Writers › Writer / Poet
Wang Jide
Kuaiji playwright and critic, a pupil of Xu Wei, whose Qulu set out the history, modes and rules of composition of northern and southern drama
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Zi Boliang · Hao Fangzhusheng · Qinlou Waishi
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Wang Jide, courtesy name Boliang, came from Kuaiji in Zhejiang and studied songwriting in his youth with Xu Wei of the same county. He shared the views of Shen Jing of Wujiang on dramatic prosody and corresponded closely with Lu Tiancheng of Yuyao, and the three discussed the metrical rules of southern drama at length. He wrote five zaju plays, among them The Male Queen (Nan wanghou), four chuanqi plays including Tihong ji, and an annotated edition of The Western Chamber (Xixiang ji). After leaving Beijing for the south in 1608 he began writing his Rules of Drama (Qulu) while ill and worked on it for more than ten years; its four volumes and forty chapters cover the origins of northern and southern drama, modes, rhymes, structure and the writers of earlier periods. He died in the autumn of 1623, and the Qulu is the main work by which he is known.
Life and times
Dates Birth unknown–1623 CE