ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

In an attempt to examine the relationship between the civilian faith and performance culture of China, efforts are made in this study to review how deification of Guanyu revered by emperors and civilians during the Ching Dynasty had flourished and prevailed and, furthermore, to look into how such faith of deified Guanyu has affected the performance of Guanyu drama. Guanyu cult is the faith of serving Guanyu who was a great commander in the era of Later Han (後漢) in China. After death of Guanyu, the faith began to sprout in the private sector and, since then, has grown to be a representative civil faith of China till now. In the early stage during Wei (魏) - Chin (晉) Southern and Northern Dynasty Period (南北朝時代), it took the form of memorial service for civilians to coax the spirit of the deceased Guanyu and was gradually expanded into combining Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and other types of civilian faiths devoted to the gods who were believed to protect local communities, temples, nations and merchants, to name just a few. Furthermore, such beliefs were extended even to gods of scholarship, medicine, patronage of villages, pray for offspring, or almost close to the almighty. This belief, in particular, reached a peak in the Ching Dynasty when it was given maximum help of the state power and became so popularized in the civil area that there was no place where the shrine for Guanyu didn’t exist. Highly praised by emperors and civilians, Guanyu cult had become more and more widespread upto the extent that it deeply poured into the life of the royal families and grassroots during the Ching Dynasty. Next, I examined the effect of Guanyu belief upon the performance of Guanyu drama as a Beijing opera in the present study. Due to the deified image of Guanyu, Guanyu drama has developed while forming a special performance culture different from other works. Since Guanyu has been man-turned-god, the performance of Guanyu drama features accordingly a fairly deep religious context. The actors playing the role of faithful Guanyu, the audience looking forward to seeing a saint in him, and the stage where the god Guanyu is enshrined are all connected with faith. When faith is deep, fear increases, as a matter of course. There then is a taboo to overcome this fear, which is another concrete expression of faith. The sacredness and taboo of Guanyu as seen through the actor, audience, and stage are the results of the Guanyu worship and, as a consequence, they act to further highlight sublimeness and sacredness of Guanyu. Through this process, we have come to recognize once again that the significance of civilian faith in the development of Chinese drama has played an important role that could never be overlooked.

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