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K'ung Fu Tze
K'ung Fu Tze
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From the FOREWORD:
In the present work, "K'ung Fu Tze, a Dramatic Poem," the author does not intend to offer a drama of the usual style, with thrilling adventures, plots and hairbreadth escapes, but, as the subtitle states, "a dramatic poem." In a most concise form adapted to the stage, the composition represents Confucianism in its origin and according to the sources. Dramatic action and stage effects, which we would not be without in the drama, have not been overlooked; in fact they are obviously present. But the author's main object has been to work out for the English-speaking public a presentation of the Chinese religio-ethical world-conception in the dramatized life of its founder, K'ung Ni, commonly called K'ung Fu Tze, who has moulded the history of China and is still the main factor in the public and private life of his native country.
In undertaking a work of this kind, which in the author's opinion is a highly desirable task, the temptation at once offers itself to sacrifice truth to beauty, or rather to the taste of to-day; to neglect history for the sake of art, i.e., of ephemeral art interpretation; and to change the traditional figure of our hero into a modernized manikin who would be likely to arouse the applause of the galleries. It is a temptation, and the temptation is great because it promises success; it would be irresistible if the object were pecuniary profit. And it would be so easy! It is much easier to let a sage who lived almost two and a half millenniums ago speak like a reformer of to-day and to adapt the age in which he attempted to introduce his ideals, to the customs and thoughts of our own days. Moreover, we could invent thrilling and impossible stories of court intrigues, of our hero's rise to power and his final downfall, and the result would be that the audience would find entertainment for an evening, the spectators would applaud and go home satisfied. The author has abstained from modernizing the subject except where certain modernizations are indispensable to render it intelligently into a modern language. But the author has not written for glory, nor has he contemplated a business success on the stage. His intention is to chisel out in dramatically presentable form the character and destiny of a man who has been the hero in the moral development of a great nation. He has not ventured to change the main outlines of tradition, not because he was too pedantic to do so, but because he sees in the history of human development a higher mode of art. History to him appears as a divine drama, whose author is God himself.
In ancient Greece the drama was a religious performance and at Athens it was deemed so important that citizens were paid a day laborer's price to enable even the poor man to attend it. In this country the drama is a business proposition designed to while away the evening by a pleasing entertainment. The time may come when the artistic feature of the drama will be in demand. In many cities theaters are closed on Sundays; but the true drama is religious in its inmost nature and is or ought to be as good as, if not better than, a sermon in church.
Tradition is in the habit of idealizing its heroes, and that is part of history. It was not Jesus who founded the church, but Christ ; not Gautama Siddhartha who gave rise to Buddhism, but the Tathagata, the World-honored Buddha; not Mohammed who established Islam, but the Prophet; and these factors existed before the persons in whom they became incarnate and who developed into super-personalities after their deaths. This is the case also with Confucius. The ideal of a sage, a superior thinker, an overman, a master, existed before Confucius, and Confucius believed in the ideals of the past. He laid no claim to supernatural revelation, but later generations adopted his doctrines as inspired, as infallible, as divine.
Upon the whole the author has followed tradition, for he did not deem it right in this drama to make innovations or to substitute modern views for the old Chinese ideals. Confucius appears here as he is represented in Confucian literature, not always to our taste, not as a warlike Saxon, not as a bold reformer like Luther, not as a brave fighter or original thinker, or as a pioneer, but as a prophet of peace, as a quiet enthusiast for authority and an admirer of the venerable past that has laid the basis for civilization. The changes which have been introduced for the sake of adapting certain events to dramatic effectiveness are few and of secondary significance. So in history the man who married the niece of Confucius was not Mang-I himself but Nan Yung, probably a cousin of Mang-I. The name of the sage's niece is not known nor is her character an absolute type of the Confucian ideal of womanhood, but this deviation is made purposely....
In the present work, "K'ung Fu Tze, a Dramatic Poem," the author does not intend to offer a drama of the usual style, with thrilling adventures, plots and hairbreadth escapes, but, as the subtitle states, "a dramatic poem." In a most concise form adapted to the stage, the composition represents Confucianism in its origin and according to the sources. Dramatic action and stage effects, which we would not be without in the drama, have not been overlooked; in fact they are obviously present. But the author's main object has been to work out for the English-speaking public a presentation of the Chinese religio-ethical world-conception in the dramatized life of its founder, K'ung Ni, commonly called K'ung Fu Tze, who has moulded the history of China and is still the main factor in the public and private life of his native country.
In undertaking a work of this kind, which in the author's opinion is a highly desirable task, the temptation at once offers itself to sacrifice truth to beauty, or rather to the taste of to-day; to neglect history for the sake of art, i.e., of ephemeral art interpretation; and to change the traditional figure of our hero into a modernized manikin who would be likely to arouse the applause of the galleries. It is a temptation, and the temptation is great because it promises success; it would be irresistible if the object were pecuniary profit. And it would be so easy! It is much easier to let a sage who lived almost two and a half millenniums ago speak like a reformer of to-day and to adapt the age in which he attempted to introduce his ideals, to the customs and thoughts of our own days. Moreover, we could invent thrilling and impossible stories of court intrigues, of our hero's rise to power and his final downfall, and the result would be that the audience would find entertainment for an evening, the spectators would applaud and go home satisfied. The author has abstained from modernizing the subject except where certain modernizations are indispensable to render it intelligently into a modern language. But the author has not written for glory, nor has he contemplated a business success on the stage. His intention is to chisel out in dramatically presentable form the character and destiny of a man who has been the hero in the moral development of a great nation. He has not ventured to change the main outlines of tradition, not because he was too pedantic to do so, but because he sees in the history of human development a higher mode of art. History to him appears as a divine drama, whose author is God himself.
In ancient Greece the drama was a religious performance and at Athens it was deemed so important that citizens were paid a day laborer's price to enable even the poor man to attend it. In this country the drama is a business proposition designed to while away the evening by a pleasing entertainment. The time may come when the artistic feature of the drama will be in demand. In many cities theaters are closed on Sundays; but the true drama is religious in its inmost nature and is or ought to be as good as, if not better than, a sermon in church.
Tradition is in the habit of idealizing its heroes, and that is part of history. It was not Jesus who founded the church, but Christ ; not Gautama Siddhartha who gave rise to Buddhism, but the Tathagata, the World-honored Buddha; not Mohammed who established Islam, but the Prophet; and these factors existed before the persons in whom they became incarnate and who developed into super-personalities after their deaths. This is the case also with Confucius. The ideal of a sage, a superior thinker, an overman, a master, existed before Confucius, and Confucius believed in the ideals of the past. He laid no claim to supernatural revelation, but later generations adopted his doctrines as inspired, as infallible, as divine.
Upon the whole the author has followed tradition, for he did not deem it right in this drama to make innovations or to substitute modern views for the old Chinese ideals. Confucius appears here as he is represented in Confucian literature, not always to our taste, not as a warlike Saxon, not as a bold reformer like Luther, not as a brave fighter or original thinker, or as a pioneer, but as a prophet of peace, as a quiet enthusiast for authority and an admirer of the venerable past that has laid the basis for civilization. The changes which have been introduced for the sake of adapting certain events to dramatic effectiveness are few and of secondary significance. So in history the man who married the niece of Confucius was not Mang-I himself but Nan Yung, probably a cousin of Mang-I. The name of the sage's niece is not known nor is her character an absolute type of the Confucian ideal of womanhood, but this deviation is made purposely....
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