User:Luo Jr/Wang Shifu

Wang Shifu (AD 1260-AD 1336) was a playwright from the Yuan Dynasty. He was from Dingxing, Hebei Province. Wang was born into a noble family. His father was a general who worked for Genghis Khan. Under the impact of his elder generation, Wang started his officialdom career as a county official. He was then promoted to the investigating censor of Shanxi Province due to his brilliant talent and achievement. However, due to his characters and dispositions, he finally chose to escape from the officialdom and devoted himself to literature creation.

Wang was famous for his opera creation, especially the certain artistic form “zaju”. He was credited with a total of fourteen zaju, of which only two were extant: The Hall of Beautiful Spring and The Tale of the Dilapidated Kiln. Wang developed a brand-new writing format compared with the orthodox Yuan Dynasty zaju repertoire, which was a cycle of five linked pieces. From dramatizing and recomposing a love story already popular in the twelfth century and sharing plots with other zaju, Wang invented his own writing style. This angle of view after popular success suggested that Wang may have been an experienced professional in the first age of Chinese theatre. [1]

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Wang Shifu was a famous writer who lived in the Yuan Dynasty.

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Wang Shifu (AD 1260-AD 1336) was a playwright from the Yuan Dynasty. He was from Dingxing, Hebei Province. Wang was born into a noble family. His father was a general who worked for Genghis Khan. Under the impact of his elder generation, Wang started his officialdom career as a county official. He was then promoted to the investigating censor of Shanxi Province due to his brilliant talent and achievement. However, due to his characters and dispositions, he finally chose to escape from the officialdom and devoted himself to literature creation. Wang was famous for his opera creation, especially the certain artistic form “zaju”. He was credited with a total of fourteen zaju, of which only two were extant: The Hall of Beautiful Spring and The Tale of the Dilapidated Kiln. Wang developed a brand-new writing format compared with the orthodox Yuan Dynasty zaju repertoire, which was a cycle of five linked pieces. From dramatizing and recomposing a love story already popular in the twelfth century and sharing plots with other zaju, Wang invented his own writing style. This angle of view after popular success suggested that Wang may have been an experienced professional in the first age of Chinese theatre. [1]