Although Wang Shifu was the leading playwright of
the Yuan dynasty in China, little is known of his
personal life. He wrote in the popular zaju (tsachü),
or comedy, genre and became one of the masters
of the form.His work helped to popularize vernacular
literature. Scholars have inferred from his
plays that he received a good education in the Confucian
classics and was also was well acquainted
with the popular literature of the day. Fourteen
plays have been attributed to Wang Shifu, but only
three have survived to the present day. One of these
is Xixiangji (Hsi-hsiang-chi; The Story of the Western
Wing), one of the greatest early Chinese comedy-
dramas, which remains popular even today.
Written in the late 13th century, The Story of the
Western Wing tells the story of star-crossed lovers
Zhang Gong (Chang Kung), an intelligent and
handsome young student, and Cui Yingying (Ts’ui
Ying-ying), or Oriole, a beautiful young girl from a
wealthy family. The couple is forced to endure the
meddling of Oriole’s overbearing family, who
choose another suitor for her to marry. In the end,
with the help of Oriole’s clever young servant,
Crimson, Zhang Gong and Oriole are able to be
married. The play established character types that
would appear in China’s vernacular literature for
centuries to come: the brilliant student; the beautiful,
thoughtful maiden; the forbidding, overprotective
parent; and the clever maid.
Wang Shifu based his play on The Tale of Oriole
by Yuan Zhen (Yuan Chen; 779–831), a Tang dynasty
poet, and on The Story of the Western Wing in
All Keys and Modes by Dong Jieyuan (Tung Chieh-
Yuan),which included spoken dialogue and songs.
Jieyuan’s version was written in the “tell-and-sing”
literary genre of the late 11th century.Wang Shifu
continued this tradition, but adapted some of the
lyrics and scenes to fit the zaju style of writing, a
form of drama in which all the songs of a single act
in the play were assigned to one role.
The Story of the Western Wing has been made
into popular musicals and been rewritten by numerous
playwrights. References to the play appear
in many novels, including Cao Xueqin’s (Ts’ao
Hsueh-Ch’in’s) Dream of the Red Chamber (or
Dream of Red Mansions), a famous 18th-century
novel about ill-fated lovers, and the anonymous
16th-century novel, Chin Ping Mei. The play was
also a favorite during the Chinese Revolution of
1911, because Zhang and Oriole were seen as
champions of freedom.
Wang Shifu’s two other surviving plays are
The Hall of Beautiful Spring and The Story of the
Dilapidated Kiln. The first involves a political
feud between two officials during the reign of
Emperor Zhangzong (Chang-tsung) in the late
1100s. The second is a dramatic rendering of a
popular story about a young student, Lu
Mengzheng (Meng-Cheng), who overcomes a
poor upbringing to make the top score on the
civil service examination and to marry a beautiful
young woman from a wealthy family. These
plays, however, are not of the same caliber as The
Story of the Western Wing and have received little
attention over the years. However, all three
plays established Wang Shifu’s place in literary
history for helping to popularize Chinese vernacular
literature.
English Versions of a Work by
Wang Shifu
The Moon and the Zither: Wang Shifu’s Story of the
Western Wing. Edited by Stephen H.West and Wilt
L. Idema. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1991.
The Story of the Western Wing. Translated by Stephen
H.West and Wilt L. Idema. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1995.
A Work about Wang Shifu
Zhang, Jing. “Peeping through the Wall: Reading
Book III in The Story of the Western Wing.”