The Influence of Daoism on the Dramatization of the Liaozhaixi of Chuanju

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a very exciting paper that opens new avenues of research in Daoism and theater. While language needs to be fixed in many places, here I just give some comments for the author.

My main criticism of the paper is that as it brings Daoism and theater together, the author should provide more context and introduction to each. S/he often mentions the connection between them is worship or ritual, but the author gives no clear understanding of what the worship or ritual is, and how it could be performed with connection to the plays. Is this just temple worship or something more? Are religious festivals with local clergy involved or are the plays just performed in secular theaters?

The author also mentions the locale for the material, mostly from Sichuan because that is where a lot of Daoist sponsorship was, but what is this sponsorship? Temple priests or village elders, official government personnel or just wealthy patrons? Does patronship mean funding? Who were the writers, free-lance artists or were they connected to the temple or the government?

The author also mentions a lot of script titles. Please explain what are these scripts, who wrote them, where are they kept: public archives, private libraries, or in the temples? The works named by their numerous titles throughout the paper should be introduced more- some are said to be from the 18th century and another from the 1980's, but many others are not introduced at all. Also, the author does not discuss the important scholarship that s/he references throughout. The work by Du seems rather important, for example, but we are not given any information about this work or any others, except for Pu Songling's base text, which is also not well introduced.

I am very supportive of the article, but particularly in the first two pages, the reader would appreciate a firmer introduction to these points. I understand that the author is deeply in touch with the plays and it is comes across in the best possible way, but the groundwork should be set more carefully.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your kind and constructive comments. 

As for my revisions according to your comments, please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a very good and valuable topic, and one that is quite novel, as far as I know. You have done an excellent job of gathering material, and focusing on one area of drama and one body of plays is a very scholarly approach that yields some excellent results.

The whole idea of the relationship between Daoism and Chinese theatre is important and interesting. It is also a topic that has been ignored for too long. The documentation is excellent and unusual, adding to the value of the article.

I'm also impressed with the notion of transplantation and the choice of specific items to illustrate it. This adds to the scholarly interest and value of the article.

The conclusions about characterization and the relationship of Daoism to drama are very valuable and definitely add to the literature on religion and on drama in China.

Here are a few minor suggestions for improvement.

Although it is pretty clear what you are doing and how you will find the results, I definitely think at least a short paragraph specifically about methodology would be useful and add to the scholarly value.

p. 1, bottom: I think just about everything connected with the traditional theatre was relentlessly criticized during the Cultural Revolution. I don’t doubt that the Liaozhaixi also suffered similarly. I think a sentence or so on why the Liaozhaixi took longer to recover than other items would be useful. This is especially since Daoism is of Chinese origin while Buddhist is not, so perhaps Daoism would find earlier interest in a cultural renaissance in which nationalism played a part. It's a very minor point but worth taking into account.

Line 193, should Zhenwu Daida be Zhenwu Dadi?

I have one question about the translation of the Chinese characters 古琴. The author translates "ancient lute". However, the terms are used together nowadays for an instrument very well known in Chinese culture and much more like the European zither than the lute. As the author relates the plot, the instrument is antique, so probably the word 古 should be translated separately. But I still recommend giving consideration to using the English word "zither" for 琴, rather than "lute", unless there is a definite convention for this play to translate it "lute".

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your kind and constructive comments. 

As for the revisions based on your comments, please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf