negotiations between Theater and Buddhism in Late Imperial China.

紀錄類型:	書目-電子資源 : Monograph/item
正題名/作者:	Interactions and Negotiations between Theater and Buddhism in Late Imperial China./
作者:	Wang, Mengxiao.
出版者:	Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, : 2019,
面頁冊數:	279 p.
附註:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 81-03, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International81-03A.
標題:	Asian literature. -
電子資源:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=13809911
ISBN:	9781088316023

Interactions and Negotiations between Theater and Buddhism in Late Imperial China.
Wang, Mengxiao.

Interactions and Negotiations between Theater and Buddhism in Late Imperial China. - Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2019 - 279 p.

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 81-03, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Yale University, 2019.

This item is not available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.

This dissertation investigates how the interplay between Buddhism and theater facilitated new forms of playwriting, theatrical performance, and Buddhist practice in late imperial China. Existing scholarship traces the roots of Chinese theater to ancient ritual and regards religious drama as a medium for transmitting doctrines and spreading cults. Such works create a false impression that theater and religion were always unified in China. My dissertation argues that there are tensions between the Buddhist values of asceticism and the function of theater as entertainment, which posed a dilemma for Chinese Buddhist playwrights who engaged in both religious and theatrical practices. I examine their strategies to reconcile this dilemma by transforming the dramatic genre and the resistance from the genre itself.My dissertation presents a comprehensive analysis of Ming-Qing Buddhist monks' discussions on theater with case studies of three individual plays. After examining dozens of extant plays with Buddhist motifs in late imperial China, I choose several examples that include a meta-theatrical contemplation of the genre. These plays are the Buddhist layman Tu Long's (屠隆, 1543-1605) Tanhuaji (曇花記, Story of the Udumbara Flower), Monk Zhida's (智達, circa 1650) Guiyuanjing (歸元鏡, Mirror of the Return to the Origin), and the dramatist Shen Qifeng's (沈起鳳, 1741-?) Fuhutao (伏虎韜, Strategy of Taming the Tiger). All three plays focus on theater-either reflecting on the tensions between drama and Buddhism or reenacting Buddhist rituals in the form of play-within-a-play.Chapter one examines how Ming-Qing Buddhist masters adopted theater as a rhetorical tool for sermonizing, while considering playwriting and attending the theater as transgressions of Buddhist precepts. Chapter two investigates how Tu Long attempted to realize his ideal of attaining enlightenment through writing Tanhuaji and directing its performance with his family troupe. Chapter three explores Monk Zhida's aspiration to convert his play Guiyuanjing into a sacred text, which has been realized on the page but defeated on the stage in its historical reception. Chapter four studies how the dramatist and performers of Fuhutao parodied Buddhist sermons and the conventional narrative of an underworld trial to entertain the audience. Together, these chapters offer a new perspective to view Buddhism as a repertoire for different people who engaged in theatrical productions: while Buddhist monks and laymen endeavored to turn playwriting and performing into ritualistic practices, dramaturgs and actors mocked devotional activities to create theatrical spectacles.My project is the first to discover the complete preface to Tanhuaji, multiple woodblock editions and manuscripts of Guiyuanjing, and a performance manuscript of Fuhutao with abundant stage directions. A comparative reading of various versions of each play illuminates how texts and paratexts construct a discursive space for playwrights, readers, commentators, publishers, and actors to communicate their negotiations between Buddhist regulations and theatrical norms both on the page and on the stage. By integrating traditional philology with interdisciplinary methods, this study proposes a new way of reading literary texts with religious motifs-not just as source materials for the study of religious history, but also as material objects with their own textual histories and generic conventions. The theatrical genre did not merely serve as a transparent medium for religious doctrines, but became a problematic medium that both invited and challenged Buddhist regulations in late imperial China.My study enriches our understanding of both theater and Buddhism in late imperial China. Due to the boundaries dividing different fields in modern academia, scholars of religious studies and literature often overlook the intersections between their disciplines. Scholars of Chinese literature have discussed the issue of theatricality based on analyses of well-known texts, but have rarely included plays with Buddhist themes in their discussions. On the other hand, scholars of Chinese Buddhism have investigated religious activities of Buddhist masters and their literati disciples, but have scarcely taken into account their writings concerning drama. However, Ming-Qing individuals were not confined to a single identity, either as Buddhist experts or as professional writers. Their diverse cultural modalities call for a space of exchange between theatrical and religious studies. My interdisciplinary dissertation concludes that new forms of ritualistic and theatrical performances-ritual mediated by theatricality and theater transformed into Buddhist sermon-emerged from Buddhist playwrights' efforts to reconcile their religious and literary practices in late imperial China. It demonstrates how the dynamics between theater and Buddhism have reshaped the landscapes of both fields in the Ming-Qing periods, offering a new approach to both literary and religious studies.

