Zheng Guangzu

Zheng Guangzu ( Chinese trad. 鄭光祖 , ex. 郑光祖 , pinyin : Zheng Guangzu ) is a mid- 14th-century Chinese playwright ( yuan drama ).

Originally from Xianyang in the current Shanxi province. Although he is considered a tradition one of the four most prominent writers of the era (the other three are Bo Pu , Guan Hanqing and Ma Zhiyuan ), his detailed biography has not been preserved. It is known that he served in Hangzhou as an assistant chief of the county and after his death was cremated in the Hangzhou Han Ling Temple.

The author of nineteen plays, of which four have survived to our time.

The most famous play of Zheng Guangzu was translated into Russian, " Having deceived the house spirits, the soul of Qian-nu parted with the body ." Its plot is borrowed from the fantastic novel by Chen Xuan, “The Story of How the Soul Left the Body” ( Tang era), but was developed in more detail. The fantastic element in the play is not self-sufficient: it is a way of hyperbolizing the feelings of the main character that go beyond the usual ideas.

In the play, the loyal and selfless love of the Qian-nui girl to the student Wang Wenju, with whom she was engaged from childhood, is sung. When a loved one leaves for the capital to take exams, her soul separates from her body and, having taken the form of Tsan-nu herself, follows her beloved relentlessly. At the same time, the student himself does not suspect that he spent several years not with the bride, but only with her double. Everything is revealed only when Wang Wenju returns with her Tsan-nuy’s soul to her mother’s house, where for several years Tsan-nuy, sick of separation, has been yearning for her, and the girl’s soul is reunited with her body.

Zheng Guangzu also studied poetry and left two poetic cycles.

Among the works attributed to him by tradition, apparently, not all belong to his authorship.