Chinese Speaking - A Different Flavor of "Peony Pavilion"

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A Different Flavor of "Peony Pavilion"

She suffers so much in missing him that she is doomed to fall ill and then return to dust. As she lies dying, she instructs her maid Chunxiang to bury her beside the plum tree in the garden of her family and to bury her portrait under a stone from Taihu Lake. Liu Mengmei seems to be directed by
this invisible power and he passes through Lin’an on his way to take an examination. He falls ill in Lin’an and stays in the Plum Blossom Temple that Du Liniang’s father has built beside her grave. Liu finds Du Liniang’s portrait there and he falls in love with her at first sight, even
though what he is looking at is just a portrait. What’s more, he speaks to her portrait every day and Du Liniang is moved by him again.

In his rendezvous with Du’s spirit, the fact that she has died is revealed, and he follows what Du instructs him to do: to unearth her corpse. Upon doing so, Du Liniang is revived by the power of their deep love. Eventually, as we suspect and hope, they are united and get married.

Playwright Tang Xianzu

"Peony Pavilion" is one of Tang xianzu’s most famous works.

Tang Xianzu (1550-1616), was born in Linchuan, Jiangxi Province. He had many courtesy names, such as Yi Reng, Hai Ruo, and Qingyuan Taoist Priest. This great dramatist, who lived during the reign of the Wanli Emperor during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), is often mentioned together with the English
dramatist Shakespeare not only because they coincidently died in the same year, but also because their intelligence and achievements are of the same caliber, just like two unprecedented brilliant stars adding to each other’s splendor in the eastern and western skies of drama.

Editor: Feng Hui

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