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Traditionally, criticism of plays from the Yüan Dynasty (1260–1368) has been dominated by the so-called poetic and socialist schools. Double Jeopardy instead rigorously evaluates a group of plays by aesthetic criteria generated from within the works themselves. It examines seven courtroom plays with special attention to language and the manipulation of dramatic characters—undoubtedly the most reliable indicators of the playwright’s strength and craftsmanship in such a stylized art form as Yüan tsa-chü drama.

The analytical method adopted in Double Jeopardy is textual explication of the conventions of genre and the individual characteristics of each play. The innovation and creative vitality of each playwright emerges through close scrutiny of selected conventional aspects of courtroom dramas: the functions and placement patterns of lyric, verse, and prose as well as the custom of a single singing role and its implication for the presentation of dramatis personae.

Because Yüan drama is driven by conventions, Perng demonstrates a method that can be applied not just to judgment reversal plays but to Yüan dramatic criticism as a whole. In pursuing a method of textual explication, Perng provides a basis on which a larger framework of criticism of Yüan drama may be built.

Part One of Yuarn Music Dramas presents a detailed analysis of form and structure in Yuarn music drama, with sections on the act, the suite, the aria, the verse, metrics of repeated graph patterns, parallelism, and the matching of suite and mode. [vii]

Part Two presents the first catalogue of arias of its kind to be published in a language other than Chinese. It is a compilation of all of the arias in the northern dramatic style that are found in the 162 titles contained in the Yuarn-chyuu shyuann and the Yuarn-chyuu shyuaan waih-bian. It is modeled on several such catalogues compiled over the past six hundred years. [99]