Abstract:
Like legends and poetic dramas the highlighting act from operas was an important artistic form of Chinese classic dramas, which represented a trend of development from legends to a fresh form of drama. Originally derived from complete plays, highlighting acts rose in the late MidMing Dynasty. In the lengthy course of writing, performance and acceptance, they were processed, completed, combed out, and selected before they became dramatic classics. In terms of subjectmatters, contents and emotional orientations, highlighting acts can be classified into tragedies, comedies and farces, while in terms of forms of performance, they assumed such forms of performance as singing, reciting, doing and fighting. In a word, highlighting acts played an important part in promoting the wholesome progression of drama in artistic form, techniques of performance and aesthetic effects.
