Аннотация:Much work on Yuan drama, based on the texts included in Zang Maoxun's Yuanqu xuan, does not deal with Yuan playscripts at all, but with later, literati revisions of the texts. The famous play Dou E yuan, for example, was extensively altered by Zang for inclusion in Yuanqu xuan. The present article undertakes a comparison of Zang's version of the play with an authentic, early text of the Gu mingjia edition. While Zang's version foregrounds the concerns of orthodox Confucian morality and didacticism so central to the literati class, the master metaphors of the original play (radically changed by Zang) are those of economic transaction and personal commodification, reflective of the merchant townsmen who formed the larger part of Yuan audiences. The original play also plainly stresses sexual desire and the workings of karma as key elements in the plot, both of which are concerns effectively written out of the play in Zang's version.