ISBN: 9781088316023Subjects--Topical Terms:

2122707
Asian literature.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Buddhism

Interactions and Negotiations between Theater and Buddhism in Late Imperial China.
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506 $a This item must not be added to any third party search indexes.
520 $a This dissertation investigates how the interplay between Buddhism and theater facilitated new forms of playwriting, theatrical performance, and Buddhist practice in late imperial China. Existing scholarship traces the roots of Chinese theater to ancient ritual and regards religious drama as a medium for transmitting doctrines and spreading cults. Such works create a false impression that theater and religion were always unified in China. My dissertation argues that there are tensions between the Buddhist values of asceticism and the function of theater as entertainment, which posed a dilemma for Chinese Buddhist playwrights who engaged in both religious and theatrical practices. I examine their strategies to reconcile this dilemma by transforming the dramatic genre and the resistance from the genre itself.My dissertation presents a comprehensive analysis of Ming-Qing Buddhist monks' discussions on theater with case studies of three individual plays. After examining dozens of extant plays with Buddhist motifs in late imperial China, I choose several examples that include a meta-theatrical contemplation of the genre. These plays are the Buddhist layman Tu Long's (屠隆, 1543-1605) Tanhuaji (曇花記, Story of the Udumbara Flower), Monk Zhida's (智達, circa 1650) Guiyuanjing (歸元鏡, Mirror of the Return to the Origin), and the dramatist Shen Qifeng's (沈起鳳, 1741-?) Fuhutao (伏虎韜, Strategy of Taming the Tiger). All three plays focus on theater-either reflecting on the tensions between drama and Buddhism or reenacting Buddhist rituals in the form of play-within-a-play.Chapter one examines how Ming-Qing Buddhist masters adopted theater as a rhetorical tool for sermonizing, while considering playwriting and attending the theater as transgressions of Buddhist precepts. Chapter two investigates how Tu Long attempted to realize his ideal of attaining enlightenment through writing Tanhuaji and directing its performance with his family troupe. Chapter three explores Monk Zhida's aspiration to convert his play Guiyuanjing into a sacred text, which has been realized on the page but defeated on the stage in its historical reception. Chapter four studies how the dramatist and performers of Fuhutao parodied Buddhist sermons and the conventional narrative of an underworld trial to entertain the audience. Together, these chapters offer a new perspective to view Buddhism as a repertoire for different people who engaged in theatrical productions: while Buddhist monks and laymen endeavored to turn playwriting and performing into ritualistic practices, dramaturgs and actors mocked devotional activities to create theatrical spectacles.My project is the first to discover the complete preface to Tanhuaji, multiple woodblock editions and manuscripts of Guiyuanjing, and a performance manuscript of Fuhutao with abundant stage directions. A comparative reading of various versions of each play illuminates how texts and paratexts construct a discursive space for playwrights, readers, commentators, publishers, and actors to communicate their negotiations between Buddhist regulations and theatrical norms both on the page and on the stage. By integrating traditional philology with interdisciplinary methods, this study proposes a new way of reading literary texts with religious motifs-not just as source materials for the study of religious history, but also as material objects with their own textual histories and generic conventions. The theatrical genre did not merely serve as a transparent medium for religious doctrines, but became a problematic medium that both invited and challenged Buddhist regulations in late imperial China.My study enriches our understanding of both theater and Buddhism in late imperial China. Due to the boundaries dividing different fields in modern academia, scholars of religious studies and literature often overlook the intersections between their disciplines. Scholars of Chinese literature have discussed the issue of theatricality based on analyses of well-known texts, but have rarely included plays with Buddhist themes in their discussions. On the other hand, scholars of Chinese Buddhism have investigated religious activities of Buddhist masters and their literati disciples, but have scarcely taken into account their writings concerning drama. However, Ming-Qing individuals were not confined to a single identity, either as Buddhist experts or as professional writers. Their diverse cultural modalities call for a space of exchange between theatrical and religious studies. My interdisciplinary dissertation concludes that new forms of ritualistic and theatrical performances-ritual mediated by theatricality and theater transformed into Buddhist sermon-emerged from Buddhist playwrights' efforts to reconcile their religious and literary practices in late imperial China. It demonstrates how the dynamics between theater and Buddhism have reshaped the landscapes of both fields in the Ming-Qing periods, offering a new approach to both literary and religious studies.
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653 $a Theater
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856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=13809911

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