From ancient times to the present, quyi has always been a bright pearl in the culture of the Chinese nation. From Kunqu Opera to Peking Opera, from shadow puppet opera to Flower Drum Opera, the forms of quyi are rich and colorful, and they are deeply loved by the people. In the Ming Dynasty, a unique popular art - Ming Dynasty Xiaoqu, was also a household name at that time and was all the rage. The so-called "small song" does not actually refer to the scale of the song, but to the relatively simple form of the tune. They are often derived from folk songs, and are called "vulgar songs", "slang songs", "market songs", and so on. So, what are the unique features of this form of quyi, which was highly sought after by the citizen class at that time? Let's find out!
To explain the reason why Dai Xiaoqu is so popular, the fundamental reason has to be traced back to the social environment at that time. At that time, capitalism had begun to sprout in the Ming Dynasty, and the handicraft industry had achieved unprecedented development. With the boom of industry, commerce and cities are also in their heyday, and large cities like Beijing and Nanjing are densely populated and vibrant. The prosperity of the handicraft industry has led to the growth of the citizen class, and the awareness of the citizens is also increasing day by day. These provided fertile soil for the birth and spread of Xiaoqu in the Ming Dynasty.
The reason why Xiaoqu is popular is also because of its rich content. Do you want to fall in love? Some are love songs. Do you want to know about current events? There are small songs about national events. Do you want to hear the story of a talented woman? There are also small songs of this genre. It can be said that as long as ordinary people are interested in something, Xiaoqu basically covers it all. There are also many songs about the season and a better life, which are closely related to the production and life of the people, as if they are a portrayal of life.
However, although the content is mixed, the song still has a focus on the content. From the perspective of the main content, it can be roughly divided into three categories: love between men and women, singing opera stories and aria seasons. The most common is the love between men and women, which involves innocent love, empathy, prostitute stories, and even explicit sexual depictions. We can get a glimpse of it from a love song in "Yongxi Le Fu": "Cut out the name of the talented man, looked at the exhibition and turned sad, and burned the two words into ashes." Or rub it on the temples of Shuangyun, or rub it on the two eyebrows, then I want to see you in front of the root of my eyes. "You see, this is clearly written about a woman who misses her lover, and she can't wait to burn her lover's name on her face and eyebrows, so that you can see him anywhere!
The predecessors naturally linked everyday things with feelings, and when they talked about it, they read it like the fragrance of the boudoir. Moreover, the rich rhetorical devices in the song also allow the emotions to be expressed vividly. For example, through the pun of "silk" and "thought", the word "Acacia Supa" can contain thousands of tenderness; Another example is the use of overlapping words, which makes the language catchy and easy to recite among the people.
In addition, techniques such as contrasting and tiling are often used in the songs, so that although the content of the songs is small, it has the style of a famous artist. In short, the Ming Dynasty Xiaoqu was based on the life of the market, but it also told the life of ordinary people in the form of art. Its content is simple, the form is artistic, the emotion is sincere, and it is unpretentious, which naturally has won the wide love of the citizen class.
The reason why Ming Dynasty Xiaoqu was widely circulated is not only that their content is close to life and their rhetorical art is exquisite, but more importantly, they have the two characteristics of flexibility and naturalness.
The so-called flexibility means that Xiaoqu does not have a fixed rhythm and sentence structure, and it is completely made by the people spontaneously and spontaneously. Compared with the rigid and soft ancient style poems, the small song is much freer. In the process of their transmission, there have been many mutations, and it is not uncommon to see cases such as adding and subtracting words, and making mistakes. In addition, there are a wide range of materials for the creation of Xiaoqu, and all hot events and popular rumors that have attracted social attention may be applied to Xiaoqu, reflecting the naturalness of Xiaoqu.
However, it is precisely because of the way the songs are passed on by word of mouth that they have the characteristics of inheritance and variability. After all, unlike the art of opera, which requires years of hard study and then passed on through formal channels, Xiaoqu can be easily spread as long as it learns the melody and lyrics. However, this "low threshold" inheritance method has also caused many variations in the circulation of Xiaoqu. Therefore, the history of Xiaoqu can also be regarded as a history that is constantly changing.
In addition, the Ming Dynasty Xiaoqu also has the characteristics of coexistence of locality and commonality. On the one hand, since the creation and circulation of Xiaoqu are limited to a certain region, Xiaoqu in each place inevitably has strong local characteristics, reflecting local pronunciation, dialect, customs, etc. On the other hand, after all, Xiaoqu originated from the folk, and the most fundamental aesthetic experience and values are the same, which makes Xiaoqu have a local color, but also have a common domain across regions.
It is precisely because of these qualities that Xiaoqu became so widely known and became one of the most popular forms of popular music in the Ming Dynasty. Some people describe Xiaoqu as "the ruler is short, the inch is long", which is appropriate. Although it is an elegant and vulgar art, it is the simplicity and flexibility created by the word "small" that make it widely loved by the citizens of the Ming Dynasty. In short, Xiaoqu uses a popular creative technique to tell the vivid and interesting social life, which reflects the life of the Ming Dynasty and becomes a vivid footnote highlighting the culture of the Ming people.
To sum up, Ming Dynasty Xiaoqu is actually a kind of folk art that is close to the folk and moistens things silently. They depict all aspects of the lives of the people at that time, from the love and whispers of men and women in the boudoir to the interpretation of real life and social current affairs. Xiaoqu favored colloquial and popular expressions, coupled with flexible creative techniques, and was naturally widely accepted by Ming Dynasty society.
Although Xiaoqu may be bland at the literary level, it is precisely because of its simple nature that it has become a truly widely spread and deeply rooted art form of quyi, and has become a vivid footnote to the study of the cultural life of the Ming Dynasty. From this point of view, the influence of Ming Dynasty Xiaoqu on the culture of later generations should not be underestimated. #头条首发大赛#