Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals: Eleven Early Chinese Plays is the third joint translation project undertaken by Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema, and, as in their first two projects, the translations in this anthology are rendered in lively colloquial English. Beginning with a comprehensive introduction incorporating the latest thinking on early drama and concluding with three useful appendices, the work offers more plays in English translation, and thus a richer picture of drama in the early period, than any previous collection.
Unlike earlier anthologies, only one of the translations here (Rescriptor-in-Waiting Bao's Clever Trick: The Record of the Chalk Circle) is based on Zang Maoxun's A Selection of Yuan Plays (pub. 1615–16). From the time of its publication until fairly recently, A Selection of Yuan Plays dominated discussions of Yuan zaju (Northern drama)—the prevailing dramatic form of the period from 1250 to 1450. However, the scholarship of West, Idema, and their students, among others, has led to a more nuanced view of the history of early drama and a greater appreciation for what plays published prior to A Selection of Yuan Plays can tell us. In their lucid introduction, West and Idema describe the historical background of early drama, discussing its urban setting, the theater, the actors, and the formal features of Yuan drama. The anthology then surveys the extant sources to trace the transformation of Yuan drama from urban popular performance into an elite reading form by the end of the Ming dynasty.
The earliest source of Yuan drama is a set of thirty plays individually published between 1300 and 1350. These texts have unique formal features and represent “an earlier tradition of textual production”, and “are artifacts of a time before drama had passed through the hands of court or literati editors” (p. xxiii). This set of plays is represented within the anthology by A Beauty Pining in Her Boudoir: The Pavilion for Praying to the Moon, attributed to Guan Hanqing.
The next group of early zaju play texts, published around 1420 to 1439, consists of thirty-one plays written by the Ming prince Zhu Youdun. Two of Zhu's plays are included here: A Leopard Monk Returns to the Laity of His Own Accord and Black Whirlwind Li Spurns Riches Out of Righteousness. Both were written in 1433 and feature outlaws of the Liangshan marshes as the main characters. Leopard Monk portrays the outlaws as entertaining scoundrels; Black Whirlwind Li “emphasizes the basic humanity of the bandits” (p. 356) by portraying them as Chinese Robin Hoods.
The collection titled Revised Plays by Yuan Masters, published in approximately 1540–1560 under the sponsorship of Li Kaixian (1502–68), is the first of several sixteenth- and seventeenth-century zaju anthologies in which Ming literati were actively involved. West and Idema translate one play, The Autumn Nights of the Lustrous Emperor of Tang: Rain on the Wutong Tree, attributed to Bai Pu, from this anthology. They translate five others from Zaju from the Hands of Famous Authors, published in 1588 with editorship variously attributed to Wang Jide (d. 1623) or Chen Yujiao (1544–1611). Among these five plays are two by Guan Hanqing, Moving Heaven and Shaking Earth: The Injustice to Dou E and Rescriptor-in-Waiting Bao Thrice Investigates the Butterfly Dream, both of which belong to the thematic subgroup of “court case dramas.” Two additional plays from this collection feature love stories: Breaking a Troubling Dream: A Lone Goose in Autumn over the Palaces of Han by Ma Zhiyuan, and Dazed behind the Green Ring Lattice, Qiannü's Soul Leaves Her Body by Zheng Guangzu. The final play from this collection is the deliverance play Zhongli of the Han Leads Lan Caihe to Enlightenment, by an anonymous author.
Little Butcher Sun, written cooperatively by the “Writing Club of Hangzhou” completes the portrait of early drama that West and Idema have vividly painted. This play was preserved in the Ming compilation Grand Canon of Perpetual Joy, and it is one of the few extant examples of “southern drama,” the Yuan forerunner to chuanqi drama which became the dominant form during the Ming dynasty.
Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals is an exciting new resource for undergraduate teaching. The translated plays were clearly chosen for their literary value as well as their significance to the history of Chinese drama, and each is preceded by an introduction providing its historical context. Judiciously placed footnotes provide explanations for passages that would otherwise be opaque. More advanced students can refer to a finding list of Chinese terms available online, and to the three appendices, to trace in more detail the scholarship on which this anthology was based.
