Tang Xianzu: Playwright
Tang Xianzu (Ming dynasty), one of the key figures in the history of Chinese incense culture(香学).
Tang Xianzu · Ming
Identity:Playwright
Representative incense works / incense matters:Incense imagery in The Peony Pavilion
Tang Xianzu's The Peony Pavilion uses incense to write of love: before Du Liniang's "unexpectedly the mirror steals half her face," there is first the spring drowsiness of "agarwood" burned out; "returning-soul incense" becomes an image of pledging life and death to each other. In Linchuan's writing, incense is the fuse of love and the home of the soul.
And Chinese incense culture(香学)
Seen through Tang Xianzu, Chinese incense culture(香学) is not an isolated craft, but a process in which generation after generation of literati and artisans continuously documented, systematized, and spiritualized olfactory experience. Only by understanding these sages can one understand the weight of that wisp of incense in today's hands.
Representative incense formulas · incense poems · incense treatises
Incense Matters ·Burning Incense and Writing Lyrics at Yuming Hall
Tang Xianzu burned incense, read books, and set words to music at Yuming Hall in Linchuan, saying, "Lyrics are not only to be sung, but also to be read with incense burning." In his The Peony Pavilion, "Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream" uses "wisps of sunlit threads" to depict spring feelings; The Purple Hairpin and The Handan Dream often describe burning incense to worship the moon and incense fading as dreams break, using incense to portray the separations and reunions of worldly life.