Why is Li Yu said to be China's Shakespeare? What achievements did he have in dramas and outside dramas?

Li Yu (1611-1680), first known as Xian Lv, later changed his name to Yu, with the courtesy name Ban Fan and Li Weng. Han nationality, a native of Xiali Village, Lanxi County, Jinhua Prefecture, Zhejiang Province, was born in Pheasant Gao, South Zhili (now Rugao City, Jiangsu Province). He was a writer, dramatist, drama theorist and esthetician in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.

In the eighth year of Shunzhi (1651), 41-year-old Li Yu moved to Hangzhou, and later moved to Jinling. He built Jinling's "Mustard Seed Garden" villa, opened a bookstore, compiled and engraved pictures, and made friends with dignitaries, dignitaries, and celebrities. Literary celebrities. In the 16th year of Kangxi's reign (1677), he returned to Hangzhou and built the "Layer Garden" at the eastern foot of Yunju Mountain in Hangzhou.

Li Yu has been smart since he was a child and has been known as a talented man. He is known as "Li Shilang" in the world. His family set up a theater troupe and performed in various places. As a result, he accumulated rich experience in opera creation and performance, and proposed a relatively complete opera. The drama theory system has been praised by later generations as "the ancestor of Chinese drama theory", "the master of world comedy" and "Oriental Shakespeare". He is an advocate of leisure culture and a pioneer of the cultural industry. He is listed as one of the world's cultural celebrities.

He wrote a lot of works throughout his life, including "Occasionally Sent by Leisure Love", "Ten Songs of Li Weng" (including "Kite Wrong"), "Silent Play" (also known as "Liancheng Bi"), "Ten Songs" "The Second Floor" and "The Story of Li Weng's Family" and more than 5 million words. He also reviewed "Three Kingdoms", revised "Jin Ping Mei", advocated the compilation of "Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual", etc. He is a rare artistic genius in the history of Chinese culture.

Li Yu is not only a prolific and versatile playwright, but also an accomplished publisher. As early as when he was living in Hangzhou, he edited and published his own operas, novels and other popular literary works. After living in Jinling, in order to prevent others from copying his works privately, he established the Mustard Seed Garden Bookstore, and his editing and publishing career entered a new stage of development. Most of the books he wrote were printed here. The bookstore also prints and sells a variety of carefully designed notes and other cultural items.

As a publisher, Li Yu, his flexible business strategies and business concepts enabled him to firmly grasp business opportunities, take advantage of both sides, and run the Mustard Garden Bookstore prosperously. According to the psychology and needs of readers, in addition to publishing his own works, he also edited and published a large number of popular literary works, such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin" and "Journey to the West", which he called the "Four Wonderful Books" "Jin Ping Mei", etc.; edited and published a large number of books that a large number of readers wanted to read but could not buy, such as "A Brief History of Ancient and Modern Times", "The First March of Ruler Slips", "New Book of Zizhi", "Eternal Stories", etc.; he initiated the compilation and wrote the preface himself, The "Jieziyuan Painting Biography (Publica)" collected and compiled by his son-in-law Shen Yinbo, which has a wide influence in the Chinese art circle and has been hailed as a model for copying Chinese paintings, was also printed in the Mustard Seed Garden. Because the publications printed by Mustard Seed Garden are of high quality, low price, high credibility, and have strong advertising awareness, they have enjoyed good market sales over the years and have been welcomed by people.

Later Li Yu moved back to Hangzhou, and Mustard Seed Garden changed owners many times, but it always maintained Li Yu’s excellent business style and became one of the famous century-old stores in the Qing Dynasty. Books are passed down from person to person, and stores are named after people. As time goes by, although Mustard Seed Garden has changed its owners several times, Mustard Seed Garden Bookstore is still in continuous operation. Some data show that until the seventh year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty (1857), Mustard Seed Garden was still publishing He has written novels such as "Love Dream Watcher". It can be said that Mustard Seed Garden Bookstore is not only one of the few old stores with a history of more than 200 years in the Qing Dynasty, but also one of the few "century-old bookstores" with a long history in the history of Chinese publishing.

