The Origin and History of Storytelling

What does "telling stories" mean? Zhang Cixi said in Overpass in People's Capital: "A critic, in turn, tells the past and then comments on it. This is called storytelling." The names of storytelling vary from region to region. The north is called storytelling; Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fuzhou are called Pinghua; Hubei, Sichuan and other places are also called storytelling.

Storytelling is an ancient art with a long history. According to the article "Mo Zi Geng Zhu", "Those who can argue with words will also argue with words; Those who can read books speak books. "

The "storytelling" here does not refer to the art of rap, and it is not convenient as a source of storytelling.

Ancient exhortations such as dreaming, traveling and Chunyu Kun, including storytelling, can all be regarded as important factors in the art of "speaking".

The story told by Hou Bai, a joke of the Sui Dynasty, obviously gave birth to the story-telling factor.

By the Ming Dynasty, storytelling in the north was mature. Since then, the development of storytelling has experienced four climaxes.

The first climax was in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. At that time, there were many famous storytellers, among whom Liu Jingting was the best. About his life, Shen Longxiang's biography of Liu Jingting contains a cloud:

"JingTing name every spring, word JingTing, more hemp, called pockmarked willow. His real name is Cao, and he is also from Caojiazhuang, Taizhou. Gong Li started his government in Taizhou only three years ago and arrested local criminals. The chief responded that every spring, when he was seventeen or eighteen, he had a naughty little ear. Starting a government rashly is to die. The servant Yun Taixing was unhappy for a long time and left. Traveling around Ningguo, I was drunk at the foot of Jingting Mountain, weeping willows brushed my body, so I said generously,' My surname is Liu Yi now, can I call it Jingting?' Therefore, the name meets spring, and there are several pavilions. It feels good to hear about playing in the city once in a while. I need to know what it says, so I will say it. "

The "storytelling" here is actually storytelling, so Liu Jingting was later called a good storyteller. He and Mohou are optical, and they are quite authentic. He is good at saying Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Loyalty and Righteousness, Yue Biography, etc. And his skills are excellent and complete. Zhou Rong's Biography of Seven Liu Jingting in the Anthology of Spring Wine Hall says, "Guisi borrows the Jade Mountain Jingting and listens to its number. I saw Han, Tang, Song E, Zhou E, swords, spears and halberds, gongs and drums, blurred skulls, jumping around the seats and walls.

In front of the audience, but see the storyteller, not the storyteller, as Mo Houguang said: "If the listener sees it; In fact, if someone dies, "Storytelling in this state is superb.

Behind the pavilion, although there is no pavilion, there are peaches and plums cultivated by him, including the famous storyteller Wang Hongxing. According to legend, after Wang Hongxing, there were so-called "three ministers, five talents, nine hairs and eighteen chiefs".

The second climax was in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. The representative figure is Shuang Houping, known as the storytelling king.

Shuang Houping, whose birth year is unknown, died in 1926, Manchu, and his stage name is Shuang Wenxing. It is also known as "Three Musts" with Tan Xinpei, the king of drama, and Liu Baoquan, the king of drums.

There are many bibliographies in Shuanghouping Institute, among which Shui Hu, Shen Xian Biao and Ji Gong Zhuan are the best. His artistic style is delicate, funny, eccentric and vivid, and he is best at depicting details and showing magic in nuances. Especially good at portraying characters. He said "The Romance of Sui and Tang Dynasties", that Qin Qiong was sent to Peiping, and met his aunt, and expressed their joys and sorrows incisively and vividly, which made people cry. He is open-minded and eager to learn, learning from others, and has a profound artistic foundation.

The third climax, 30 ~ 40 years. Representative figures include Wang Jiekui, Lian Kuoru and Chen Shihe.

Wang Jiekui (1874 ~ 1960) began to talk about storytelling in Beijing as a teenager and gradually became famous. His best bibliography is Elvis Presley. If the artistic style of storytelling is characterized by delicacy, then Wang Jiekui is meticulous and meticulous. He speaks slowly, as if in a long voice, and his expression is very artistic. He is also good at using "changing the mouth" to portray characters in different dialects.

Lian Kuoru (1902 ~ 197 1), a Manchu, studied the Western Han Dynasty with Li in his early years, and then studied the East with Zhang. Before War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, he was called the Eastern Han Dynasty. Three invited Yao Qi, Ma Wuda noisy martial arts field, the battle of Kunming is the most exciting. He learned from others and was brave in innovation, especially the performance skills of Beijing opera, which enriched the expressive force of storytelling. He is unique in speaking, doing things and playing, especially in imitating Ma Run and Ma Si.

The fourth climax has been since the 1950s. At this time, a group of skilled and well-known storytellers appeared, such as Chen Yinque, Yuan Kuocheng, Xin Li, Jiang Cunrui and Tian Lianyuan. They each have their own characteristics. Chen Yinque's performance is exquisite and lifelike, especially good at using allusions. Xin Li's artistic foundation is profound, his performance is delicate and peaceful, while Yuan Kuocheng is lively and humorous.

