屠隆

Tu Long was a Ming dynasty man of letters and playwright. Reliable records of his life and official career are limited, and public information about him is scarce; today he is known mainly through his surviving works. Four of his works are included here: the chuanqi plays Cai Hao Ji and Tan Hua Ji, both collected in the Sixty Plays anthology, as well as the aphoristic prose collection Suoluo Guan Qingyan and the travel account Mingliaozi You. These works span a considerable range of subjects. The plays dramatize historical and religious stories in ornate language, showing the talent and personal concerns of a Ming literatus; the qingyan uses concise aphorisms to discuss conduct and self-cultivation; and the travel account records journeys in a clear, untrammeled style. They fall broadly into Eastern philosophy and folk literature, indicating that Tu Long was at home in both refined and popular modes, equally capable of stage narrative, personal reflection, and travel writing. His works offer readable texts for the study of Ming literati drama and short prose.