Another achievement of Li Yu was to found the Li Family Class, a theater performance group that was famous all over the world at that time. In 1666, 56-year-old Li Yu traveled from Beijing to Shaanxi and Gansu at the invitation of a friend. He met the artistically talented Qiao and Wang Erji in Linfen and Lanzhou successively. With the arrival of the second concubine who has unique artistic charm, coupled with the other concubines, a Li family class has begun to take shape. Li Yu, who has always been fond of opera, serves as the teacher and director of his family class and performs plays he has created and adapted. Using Mustard Seed Garden as his base, he led his family to travel and perform in plays. "The nine states across the country have experienced sixty-seven years" and worked tirelessly to perform on tours across the country. Because of the outstanding actors such as Qiao and Wang Erji, as well as good screenwriters and directors like Li Yu, the Li family group became popular all over the country, and its influence spread to most of China. Everywhere Li Yu went, he used opera to meet friends, and he was very popular among opera celebrities. The Mustard Seed Garden in Jinling and Li Yu's residence in Baihua Lane in Suzhou were both places where opera celebrities at that time exchanged art. Li Yu once wrote a couplet on the stage of Mustard Seed Garden, saying: "Stop lingering on worldly affairs to make your hair grow frosty; and write a new song for Xue'er."

"Xue'er is Qiao Ji's pet name. On every New Year's Day, birthday and happy day, when admiring the flowers and enjoying the moon, or when guests and friends are having a gathering, they will have fun performing plays in the garden, and sometimes they will also invite some not-so-vulgar people. Neighbors came to watch it. Around the Dragon Boat Festival in the 10th year of Kangxi (1671), Li Yu led his family twice to perform his adaptation of "Pearl in Tea" and other plays in Baihua Lane. He also performed with the famous dramatist You Dong and the famous poet Yu Huai. Waiting to watch the performance together, we will discuss with each other. It is often performed at night, the song is not over but the east is already white, the interest is high, and the meaning is still unfinished. When the good times are not over, I hate the short nights, and I teach people to drink with hatred and throw at the broken vat. ”

Jiaban, as Li Yu’s own experimental theater troupe, made him comfortable in opera creation, directing, performance and other practical activities, and provided great convenience. Jiaban not only became one of Li Yu’s means of livelihood, but also It played a great role in popularizing opera culture and promoting the development of Kunqu Opera.

But just when the Li family class was becoming famous all over the world, an accident happened. In the twelfth year of Kangxi (1672). ), Qiao Ji, the 19-year-old pillar of the family, died young due to overwork. The next year, another 19-year-old Wang Ji, the pillar of the family, passed away due to illness. Li Yu's career in opera activities was undoubtedly a fatal blow. The Li family group has since failed to recover and gradually collapsed.

Li Yu also has another achievement, that is, he is the advocate and pioneer of "leisure" that we often mention now. . Leisure life is not a new thing that we have now, but has sprouted since the Qing Dynasty. Li Yu is the enlightener in this area. When talking about it, we have to mention his famous book "Xian Qing Ou Ji".

Around the age of sixty, Li Yu began to systematically summarize his life experience and elevated it to theory in the tenth year of Kangxi (1671). "Occasions" (also called "Odd Collection of Li Weng") came out, which is the crystallization of Li Yu's life experience in art and life. , "Eight Parts of Life and Care", with 234 subtitles, can be called a collection of the art of life and an encyclopedia of leisure. It is the first monograph in China to advocate leisure culture.

Among them, the first three parts: The "Division of Songs and Songs" talks about the structure, diction, melody, diction, verse, and pattern of drama; the "Part of Practice" talks about drama selection, key changes, music teaching, teaching, and acting out of routine; "Techniques" details the methods of teaching women to read, write poems, learn to sing and dance, and play musical instruments, all of which are related to drama. The last five parts mainly talk about entertainment and health care and beautifying life. These contents are rich in content, practical, and also for us. It provides a panoramic image of the daily life and secular customs of Chinese people in the seventeenth century: from the layout of pavilions, pavilions, ponds and windows, the separation of boundary walls, to the furnishings of flowers, plants, insects, fish, and jade; from women's dressing rooms, The writing methods of these six books are different from those of general life knowledge books, and cover everything from grooming, jewelry, makeup to the lifestyle of the poor and the rich, etc. Combining lyricism and reasoning, he hopes that people will have a new understanding of beautifying life after reading his book, and it will make life more colorful. He also hopes that the discussion of plants, trees, insects, fish, and health and wellness knowledge will help. Regulating customs and guarding people's hearts

It is said that this book was recently published and a friend borrowed it to read it. He was not interested in drama theory. After turning over ten pages, it was filled with these things and he found it boring. The book was returned. Li Yu learned that he had written a poem in return: "If you don't read properly, you will lose your mind when you open the book." This thing is the same as sugar cane, so how can you avoid eating it? "The roots of sugar cane are the sweetest. For general readers, the last six parts of "Xian Qing Ou Ji" are more interesting to general readers. If this friend skips the first two parts and reads them, he will not feel bored.