The art of storytelling was robbed in the "Cultural Revolution" and was interrupted for ten years. After the downfall of the Gang of Four, Liu Lanfang's Biography of Yue Fei became an instant hit, and dozens of radio stations competed to broadcast it, forming a nationwide Yue Fei fever. Liu Lanfang has a loud voice, clear articulation, fluent language, vigorous momentum and full of emotion and humor.

Taking Liu Lanfang's Biography of Yue Fei as a breakthrough, the art of storytelling quickly revived. Both the traditional storytelling and the newly compiled storytelling have made unprecedented development, and the storytelling garden presents a moving style of blooming flowers.

Let's talk about the artistic structure of storytelling first. The artistic structure of storytelling is very rich. Here we only talk about "Liang Zi", "buttons" and the art of tailoring.

The so-called "Liang Zi" is a copy of a similar outline in the hands of an old storyteller. According to Liang Zi, the term of Quyi is called "Zhuan" or "Running to Liang Zi". Generally, the new storytelling is based on a literary script before rehearsing. Although impromptu "hanging now" is not ruled out, there is little difference between the literary script and the actual performance. In the old days, the situation of storytelling was different, which can be roughly divided into two types: one is teacher-student love education, and the term of Quyi is "Doyle fire"; The other is developed from literary works, and the term of Quyi is called "Mokeer". No matter "Doyle's Fire" or "Mo", there may be "Liang Zi", that is, an outline manuscript specially used by artists when telling books.

With the changes of the times and the development of storytelling art, most of the newly compiled storytelling works have literary scripts, and Liang Zi has become a historical relic. However, Liang Zi's kung fu of running around still has a certain practical role. No matter how rigorous and complete the literary script is, improvisation in storytelling performance is still indispensable. It reflects the variability of oral literature and art, and it will be of great benefit if a storyteller is familiar with the skills of running "Liang Zi".

The plot of storytelling consists of large units and small units. In the terms of Quyi, the big unit is called "Tuozi". For example, several ten-hour books about Song Wu and Song Jiang in Water Margin, commonly known as "Wu" and "Songshihui", belong to "Tuozi". The small unit is called "Huimu", which is what the actors call a heavenly book, such as The Scholars, Inspiring Zhou Yu, Jiang Gan Stealing Books, Borrowing Arrows from Grass Boat, Writing a Book by Kan Ze, Offering a Plan by Pang Tong, Seeing a Doctor with You, Borrowing the East Wind and Battle of Red Cliffs Huarong Road. Sometimes a "return visit" may not be completed on the same day, and may include several small "return visits". For example, the big ones in Wu belong to my eyes and kill my sister-in-law, as well as the small ones such as Wu Er coming home, Wu Da showing his soul, complaining, killing my sister-in-law and blaming my brother. The * button connection between "Looking Back". For example, fifty-one times in Zhu Yuanzhang's Biography, "Traveling to Chuzhou to explore the military situation, Marshal Fan's strategy", said that everything should be taken off and unique skills should be practiced. He thinks this person is really capable and loving. He was waiting to go forward and tied a "button" at the end:

This is a good chance to take it off. I went to discuss it with their father and son and wanted to take it off. I was about to walk into the ballroom when someone pushed me forward behind me and said, "Slow down!" " He looked back and exclaimed, "Oh, no!" If you want to know who is next, look at next time.

Tuotuo exclaimed loudly, showing that this furious visitor aroused people's curiosity and had to "look at the next time", but "he turned his head and saw the old man who had just taken Mr. Zhugua away at the gate of the pawnshop". Unbutton. Go on.

There are big and small buttons, and there is often more than one button in each reply. Big "buttons" can run through the end, and small "buttons" abound. The big "button" of storytelling "Wang" is the whereabouts of 600,000 Liang salaries and the fate of the governor, which runs through the whole storytelling. One of the more important buttons is the loss of silver in the temple. The governor recovered the money within a time limit, went to the mountain to see the king, wrote to me, and looked for the king again. The governor died. Every "button" has a certain attraction, but it is interlocking and develops step by step, forming a tortuous plot. Some "buttons" are not from the plot, but also can cause suspense through language narration.

Storytelling pays attention to the art of tailoring. What storytelling terms are there, such as "two flowers blossom, each showing a branch", "It is difficult to tell two stories with one mouth", "It's too long to make sense", "It's too short to make a story" and "It's too late to say it", all of which are the summaries of years of accumulated artistic experience.

"Two flowers bloom, one for each table" and "It is difficult to tell two stories with one mouth" are all cutting methods to deal with clues and clues. Storytelling often involves more than one character, a plot and a clue. In order to facilitate the narrative, it is necessary to distinguish between order and priority, and to deal with it by this editing method. The "branch" of "one branch in each table" should be a branch of a large plot, with at least two branches, but not limited to multiple branches. Speaking one after another can solve the problem of complex clues, and in a positive sense, it can solve the problem of scattered space-time transfer.

