Studies of the Yuan Opera in the Latter Half of the 20~(th) Century

This article reviews the studies of the Yuan Opera in the latter half of the 20th century. The author points out that the scholarship could be divided into two parts, the year 1978 as the dividing time. In the first period, great achievements were made in the studies of Guan Hanqing, the evaluation of Xi Xiang Ji, and the textual research of documents. Scholars in Taiwan and Hong Kong also did well. In the latter period, the academic circles firstly solved the problems in the previous studies of the Yuan Opera. Since the middle of 1980's, because of the application of new methods and the change of research angles, the field of study has been extended largly. Many excellent results have appeared either in specif- ic micro-studies or in general macro-studies. Studies of the Yuan Opera are striding forward to a mature period.