DyingforLoveinThePeonyPavilionandRomeoandJliet英语专业毕业论文.doc

Dying for Love in The Peony Pavilion and Romeo and Juliet Introduction The Peony Pavilion and Romeo and Juliet are two extraordinary canonical works about feverish love on the international stage of drama. The Peony Pavilion was written in 1598 by the famous Chinese dramatist Tang Xianzu of the Ming Dynasty. It has been referred to by some critics as the Chinese version of William Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet, which was written just two years earlier in 1596. Tang Xianzu (1550-1617) and William Shakespeare (1564-1616), were contemporaries living in vastly different cultures. In the two works under study in this paper, the shared theme of the hero and the heroine pursuing genuine love relentlessly, even to the sacrifice of death, forms a very interesting perspective from which we can consider the way in which dying for love is presented in two significant works of Western and Eastern drama. The two texts both illustrate the universal subject of love. Both dramas depict the fervent love and burning passion of a young couple. Both texts explore the relationship between love and death and the valuable meaning created by lovers dying for love. In these two works death turns out to be the sacrifice required as the remedy for lovers who cannot have their beloved. In this comparison of these two works I will first provide an overview of each text. Then, I will reconstruct how each play utilizes the idea of dying for love, giving more extended discussion of The Peony Pavilion. After laying this groundwork, I will pursue my principal objective which is to make some comparisons about how “dying for love” is presented in the two texts. ?This final stage of the paper will give me an opportunity to make some concluding observations about what both authors say concerning the life-threatening and life-giving?nature of love, and how this is a reflection of their different cultural and literary world views. Overview of the Texts The Peony Pavilion, also translated a