"Cutting without stopping is confusing", also known as "cutting short and shortening" and "being concise", is an omitted cutting technique. The word "talk" means "story", not "talk". "Nothing to say all the way" and "Nothing to say all night" means "No story", which is also a clipping technique of ellipsis. Such as a passage in the ballad Xianggao:

When Persia heard that the Xiang Sheng brothers were so reasonable, they naturally liked it even more. On the same day, they fixed the wedding date. Actually, what about 1,200 taels of silver? Persia adds up all the money it has accumulated, which is enough for its value. After giving the money to the housekeeper's mother, she took out some money to people, singers and buddies. So with that, Persia left the courtyard radiant and happy. In short, Persia has been Xiang Sheng's wife for two or three months.

In the sixth chapter of the Biography of Yue Fei, when it comes to Wang Chaigui throwing his weight around in the martial arts field, there is such a passage:

With Yang Zaixing's defeat, the examiners on the imperial examination court even talked about it in succession: "This boy is a treasure knife, cutting copper and iron, cutting gold and breaking jade, but ordinary weapons can't." You stab me, I stab you, weigh it yourself, no, don't make it up to others. Besides, Chai Gui is also working hard now, and Bai is injured.

Besides, Liang Xiao Wang Chai Gui won five games in a row. He is Megatron. When he called again, the court was silent and no one answered.

Although these two statements of "Qielian" are ellipsis, they are slightly different. The former focuses on the jump of time. In the two or three months after Xiang Sheng married Persia, there was nothing to talk about, so she was left out in the cold. The latter focuses on the jumping of the plot. After Wang defeated Yang Zaixing, nothing happened in the Wulin, but the story of "Wang Chaigui lost five divisions in a row" happened. If it is written one by one, it is almost artistic and boring, so it is better to omit it. Telling more stories and trying to save pen and ink where there are no stories are the essentials of this cutting technique.

It is a misunderstanding that "no coincidence is a book". It is to weave accidental factors together to form a changeable and interesting plot. Such as a passage in the ballad Xianggao:

Xiang Sheng walks around this place: from north to south, and then from south to north, and walks around here every day. When I arrived at the hutong where Mr. Zhuang lived, I leaned slightly to look in. When I get here, I will lose face and look inside. He talks like this every day, but he has four or five days.

As luck would have it, Xiang Sheng was walking back and forth outside the alley on this day, just in time for the housekeeper of Zhuang Gongzi to buy it. The boy didn't know what to go out to buy, so he brought back a pack of things from outside. I was about to enter the hutong when I saw Xiang Sheng at a glance.

It's one thing for Xiang Sheng to walk around the hutong where Zhuang Gongzi lives. It's another matter that the housekeeper of childe Zhuang bought it from the outside. When two things met, it was both accidental and inevitable that the housekeeper of Childe Zhuang bought it and met Xiang Sheng. It must be accidental, that is, "coincidence". Chance without inevitability is arbitrary and nonsense. Only inevitability, not contingency, is a straightforward description. As the saying goes, "which pot doesn't open, which pot" certainly contains a word "Qiao"; In fact, "which pot to mention which pot" also contains a word "Qiao". If we correctly grasp the relationship between contingency and inevitability, we can give full play to the utility of "coincidences don't make a book".

"It's too late to say, then it's fast." In the folk song "Please Yao Qi", it is said that there is a passage in which Tong Pi plays Yao Qi:

I saw Tong Pi urging the horse to turn the gun and run to Yao Qi. When he shook the gun, he stabbed it, and your gun was aimed directly at Yao Qi's throat. Yao Qi didn't hide or dodge. He squatted there, his left arm stretched forward and his left hand clenched. The whip of the right hand is put on the left arm and wrist to make a pair of "overlord shining armor style" Liu Xiu is in a pint of beer. What a hurry! Heart said: "Oh, no! What kind of gesture is this? A bear is playing with a pole-a beating! Don't say Tong Pi stabbed him with a gun, even if people beat him with horses, they can't stand it! It's over! Yao Huang brothers must die under the gun of Tong Pi! " Just then, Tong Pi's gun really came, and Liu Xiu said, "Ouch!" "Yao elder brother's life is over! "As long as I close my eyes, I must know that Yao Qi is finished this time. Tong Pi's gun still hides a trick. If Yao asks him to do it, he will really do it. If you don't let me, then draw your gun and make a move. However, Yao Qi, he really didn't hide, and Tong Pi really didn't insist. He ran to Yao Qi with a gun, and he was about to insist. Yao Qi does not hide or avoid, as steady as Mount Tai; If you want to hide, it's as urgent as the wind and as fast as electricity. Swish, legs together. If you hide to the right, Tong Pi's gun will be empty!

Tong Pi spear pierced, Yao Qi cleverly flashed, but not allowed to send. It was fast then. But when an actor gets to this point, he must lengthen the time and make things clear slowly. It's too late! Only in this way can it help to render the tense atmosphere and play a role in fueling the flames.