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In her study of Chinese shadow theatre Fan Pen Li Chen documents and corrects misconceptions about this once-popular art form. Drawing on extensive research and fieldwork, she argues that these plays served a mainly religious function during the Qing dynasty and that the appeal of women warrior characters reflected the lower classes' high tolerance for the unorthodox and subversive.Chinese Shadow Theatre includes several rare transcriptions of oral performances, including a didactic play on the eighteen levels of Hell, and Investiture of the Gods, a sacred saga, and translations of three rare, hand-copied shadow plays featuring religious themes and women warrior characters.Chen examines the relationship between historical and fictional women warriors and those in military romances and shadow plays to demonstrate the significance of both printed works and oral transmission in the diffusion of popular culture. She also shows that traditional folk theatre is a subject for serious academic study by linking it to recent scholarship on drama, popular religion, and popular culture.

Puppet plays, Chinese --- Religion in literature. --- Shadow shows --- Women soldiers in literature. --- History and criticism. --- History. --- Religion dans la littérature --- Femmes militaires dans la littérature --- Théâtre d'ombres --- Théâtre de marionnettes chinois --- History --- History and criticism --- Histoire --- Histoire et critique --- Théâtre d'ombres --- Théâtre de marionnettes chinois --- Religion dans la littérature --- Femmes militaires dans la littérature --- Chinese drama --- Religion in literature --- Women in popular culture --- Popular culture --- Women --- Chinese shadows --- Gallanty-shows --- Shadow pantomimes and plays --- Shadow plays --- Shadow puppet plays --- Shadow puppetry --- Shadow theater --- Puppet theater --- Chinese puppet plays --- Chinese literature --- Religion in drama --- Religion in poetry --- Public opinion

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This book offers the first translation into English of the Chinese novel Haiyouji, as well as excerpts of a marionette play based on the cult lore of the goddess Chen Jinggu (766–790), a historical shaman priestess who became one of Fujian's most important goddesses and the Lüshan Sect's chief deity. The novel, a 1753 reprint of what is possibly a Ming dynasty novel, was both a popular fiction and a religious tract. It offers a lively mythological tale depicting combat between the shaman goddess and a snake demon goddess. Replete with the beliefs and practices of the cult of this warrior goddess, the novel asserts the importance of Shamanism (i.e., local religious beliefs) as one of the four religions of China, along with Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. To further develop the links between literature and local religion, Fan Pen Li Chen includes translations of two acts from a Fujian marionette play, Biography of the Lady, featuring the goddess.

Chinese literature. --- Chinese literature --- S16/0418 --- China: Literature and theatrical art--Traditional novels: Ming: studies, texts and translations