Résumé
Résumé de Le Pavillon aux pivoines
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love dreamlike love stories, outspoken heroines, and supernatural drama, with private longing set against family authority and public conflict.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
The Peony Pavilion is a Chinese opera by Tang Xianzu about Du Liniang, a sheltered young woman whose dream of love becomes more powerful than the rules governing her life. Written in 1598, it brings gardens, ghosts, poetry, and family conflict into a love story that challenges the boundary between life and death.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Poetry stirs feelings beyond a daughter's sheltered worldFree
- 2A garden dream awakens Liniang’s desire
- 3Liniang’s longing consumes her health
- 4Desire reaches beyond the limits of ordinary life
- 5A young woman’s desire challenges accepted limits
Point clé 1 sur 5
Poetry stirs feelings beyond a daughter's sheltered world
Du Liniang grows up in the household of a strict official, Du Bao. Her education prepares her to be a proper daughter, not to choose a life of her own. Lessons, family expectations, and the walls around her home keep her world small. Yet the poetry she studies speaks of feelings that her carefully managed upbringing cannot explain or contain.
That’s 1 of 5 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Who’s who
- Du Liniang
- A sheltered official’s daughter, she lives under strict family expectations and discovers unfamiliar desires through a dream.
- Liu Mengmei
- A young scholar, he is connected to Du Liniang through dreams, longing, and her portrait.
- Spring Fragrance
- Du Liniang’s lively maid accompanies her into the garden and offers companionship beyond her restrictive lessons.
- Du Bao
- Du Liniang’s father is a strict official whose expectations place family duty above his daughter’s private desires.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 11,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 45 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages
Questions about Le Pavillon aux pivoines
What is The Peony Pavilion about?
The Peony Pavilion follows Du Liniang, a young woman who dreams of a lover and cannot return to her former life afterward. Her story joins romantic longing with supernatural events, while questioning whether family authority and ordinary reason can account for the strength of love.
Who wrote The Peony Pavilion, and when?
Tang Xianzu, a Chinese playwright of the Ming dynasty, wrote The Peony Pavilion in 1598. It belongs to the long-form drama tradition known as chuanqi and is closely associated with Kunqu, a Chinese opera form combining song, movement, and poetic language.
What does the dream mean in The Peony Pavilion?
Liniang’s dream gives shape to desires that her sheltered upbringing has left unspoken. Tang treats the feeling it awakens as real and consequential, even though the encounter occurs during sleep. The dream challenges the idea that only waking experience can establish emotional truth.
Is The Peony Pavilion a play or a novel?
The Peony Pavilion is a play written for musical performance, not a novel. Its fifty-five scenes combine songs and spoken passages, with both serious and comic action. The celebrated garden and dream scenes belong to a much larger drama involving family, society, and the spirit world.