This work covers the oral performing and dramatic literatures of China written over the four hundred year period from a.d. 1200 to 1600. It contains approximately 8,000 entries based on the reading notes and glosses found in various dictionaries, thesauruses, glossaries, and editions of works from that period. As late as 1981, no comprehensive dictionary or glossary for this literature existed in any language, Asian or Western. With this aid even a relative novice having a reasonable command of Chinese can read, translate, and appreciate this great body of literature with an ease undreamed of even two decades ago.
Now retired, Dale R. Johnson was Professor of Chinese and chair of East Asian Studies, Oberlin College. He has published Yuan Music Drama: Studies in Prosody and Structure and A Complete Catalogue of Northern Arias in the Dramatic Style.
