What's the difference between national opera, zaju, Yuanqu, legend and traditional Chinese opera? How to classify them (please briefly! Thank you)

The earliest is the Song Dynasty Zaju, which inherited the song and dance dramas and excellent plays of the Tang Dynasty. Song Zaju, where the northern Jin people lived, was called Jin Yuan Ben by later generations, and the performer was hospitalized. Song Zaju and Jin Zaju are mainly gags, political satires and social features.

Zaju reached its peak in the Yuan Dynasty, which was closely related to the abolition of the imperial examination system by the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty and the tragic experience of the literati in the Yuan Dynasty. In addition, it is also related to the formation of the Northern Song Dynasty, the development of commodity economy and the citizen class.

Wang Guowei, the father of China Opera, highly praised Yuan Zaju, believing that Yuan Zaju became the only living drama because of its natural qualities, artistic conception and tragic implication.

Yuan Zaju flourished in the period of the great unification of the Yuan Dynasty, and four groups of writers appeared in the north: Dadu, Dongping in Shandong, Calm in Hebei and Pingyang in Shanxi. Ru Bai and Qiao Ji Gong Tianting represent the highest achievements of Yuan Zaju, making it a generation of literary masters.

Zaju didn't begin to decline until the end of Yuan Dynasty, mainly because it gradually lost its stage, and its system, performance, singing and creation were not as flexible as those of Nanxi Opera. In the Ming Dynasty, the northern zaju declined further, and disappeared into a swan song in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty.

In the Ming Dynasty, the northern zaju perished, and the southern zaju gradually became the southern zaju. Southern zaju, which has both the advantages of northern zaju and southern opera, was deeply favored by literati and audience, and was still combined with local opera until the Qing Dynasty.

Southern opera. Originated in the southeast coastal area of the Northern Song Dynasty, Yongjia, Wenzhou and other places. There are five existing southern operas in Song Dynasty: Zhang Xie's No.1 Scholar, Wang Kui, Wang Huan, Yue Chang's Mirror, and Zhao Zhen's Daughter Cai Erlang, which mainly tell the story of disloyalty and hard love. First-person narration and Southern Opera in Song Dynasty marked the birth of mature forms of China opera.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the northern zaju flourished in the north and south, and it was not until the end of the Yuan Dynasty that the southern drama rose again and replaced the Yuan Zaju as the mainstream of narrative literature. There were four southern operas in the Yuan Dynasty, namely the brilliant Pipa Story and Jing Liu's Worship and Killing. Compared with northern zaju, it is more free in system, music, singing and creation.

Legend. Legend is a novel story. ? The legend of Tang Dynasty refers to the short classical Chinese novels in Tang Dynasty, which is a sign of the maturity of China's ancient short stories. ? Yuan Zaju and Nan Opera are both Yuan Zaju and performing dramas. With the decline of Northern Zaju in Ming Dynasty, legends of Ming Dynasty devoted themselves to directing dramas. Most of the legends in the early Qing Dynasty were Kunqu opera works, and there were variations of directing operas.

Yuanqu. Including Yuan Zaju and Yuan Sanqu. Article 1 of Yuan Zaju has been explained. Talk about Sanqu again.

Sanqu Sanqu is a new poetic style after poetry. Sanqu, like Tang poetry and Song poetry, is also a generation of literature, which is divided into three categories: poetry, song and collection. Sanqu is more free than poetry because it can be interspersed with words, and it is more colloquial than poetry.

Opera. The category is very big, it is a big literary genre, and the objects specified in different times are different.

The earliest forms are the pre-Qin witch-offering dance ceremony (pleasing the gods) and the pre-Qin excellent drama (entertaining people) that advocates excellent performers.

The outstanding plays of Han Dynasty were combined with hundreds of operas, and the hundreds of operas in Northern and Southern Dynasties were gradually submerged by acrobatics. Lanling warriors and dancers in the Northern Qi Dynasty were the direct source of the formation of traditional Chinese opera.

In the Tang Dynasty, an excellent drama represented by joining the army and a song and dance drama represented by "Stepping on Mother" were formed, which matured into the form of Southern Opera in the Song Dynasty after the bedding of the Song and Jin Dynasties. Zaju in Yuan Dynasty refers to Zaju and Nanju, while Zaju in Ming and Qing Dynasties is mainly the legend of guide drama. Moreover, in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the legend of Southern Opera evolved through various local operas, forming operas such as Kunqu Opera, and then through the development of local operas, the dispute between elegance and vulgarity and the decline of Kunqu Opera, Xipi and Huang Er were formed, which ushered in the prosperity of Peking Opera and various local operas.

Drama. Opera has different meanings in the works of writers in different times. You can look at Wang Guowei's "Examination of Song and Yuan Opera" and have a certain interpretation of opera.

The above is my personal understanding, referring to Liao Ben and Liu Yanjun's History of the Development of China Opera, Wang Guowei's Examination of Song and Yuan Opera, and Guo Yingde's Legend of Ming and Qing Dynasties. There may be inaccuracies, please advise.