Tang Hsien-Tsu

Born Sept. 24, 1550, in Linch’uan, in Chianghsi Province; died there July 29, 1616. Chinese playwright and poet.

The plays of T’ang Hsien-tsu extolled natural human feelings and censured neo-Confucian rationalism. The Purple Flute (1579) and its revised version, The Purple Hairpin (c. 1587), portrayed the unhappy love of an actress and an aristocratic youth. In the drama The Peony Pavilion (1598) the hero resurrects his beloved from the dead through the power of love. The plays The Ruler of Nank’o (1600) and Dream in Hantan (1601) express a sense of the precariousness of human life.

The poetry and rhythmic prose of T’ang Hsien-tsu have innovative features. T’ang Hsien-tsu and his followers, known as the Lin-ch’uan school, scorned poetic canons and asserted that emotions were the main stimulus of creativity.