The Story of the Western Wing, one of China's most famous love operas, tells the story of Student Zhang and a teenage girl named Oriole who begin a passionate relationship in a Chinese monastery. The couple are promised to each other but only if Student Zhang passes the highest level of civil examinations. However, while he is away, another suitor, a boorish cad, manages to elicit a marriage promise for Oriole based on familial relations, and Student Zhang is turned away by Oriole's mother upon his return. The pair of lovers run away to elope but are followed by the new suitor, who throws himself down stone stairs to commit suicide upon being rebuffed. The story is a powerful account of young love. Stephen H. West's translation draws upon an earlier version of the story by Dong Jieyuan, a talented writer who had a wit to match Oscar Wilde. Dong's is the only fully extant text of this musical ballad from the heyday of its performance in the thirteenth-fifteenth centuries, and until now, has only existed in Ming editions. The Story of the Western Wing is critical to understanding Chinese vernacular and performative literature, and this translation--accompanied by explanatory notes from a distinguished scholar of Chinese drama--offers a unique perspective on literary and social values in China's early modern period.
