王实甫

王实甫（1260年以前—约1336年），名德信，字实甫，以字行，大都（今北京）人，元代杂剧（元曲）作家。是中国著名剧作《西厢记》的作者。

生平

《录鬼簿》把他列入“前辈已死名公才人”而位于关汉卿之后，可以推知他与关同时而略晚，在元成宗元贞、大德年间尚在世。贾仲明在追悼他的《凌波仙》词中，约略提到有关他的情况：“风月营密匝匝列旌旗，鸯花寨明飚飚排剑戟。翠红乡雄赳赳施谋智。作词章，风韵美，士林中等辈伏低。”所谓“风月营”、“莺花寨”，是艺人官妓聚居的场所。王实甫混迹其间，可见与市民大众十分接近。

其人与关汉卿、白朴、马致远齐名，是元代著名戏曲作家，其作品人物生动，语言华美，口语直白，是元曲“文采派”的杰出代表。

作品

所作杂剧中名目可考的有13种。今存有：

《崔莺莺待月西厢记》

《吕蒙正风雪破窑记》

《四大王歌舞丽春堂》

《韩采云丝竹芙蓉亭》有佚曲。

《苏小卿月夜贩茶船》有佚曲。

其余仅存名目而见于《录鬼簿》著录者有《东海郡于公高门》、《孝父母明达卖子》、《曹子建七步成章》、《才子佳人拜月亭》、《赵光普进梅谏》、《诗酒丽春园》、《陆绩怀橘》、《双蕖怨》、《娇红记》9种。

王实甫还有少量散曲流传：有小令1首，套曲3种（其中有一残套），散见于《中原音韵》、《雍熙乐府》、《北宫词纪》和《九宫大成》等书中。

Wang Shifu (traditional Chinese: 王實甫; simplified Chinese: 王实甫; pinyin: Wáng Shífǔ) (1250-1337?), courtesy name of Wang Dexin (Chinese: 王德信), was a Chinese dramatist and playwright of the Yuan dynasty. He is a representative of “Wencaipai” (Literal talent group) in Chinese opera literature. He was born in Dadu (present-day Beijing), the capital of the Yuan dynasty. His ancestral home was in Hebei province, Baoding city. Wang was born into a noble family. His father was a general who worked for Genghis Khan. Under the impact of his elder generation, Wang started his officialdom career as a county official. He was then promoted to the investigating censor of Shanxi Province due to his brilliant talent and achievement. However, due to his characters and dispositions, he finally chose to escape from the officialdom and devoted himself to literature creation.

There are 14 plays attributed to Wang and only three are extant. The extant three are Romance of the Western Chamber, Li Chun Hall, and Po Yao Ji. His Romance of the Western Chamber (Xi Xiang Ji) is one of the most famous Chinese plays and is still popular today. It is an amplified zaju (雜劇/杂剧), a then-popular theatrical form.

Wang Shifu's writing features in depicting the emotional changes of characters euphemistically and delicately to shape the image of the characters. He also focused on the use of foreshadowing to make twists and turns in the plot in order to create unexpected dramatic effects and depict the complex reality in life.

Wang shifu also developed a brand-new writing format compared with the orthodox Yuan Dynasty zaju repertoire, which was a cycle of five linked pieces. From dramatizing and recomposing a love story already popular in the twelfth century and sharing plots with other zaju, Wang invented his own writing style. This angle of view after popular success suggested that Wang may have been an experienced professional in the first age of Chinese theatre.