明清宮廷演劇的文本世界

Textual Worlds of Court Theater in Late Imperial China

演劇是中國宮廷文化的重要一環，關於明清宮廷演劇機構制度及舞臺藝術方面的研究已累積豐碩成果。相較之下，宮廷戲曲雖保存了約數萬冊戲本文獻，文本研究卻仍顯薄弱。究其緣由，宮廷戲曲向來被視為無「作者」的表演文本，在中國文學史上地位不高。戲本文獻更因深藏各館，不易查詢利用。近年來隨著清宮戲本、檔案文獻的大量影印出版，為研究者提供了前所未有的條件，但在方法上要如何系統整理及研究如此大規模的無名氏戲本仍存在不少挑戰，有必要進一步探索。綜觀宮廷戲曲的文本現象以及目前學界對於宮廷文本的研究，本文將研究者面對的困境與挑戰歸納為三大問題：片段性、割裂性及封閉性。宮廷演劇的文本世界龐大而豐富，但囿於各種因素，我們對它的掌握和利用仍處於片段式及割裂式的狀態。面對浩瀚如海且文本型態複雜的宮廷戲本，是否需要一套有別於研究經典戲曲文學作品的方法，其研究要如何與戲曲史及文學史接軌？宮廷戲曲亦非僅限於皇家宮苑的封閉性文本。無論是就內部而言，明清兩代宮廷戲本間的脈絡關係，以及戲本與其他歷史文學文本的交互作用，或由外部審視，不同的參與者、場合，以及與圖像、文物上的鏈接，皆為值得關注之處。此外，許多外國使節、觀眾對中國戲曲最早的，或甚至是唯一的接觸和印象，其實來自宮廷戲曲，在歐洲、東亞及東南亞等地文獻中都留存珍貴記錄。本文從文本角度出發，就宮廷演劇的研究途徑，思考如何結合傳統書目和數位科技，並利用中外文獻，對明清宮廷大量戲本文獻的不同文本世界進行鏈接與圓合。

Theater had been a core part of Chinese court culture for centuries and ample studies had been conducted on the imperial theatrical institutions and stage practices in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In contrast, court drama texts have received less scholarly attention due to several reasons: their low status in Chinese literary history as ＂authorless＂ performer's scripts; the vast corpora, and the difficulty of accessing these texts that are kept in various archives and libraries. In recent years, several major reprint projects of the relevant primary sources now allow wider access to the corpora; yet the lack of an existing analytic framework to study anonymous Chinese performance texts on such a large scale continues to present a huge challenge to researchers. As a result, Chinese court drama, though rich in potential and information, remains a complex series of isolated, fragmented, and closed textual worlds, neglected in literary history and disjointed from other areas of studies. How do we read these court plays and how can they be integrated with mainstream Chinese drama studies and literary history? The lacuna is especially glaring given the quantity and richness of the extant texts: intertextual relations between Ming and Qing dynasty scripts, and between these plays and other literary and historical texts; external links to individuals, occasions, and artefacts, and wider aspects of material and visual culture are preserved alongside dramatic content. Furthermore, contrary to the misconception that Chinese court plays represent a closed performance space restricted to the palace compounds and the imperial family, they were often also performed in the presence of foreign ambassadors and delegations and hence the site of potential cross-cultural flows. Many visitors recorded what was often their first or even only impression of Chinese theater culture in their travel diaries. This article proposes a new textual approach towards studying late imperial Chinese court drama. By combining the application of traditional bibliographical scholarship and digital humanities tools, and the use of both Chinese court dramatic texts and related foreign records, this study demonstrates the interconnectedness among the various textual worlds of Chinese court drama.