Ma Zhiyuan was born in 1250 and died in 132 1. He was a famous playwright in Yuan Dynasty. Most (now Beijing) people. Ma Zhiyuan's name is ominous. The name "Dongli" was later used to show Tao Yuanming's ambition. His time was later than that of Guan Hanqing, Bai Pu and others. His birth year should be before the Yuan Dynasty (starting from 1264), and his death year should be between the Zhi Zhi Reform and the first year of Taiding (132 1- 1324). He used to be a provincial official in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.
There are sixteen kinds of Ma Zhiyuan's zaju, among which there are seven existing ones: Tears of Sima Qing in Jiangzhou, Lonely Goose in Autumn in the Han Palace, Three Drunken Yueyang Tower in Lv Dongbin, Thunder at Midnight, Ma Danyang Being a Wind Son Three Times, Opening an Altar to Teach Yellow, and Sleeping in Chen Tuan on the West Huashan Mountain. Ma Zhiyuan's Sanqu works are also famous. A volume of Dongli Yuefu, revenue 104, 17 episodes. The content of his zaju is mainly deified Taoist priests, and all his plays involve stories of Quanzhen religion. At the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty, Jia said in his poem: "Fairy horses are among the flowers, and immortals are far away", and "the name is fragrant all over the pear garden".
When Ma Zhiyuan was alive, Mongolian rulers began to attach importance to "obeying the Chinese law" and appointed Han literati, but it failed to be universally implemented, which brought a little fantasy and more disappointment to Han literati. In his early years, Ma Zhiyuan was ambitious in his official career. In a group of stray songs, he claimed that "he wrote a poem for the Dragon Family", but it was fruitless for a long time. Later, as a small local official, I was completely dissatisfied and my working hours were probably not long. In such a wasteful experience, he gradually became disheartened. While complaining, he claimed that he had seen through worldly fame and fortune, regarded himself as a hermit and sought liberation in Taoism.
Autumn in the Han Palace is Ma Zhiyuan's early work and the most famous of Ma Zhiyuan's zaju, which tells the story of Wang Zhaojun's departure from the fortress and marriage. In history, this incident was originally just that the Han Yuan emperor married the maid-in-waiting to the attached southern Xiongnu Khan as a means of netting, and the records in Hanshu were also very simple. The story of the Southern Xiongnu, however, has joined the story of Zhao Jun's invitation to leave the fortress, and Yuan Di was stunned by his beauty and wanted to stay but could not, making it a story. Later note novels, literati poems and folk singing literature all mentioned this matter many times, which greatly improved the historical facts.
Ma Zhiyuan's Autumn in the Palace of Han Dynasty adds fiction to the legend, and writes the relationship between Han and Xiongnu as a weak Han dynasty oppressed by powerful Xiongnu. The reason why Zhaojun went to the fortress was written as Mao Yanshou's unsuccessful bribery, and Zhaojun was vilified in the portrait. After the defeat, he fled to Xiongnu, led the troops to attack and forced Suo Zhaojun; Write Yuan Di as a cowardly, sentimental emperor who deeply loves Wang Zhaojun; Zhaojun's ending is about committing suicide by throwing himself into the river in Heilongjiang at the junction of Han and Xiongnu. In this way, Autumn in the Palace of Han Dynasty has become a fictional court love tragedy under the pretext of a certain historical background.
Autumn in the Han Palace may contain certain national feelings. However, we should pay attention to Ma Zhiyuan's basic attitude towards life, either actively seeking fame under the rule of the Yuan Dynasty or regarding all values as illusory. Therefore, it is inappropriate to overemphasize this aspect. The drama is directly related to real life, which mainly reflects the personal misfortune in the national war. For example, Jin married a princess under the oppression of Mongolia, and his concubines and maids were taken to the north after the death of the Song Dynasty. These contemporary historical facts will give the author a deep feeling. Autumn in the Han Palace is the last play, and the protagonist is the emperor of the Han Dynasty. In the play, the emperor can't dominate himself or keep his beloved woman. Then, the inner feelings that individuals are dominated by fate and bumped by historical changes are even stronger. In fact, Ma Zhiyuan's Han and Yuan emperors also showed more emotions and desires of ordinary people.
When the courtiers advised Emperor Han Yuan to give up Zhaojun on the grounds of "being defeated by women", he said angrily, "Zhaojun has both successes and failures. Who is like this? Your official position is not free! " When Baqiao saw him off, he said with emotion, "My husband and wife are coming soon, and our small family also pretends to go out." Show admiration for the husband and wife living together. In particular, the fourth sentence of A Lonely Goose in a Dream is a long and sad lyric, which shows the infinite attachment of the Han and Yuan emperors to their lovers and makes the tragic atmosphere of the script more intense. Here, while portraying dramatic characters, it also directly expresses the author's feelings about historical changes and impermanence of life.
Blessing Monument is also one of Ma Zhiyuan's early plays. It is unlucky to write about Zhang Gao, a poor scholar, again and again. Even the elders of Jianfu Temple asked him to print inscriptions in the temple and take them to Beijing to sell them as travel expenses to take the exam. Lightning will destroy the inscription in the middle of the night Later, luck changed, and with the support of Fan Zhongyan, he won the top prize and made great achievements. Many places in the play show dissatisfaction with the current social situation, such as: "This wall blocks the road to virtue, and that wall blocks the career path.
Nowadays, the smarter you get, the smarter you get, the more you enjoy dementia and the richer you get. "This drama reflects the author's dissatisfaction with the status quo and fatalism, and also reflects the anguish of many contemporary literati in the case of extremely low social status.
Tears in Shirt is a love drama adapted from Bai Juyi's Pipa Trip, which fictionalizes the sad and happy story of Bai Juyi and prostitute Pei Xingnv, with the deception and destruction of businessmen and his wife in the middle, resulting in dramatic entanglements. In the triangle relationship composed of literati, businessmen and prostitutes, prostitutes love literati rather than businessmen after all, which is also a kind of narcissism of depressed literati.
Ma Zhiyuan wrote the most drama "Immortal Daoism". The Story of Yueyang Tower, Sleeping in Chen Tuan, Ren Fengzi, Huang Liangmeng, etc. all tell the story of Quanzhen religion and publicize its teachings. The main tendency of these Taoist fairy stories is to preach that life is like a dream, wealth and fame are not worth mentioning, and to ask people to tell me everything, get rid of all the fetters of family, wife and children, and get relief and freedom in seclusion in the mountains and seeking immortality. It is a cowardly and pessimistic attitude to advocate avoiding realistic contradictions and opposing people's struggle for their own practical interests. On the other hand, the play also criticizes the social status quo, denies the traditional values centered on fame and fortune, and puts the "self-adaptation" of life in a more important position, which also contains the significance of attaching importance to the individual's existence value, although the author failed to find a reasonable way to realize the individual's value.
Among the numerous writers in Yuan Dynasty's zaju, Ma Zhiyuan's creation most intensively shows the inner contradictions and ideological depression of contemporary literati, thus reflecting the cultural characteristics of an era. In connection with this, Ma Zhiyuan's plays are not realistic, and the characterization is not very prominent. Drama conflict usually lacks tension, but it has many elements of self-expression. Including works with historical themes such as Autumn in the Palace of Han Dynasty, the characters in the play often dissociate themselves from the drama conflict and make long lyricism, and it is often the author who expresses his feelings through the characters in the play. For example, in Yueyang Tower, Lv Dongbin sang "He Xinlang":
Looking at Longteng's old country, I laugh at Cao Cao's treacherous man, and I cry for overlord. Laugh and lament for the rise and fall, but the sunset is late. If you miss us for a hundred years, you are in the middle of this turning point. I heard people drinking tea in front of the building arguing like wild gulls on the river. The situation of people in a hundred years is illusory.
This is actually a feeling of life that the author wrote many times in his Sanqu.
As mentioned earlier, most of the zaju in Ma Zhiyuan are not very dramatic. There are two main reasons why the predecessors spoke highly of his zaju: first, the life emotion expressed in the drama easily resonates with the literati in the old days; second, the language art is superb. The language of Ma Zhiyuan's zaju is classical, but it is not as gorgeous as The West Chamber and Wu Tongyu. Instead, simple and natural sentences are refined into exquisite and vivid expressions. For example, a Yao folk song "Jing Yan" in "Autumn Day in Han Palace":
Yaya flew over the giant knotweed, and the lonely goose never left the phoenix. The iron horse clanged in the eaves, and there was no one in the hall. It was even colder, the leaves rustled, the candles were dim, and Nagato was quiet.
Style of works
Bold and unrestrained, it shows its elegant and depressed style.
Ma Zhiyuan's zaju has beautiful language, and is good at tempering simple and natural sentences into delicate and vivid expressions. Wen Qu is full of strong lyricism and subjectivity.
Ma Zhiyuan Sanqu. Expand the field of subject matter and improve the artistic conception. The tone is harmonious and beautiful, the language is simple and generous, and both refined and popular tastes.
The words are clear and elegant, but not gorgeous. Taihe Yin Zhengpu was rated as "the word of Ma Dongli, such as Chaoyang Mingfeng". Its dictionary is elegant and beautiful, comparable to Jing Lingguang Fu's, and it is inspiring. If the phoenix flies in the sky, how can it talk to all the birds? Should be above the hero. 」