O PAVILHÃO DAS PEÓNIAS / THE PEONY PAVILION牡丹亭
This article analyzes Tang Xianzu's *The Peony Pavilion* (Mudan Ting) as a literary device that reconfigures Confucian ethical-political norms through female desire, taking the dream–death–rebirth cycle as its narrative axis. The author argues that the work, although often classified as a romantic d...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
April 2011
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40038/3157 |
| Summary: | This article analyzes Tang Xianzu's *The Peony Pavilion* (Mudan Ting) as a literary device that reconfigures Confucian ethical-political norms through female desire, taking the dream–death–rebirth cycle as its narrative axis. The author argues that the work, although often classified as a romantic drama, also operates as a critique of the expectations of "filial obedience" and the social regulation of the body, by granting the protagonist Du Liniang an affective agency that challenges the moral pedagogy conveyed by the *Classic of Poetry*. Methodologically, the reading combines cultural contextualization with a symbolic hermeneutics of the central names and images (Peony, Plum Tree, and Spring Fragrance), treated as dense signs that condense categories of gender, youth, eroticism, fertility, and the life cycle. The analysis further articulates the temporal dimension of the plot (political crises and military conscription) with the persistence of love as a force capable of suspending the boundary between life and death. It concludes that, by staging the legitimacy of the amorous impulse and its transformative efficacy, the play articulates a plural vision of the human—often read in dialogue with Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism—and offers a model of final reconciliation that nonetheless emerges from a fundamental transgression. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |