Peony Dreams

Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream is based on the famous Ming drama The Peony Pavilion. In making a study of both works as presented here, it is obvious that they share many similarities. However, despite these similarities, we see distinct aspects of each culture that produced the works, i.e., the K’unshan and the P’i-huang (Peking) form of opera.

The Peony Pavilion is a lengthy play of 55 scenes which gives esoteric a new definition. The story centers around the love between Liu Mengmei and I’u Li-miang. Scene Ten is entitled “The Interrupted Dream” and in it we see that love is taken as something to be celebrated, something worth living and dying for because only love can restore life to such a death. This is not to say that love does not bring yearning and pain “eyeing the apricot flower to slake her thirst” and “rootless ennui,/where are the scissors can cut/the comb can untangle this grief?” (Xianzu 43). The girl is miserable because she feels like she has wasted her youth without knowing love, but it is actually

. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Interrupted Dream, Liu Bridal, Peony Wandering, Waking Dream, Wandering Languishing, Scene Ten, Peony Pavilion, Zen Buddhism, garden waking, wandering garden, peony pavilion, waking dream, wandering garden waking, Wandering Garden, Garden Waking, garden waking dream, restore life death, life death, xianzu 50, restore life, death love, nature imagery, life death love, longing love,
Approximate Word count = 761
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page)