Traditional Opera in the Eye of Modernity:A Critique of Opera in the Chinese-Western Comparative Vision in the 1910s and 1920s
Unlike the chief editors of La Jeunesse(《新青年》)in the New Culture Movement,who comprehensively advocated Western realistic drama and completely rejected traditional Chinese opera,the two generations of modern drama theorists represented by Song Chunfang(宋春舫)and Yu Shangyuan(余上沅)with thorough Chinese learning and Western learning,adhered to the basic positioning of drama,upheld the concept of cross-culture,and reevaluated the traditional Chinese opera from the perspective of the new wave of Western modernist art.Focusing on its symbolic spirit,expressive qualities and formalist aesthetics,they revealed the"Avant-garde"and"modern"factors contained in traditional Chinese art,and corrected the bias that overemphasized Enlightenment Modernity and realism in Western modern thought,which was caused by the theatrical improvement in the New Culture Movement.And then,they turned to the emerging Avant-garde modernity to link up ancient and modern Chinese and Western arts and cultures,and to expound the aesthetic laws,implications and essences of the traditional Chinese art represented by opera in a comprehensive comparative vision of the East and the West.The research made by Song Chunfang and Yu Shangyuan not only marked the height of Chinese drama theory in the 20th century,but also revealed the complex entanglement between the"modernization"and"Sinicization"of China's national art and culture.
the New Culture MovementNational Theatre Movementmodernist artAvant-garde aesthetic modernitySinicization
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